Dear Friend!
I wonder which of us was more startled, you when you received my last letter, or I when I opened yours! What a great evil is distance after all! Your letters until now have taken such a cheerful tone that I, deceived by distance, always imagined you in an aspect quite different from what I would have assumed. I forgot that you, poor devil, must be thoroughly punctured by now, and that at the lightest touch you would shed streams of tears, and blood would flow from your wounds. I have been thoughtless and inconsiderate, and I am at a loss what to do to stop the open wound. For the sake of your love for me, forgive the painful and agonizing trouble I have caused to you; I can't blame myself enough for it! I am not to be blamed for having been deceived about many other things, especially about the attitude and behavior of my Dresden friends, that is, the friends of my art, and for having largely overlooked the effect of the May events on their bourgeois minds; but it was inexcusable of me to forget for a long time what you have had to suffer in recent years and times, and how wrong it was suddenly to inflict on you new and unexpected sufferings. I could easily say now: act as if you hadn't received this letter at all; but this wouldn't help the sting of worries about me, worries which are the main cause of your suffering, and which would remain with you. So let me try to undo my big mistake by picturing in somewhat brighter colors the dark contents of that letter. I can see clearly now how the letter reflected the very wish of my heart, and no doubt became so explicit that it bobbed up in the form of a decision. Dear friend, no one, not even you yourself, will take amiss my supreme wish for a lucky turn of circumstances which will allow me to withstand miseries of these times and to yield to my special artistic creative trend; at a time of utmost inward inspiration—as when I worked on my last essay—I felt that wish so intensely that I could believe in the possibility of its fulfillment. This will be understood by anyone who can imagine the impression made by news like that about the collection for Todt by his friends, which resulted in relieving him for some time of the cares of livelihood. What Todt was to his political friends I hoped to be to my friends in art. Only now do I recall the evidence of a most passionate sympathy with my art, which came from near and far places at different times, and even today I could believe that a public appeal in the papers would be likely to bear fruits for me. But I am also ready to confess that I may be mistaken in this; I know with absolute certainty that a secret campaign, and especially one in Dresden, would be of almost no avail; and I can't forgive myself for having just demanded from you that fruitless endeavor, from you, poor, honest grief-laden friend. Besides this, I believe I have already told you quite plainly in that upsetting letter that I'll by no means fail to keep an eye on Paris. I only presented to you the difficulty of finding a suitable subject and especially—because I have no illusions about it—I have pointed out to you that between an agreement with my poet and an actual performance of my opera in Paris there lies a wide gap in which Meyerbeer (and rest assured this is true!) provides a deep hole, and that one or two years at least would be needed to bridge that gap. I have such a practical view of this that my judgment may appear to you as an exaggeration. When I look around in clear, unbiased appraisal of all natural and real obstacles in regard to Paris, I ask myself two questions: 1. How can I manage to make a living until there are receipts from an opera performance in Paris? and 2. How will things be in Paris at the time when I plan to perform an opera there? This now is directly connected with political issues. If one examines the conditions in France, or watches what is generally admitted to be an irresistible progress of Socialism among the population, facing which the royalist factions are in disagreement, lacking sap and vigor, it is not fantastic to predict for France no more than a year of calm—but rather to recognize a tremendous social upheaval as a very immediate probability. Quite apart from whether I may hope for this or fear it, I must take it into my reckoning when my enterprise even at best will require a few years. As to the finding of a suitable subject—you mustn't think it absurd that I keep returning to my Jesus of Nazareth, which today appears to you as a mere chimera