Friedrich Nietzsche

To Paul Deussen

Leipzig, second half of October, 1868

My dear Friend: — Your letters arrive of late at some special festive occasion. Thus, when, not too long ago, I moved to my new residence in Leipzig, your letter which our friend Roscher had correctly dispatched here, was lying on the table. Soon thereafter I addressed the first part of my Laertianum to you so I may not be accused again of being ungrateful to my friends and through continuous silence create the impression as if I were dead. Nay, I live and, what’s more, live well and wish that you would sometime personally convince yourself of it, especially to realize that ϕιλοσοϕε (to philosophize) and being sick are not really identical concepts, but that, on the contrary, there is a certain “health,” the eternal foe of profound philosophy which, as you know, nowadays has become the nickname of certain kinds of border heroes and historians.