He longed for the most desert and silent places, for the most complete solitude; she brought him to the valleys of the Upper Engadine. At that time very few people went up there. Nietzsche discovered this remote Switzerland and derived an unexpected comfort from the light and pure quality of the air, and the kindly light of the meadows, which soothed his worn-out eyes. He liked the scattered lakes, which recalled a Finland, the villages with their singing names, the fine peasant race, which proclaimed the presence of Italy beyond the glaciers. "This nature is familiar to me," he wrote to Rée; "it does not astonish me, there is an understanding between us." With a convalescent's surprise he began to live again. He wrote scarcely any letters; he wrote for himself, and it is in his work that we must seek the information which his correspondence formerly gave us. This is how he narrates his ascent towards the Engadine. _"Et in Arcadia ego._--Above the hills which take the shape of waves, across the austere pines and the old fir-trees, I have turned my gaze upon a little lake whose water is green and milky. Around me were rocks of every contour, a soil painted in discordant colours with grasses and flowers. Before me a flock moved, now scattering, now closing up its ranks; some cows, grouped afar-off, below a forest of pines, stood out in relief under the evening light; others, nearer, more sombre; and everything calm in the peace of the approaching twilight. My watch registered half-past five. The monarch of the herd was walking in the foam-white brook; he stepped out slowly, now stemming the fierce tide, now giving way to it: no doubt he found a kind of ferocious delight in so doing. Two human beings, brown skinned, of Bergamesque origin, were the shepherds of this flock: the young girl dressed almost like a boy. To the right, above a large belt of forest, edges of rocks, fields of snow; to the left, two enormous prongs of ice, far over me, in a veil of clear mist. Everything grand, calm, luminous. This beauty, thus suddenly perceived, thrilled, so as to bring into the soul a mute adoration of this moment of revelation. Into this world of pure light and sharp outline (exempt from disquiet and desire, expectation and regret), one was tempted to introduce Grecian heroes--involuntarily, as though it were the most natural thing. One had to feel in the manner of Poussin and his pupils; in a thoroughly heroic and idyllic manner. And it is thus that certain men have lived, thus that they have felt life, lastingly, within and without themselves; and I recognise among them one of the greatest of all men, one who discovered a style of heroic and idyllic philosopher: Epicurus."