but may appear no more so half a year from now. But putting aside the question of a subject, what I must now take up is my problem No. 1, adding that you are mistaken if you believe I already have a commission from the management of the Opera; my progress so far only extends to an understanding with a poet, Gustave Vaez, who has declared himself ready to work out a plan outlined by me. He shall assure the acceptance of the opera and the recommendation to the management by the (truly powerful) Commission d'auteurs, as well as the agreement of the management to assign the composition of the subject to me. To make this possible I should perform some of my works in Paris this winter; my Tannhäuser Overture has been chosen for a Conservatory concert, and so I am thinking of going to Paris next month. I thought I had written you about this. The question now is not whether I want to write an opera for Paris, as you seem to think, but how I can manage to live until the opera is ready and performed. Liszt, as I gathered from his last letter at the beginning of November, has the best will to maintain me for this period, but he won't be able to. He had to ask me (surely with regret) to manage for the present without his help, although he hoped to be able to send me some money at New Year's. So I hit upon the idea of a collection for me to which Liszt also was supposed to contribute, since it isn't possible for him alone to support me permanently. This accumulated assistance should serve to support me for the present, or better still until the time when I can rely on receipts from Paris. When I expressed myself in my letter to you as if I wanted an annuity in order to drop Paris completely and to follow only my own inclination as artist, either I didn't make myself clear or else my innermost inclination—very pardonably—became too apparent. If you look at the matter exactly as I am presenting it here, you will see that it is not really my will but difficult external conditions that contradict your opinion of me and your wishes for me; and considering this you might have spared me many of the reproaches your mistaken view led you to make. You must realize clearly enough that I feel a disgust for Paris; but I don't have to reproach myself with having rejected an offer or a possible one on account of that disgust. On the contrary, I can write to you today more optimistically, because just recently—yesterday in fact—there came to me a fortunate idea (as I believe) for a subject—possible for Paris under all circumstances; I intend to work it out immediately and send it to my poet. (About the subject itself next time!) Thus, my dear good Heinemännel, we need no longer differ over what my intentions are, but only on the means of realizing them: it is plain enough under present conditions that money will also be needed; but if I did wrong in dragging you into my troubles, let me make up for this by seriously urging you to bother about them no longer from this moment. At least don't worry yourself to death over them as you did in your last letter. Wigand has offered either to wait for the success of my brochures, or to settle at once for 10 louis d'or for both published ones: I wrote him to send the 10 louis d'or, and if he can, the same amount for my new manuscript. With regard to this offer I have already borrowed some money here. From Liszt I expect something around New Year. I should like to get enough to provide for my wife for a few months, so that I may go to Paris in January, and from there, if possible, to London. For London I am planning to have my Lohengrin translated into English and to have it performed there. Since you, poor man, now have to go through hell for my sake (which I deeply regret), at least get hold of what has been so far offered you for me: if you have collected something, even if not much, it will serve well the plan I told you about, and my heartfelt thanks go to you for your great trouble. But—don't worry any longer, be reassured about me, think only about yourself and your family again. Unfortunately you have enough sorrows of your own anyhow! The devil won't carry me off bodily. All I am worrying about is my wife and her inner peace. The worries about her, the autumn fogs, overwork, misfortunes of many sorts, and whatever else can burden one's mind was the cause of the dull mood of my last letter—which I might have spared you. Don't be cross with me any longer, and accept my thanks for the new proof of deep, sincere sympathy which your answer showed.
