Dear Ernst!
Pardon me for sending your money so late as this. I have to reproach you that you did not get me an accounting when I sent you the 800 fr. I never had made a reckoning of it and didn't really know how much I really owed you. You ought to have made it clear to me right away. Now that you have done it, I must frankly confess that I was not able for the moment to send you the money. I am now confined to my salary, which considerably restricts my financial condition, all the more because—as I may be permitted to assume—my expectations of greater and prompter extra returns were not unwarranted. . . . But I have had the experience with my works here in Germany that the more sensation they make, and the more they have added to my name, the more slowly do they spread. What the reason is only God knows. As for Rienzi, the reason for its limited popularity is clearly the lack of powerful heroic tenors who could undertake it. But those who attended the performances we gave last summer here in the presence of Spontini and Meyerbeer may wonder how slowly the work became known, for those performances always took place before a capacity audience, the enthusiasm of the public increasing so remarkably that after each of the five acts the singers, and at last I too, were called out. To this it must be added that I have sold my operas to the publisher on terms which in the future may result in some disproportionately greater returns than would come from the customary dealings but which at present bring me nothing at all. Only from 1846 on may I count on considerable profits and this only from each Easter fair. But at this moment I am compelled to restrict myself and I am now going to tell you the candid truth: I could not have sent you your reckoning of 159 fr. until today; besides, I was not able until today to pay Loizeau even a part of my debt to him, as I am now doing. Loizeau, who has been sending me many dunning letters lately, demands 278 fr. from me as a debt contracted for Brix; so I send you as much as I can today: a bill for 300 fr. in all. Be good enough to convey in my name to Loizeau the balance after the 159 fr. belonging to you, that is, 141 fr., which is the greater part of my debt to him. Tell him that I couldn't manage more for him at the moment, that he may find in it an evidence of my good will at least, and may safely count on getting the rest of the debt, that is, 137 fr. by next Easter at the latest. I hope you will take on this small commission for me. Perhaps you could also see Draese and assure him that I am thinking of him and that I shall take care of him by Easter at the latest. If I had my success in Paris instead of here, they would surely have had their money back with plenty of interest—long ago. Here profits are very slow, unfortunately! Cäcilie and Avenarius have returned again to Germany, but I have not had a chance to see them so far. For the time being I have not been able to get away from Dresden for a single day. I was detained there by the return of Weber's ashes, which I have brought about and which has been duly carried through. Weber rests in our cemetery now; we got his remains on the 14th inst., and buried them on the 15th. The celebration was beautiful and dignified and by my speech at the grave I succeeded in giving it a due and most stirring significance. But it is truly distressing how this and similar occasions bring envy against me and often much embitter my fine position.
Unfortunately I have been hampered in my work until now, owing to my continuous occupation. After a long interruption, caused by the publication of both my operas, it was only last autumn that I got around to working again on my new opera. Now I have had to lay it down again and hardly expect to finish it before the beginning of next year. Since the scenery for it is being painted in Paris by Desplechin, who did not promise it before Easter, my opera can't be produced before, let us say, August or September of next year. But I expect to make a real revolution with it; for I feel that I have approached my ideal with giant steps. This between ourselves!
. . . One thing I can admonish you about even now: you are lost and deservedly so if you persist in that empty shallowness which entirely surrounds you now. You can only be saved, become worthy of salvation, if you receive into your soul that highest manly virtue, seriousness. All the externals count for nought: bad attire, need, frost, hunger; these are felt only by the man who fails to pursue with enthusiasm the serious task of his life: for the shallow man they mean everything, even life itself; for the inspired man they mean nothing! When you sit down, don't look at your coat; don't ponder how you want to appear but what you want to be; tackle the most serious task of your art, undisturbed and disregarding everything around you, which means your life; solve it with seriousness and inspiration and you will find that miracles will happen. The one who can't give you 100 fr. today will find ways and means of giving you thousands. This I will do. Farewell, honest old fellow, whom I dearly, dearly love.
Your
Richard W.
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 58