Now I have yet to philosophize a bit with you. You expound general theories I can't approve of, apart from their special reference to my decisions about which you were largely mistaken. Only one thing I mention as concerning myself: you say that I rashly burned my bridges behind me. In this you are wrong. It is not I who have burned my bridges, but they that have collapsed of themselves behind me with a fearful crash, because they were badly and shakily built and connected me with a shore where, if I still lived there, I should find no air to breathe. I didn't want to push things so far, but they did it of their own accord, out of inevitable necessity. As for the subject of necessity I hit upon in the bridge discussion, we don't see eye to eye; my God who moves me and through whom I act is the inner necessity; the God to whom you humbly surrender is the outer necessity. The individual must indeed finally surrender to the whole, but in doing this he will be able to preserve his noble human pride only when he recognizes in that whole something corresponding to the general human character born from true human nature; in this case he should be humble because as one of the collective whole of humanity, with their common views and emotions, he becomes aware of something infinitely higher than himself, the individual. At all times men have recognized God as the highest being, the strongest emotion they have in common, the mightiest conception which we all share—and since we are capable of imagining things only from our point of view as humans, we personify God. If men recognize—not because they are taught, but by feeling it in their inner being—the good, noble, true, beautiful as the highest principle, then this becomes their God; and what denies this in the egotistic nature of a single man rightly passes as damnable, godless. We have really found in our life this God, that is, this conception of the community of men, if we have derived it from its genuine, its essential being; indeed, from life itself; if only this God rules us, He whom we identify with ourselves, with united humanity, then we feel happy and blessed. But the power which nowadays rules life—occupying all our thoughts, all our aspirations, our wishing, worrying and striving—which we at any day and hour feel and recognize as the most vigorous, most decisive and all-pervasive—this power—note it well—is nothing but Money, that is, abstracted and idealized selfishness. So the individual, in this modern sense, is really God, and every wealthy man gives evidence of it, for he even commands God; namely, money. I certainly don't feel a God in this sense, nor probably do you. But just ask Kaskel what he believes in. At the same time we feel that we are living in a godless time, for the real God can't be the individual, but all together: on behalf of all, we therefore revolt against the God in the individual, against egotism; but to surrender humbly to this God is the utmost disgrace; he who is strong enough revolts against him, that is, he who in his inmost nature feels such a compulsory urge that he must still it; this natural inward urge of the individual, however, is common to all people, for, being invincibly strong, it does not originate in a single man, but in humanity in general. The suppression of this impulse (so-called self-control) fundamentally therefore means nothing else than becoming an absolute egotist, that is, denying one's true nature in favor of one's external well-being in connection with the general selfishness. Thus when we push personal selfishness to extremes, as we do nowadays, we demand self-control by the individual only for his own profit; that is, we encourage him to become selfish too, since nowadays no one considers himself happy unless he need not care about anyone else. Well, in order not to perish completely, but somehow to meet inner needs, one commands one's inner self, only in so far as it seems outwardly necessary, considering the general depravity, in order, through mere living, to save at least a part of one's nature. Raising this merely shrewd, fundamentally egotistic self-command to a religious duty means to recognize the existing general egotism as the highest necessity, but to consider the inner necessity of human nature as something bad and subordinate, and this is the whole politics and philosophy of our time. The Future, on the contrary, is going to raise the inner, that is, true human nature, to a general necessity and will put the bad, false egotism of the individual, now perverted from nature, in that place in which humanity in general must now content itself. When you now call to me: Obey necessity! what are you really saying but this: Think of your own person and give up God? For my God is my art and the principle of beauty, nobility, and truth as such. At this point you admit that people in general are bad, ignoble, and false, and that you have to yield to that general depravity. Here your thinking is godly only in Kaskel's sense, but godless in the sense of a true God. On the other hand I have this to say: people will not always be as they are now; they are like this only so long as they cling to their evil God; some day they will chase this God to the devil, and then the right one will prevail all by himself. I am also one of those "chasers," even now I am hunting with all my might; but a good gun, powder, and shot are needed for that—in this you are right; well, I shall procure them too; and, since there is no other way, in Paris and London. To this extent I shall control myself in order to go on living and be a hunter too. But do not consider this self-control as a virtue, but rather the power of inner need which makes me a hunter—this power I have not derived from myself but from God, and that God is nothing but the genuine and originally common human nature.
Now we agree—and if we don't the fault is with my confused chatter, not with the subject itself, about which all people must agree as soon as they understand it. You are a dear, splendid fellow, while I am an ass for having tormented you so much by my last letter. Forgive me! I won't do it again as long as I live. Fischer also should recover from his shock! But now don't make a blunder with my manuscript by considering it also as some sort of bridge which I am about to burn. Let it be burned; what must be, must be—for Gutzkow says, "And still it moves!" From the shore I have left there is no fresh breeze to fill my sails, only the farts of Lüttichau and Winkler: but I'll sail no further with such winds.
One thing more: Write me, all of you, with greatest care, and separately if possible, about the last affair; it's on account of my wife: she is not so impervious to this subject as I am.
Now God protect you! (Which doesn't mean Kaskel protect you!) Don't worry, and do what you can when occasion offers, without too much trouble! Forgive me, and love me as dearly as I do you.
Your
Richard W.
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 83