Dear Friend!
. . . You have recently read a lot about my successes in Germany; you suspect that I'm getting large financial returns; you assume—because I do not write to you for a while—that I'm sitting pretty and therefore no longer care about you who are in the dumps. On this assumption you then write to me of your pitiful, undeserved misery, that you had to dissipate your talent for lack of money, and you take this as ground for reproaches and insults—even if indirect—of the most objectionable kind against me! It is fortunate that I know you and your temperament and thus don't lose the courage to be frank with you. The notion you have of your friends seems, however, to be very unfortunate. Enough: you are mistaken. If my operas can be of a profitable nature, I still have to wait for the actual receipts. None of the larger theaters has as yet given or ordered my operas: the largest were Frankfurt, Leipzig, and Breslau, of which each paid me 100 thaler. Berlin, with its royalties, could have—under very favorable circumstances—earned a lot for me, to be sure; but to make certain of just these favorable circumstances I had to be careful and withdraw my opera for the time being, since it would have been badly performed. Neither Vienna, nor Munich, Hanover, Stuttgart, nor similar more distinguished and well paying theaters have applied up to this time. If you'll now recall that for four years I have depended only on the good will of my friends; that besides my wife and Natalie I alone also had to support Minna's parents, then you'll be able to understand that the thought could not yet have occurred to me that it is my duty to support you also, since only last summer you wrote to me of your prosperity and your many good prospects. As soon as I get into the situation in which you assume I find myself already, don't doubt that I'll also think of you, you old rascal. But the matter of cash will always have its great difficulty. You know that I cannot save, and that I always spend more than I earn will remain my permanent failing; if I get money it is certain that I've always already spent three times as much and am in debt. My normal living requirements cost me so terribly much that I always feel intensely pressed to use artificial substitutes. Thus I have the irrepressible desire to take a nice, long trip to southern Europe: without contracting new debts I cannot consider such a thing. Furthermore, my future earnings are so indefinite, and it is possible that from today on I shan't sell a single score, since I myself don't advertise them, but have to let everything come to me, in which case I then have to rent them out often on a part-payment basis—as recently with Berlin. All that I have left to offer you definitely is therefore the following: come to see me when you feel like it and stay as long as you like, even if it should be for the rest of your life: I shall give you a nice room for yourself and everything you need to live on; I shall certainly provide you an opportunity for earning necessary money, and in any emergency I stand as a brother with ready cash at your disposal. This I offer you because I see—I can do it, the living together makes it possible. But any considerable cash payment will always remain impossible for me. I hope at least that you are not so foolish as to take this as a "good sermon." But enough!
I couldn't go to Paris—as I first wanted to do—this winter: I never had the money available, and without that I couldn't have done it. In January my health broke down completely; I believed in my imminent death. After suggestions from all sides I finally went to a doctor to whose extraordinary solicitude and watchfulness I have now permanently entrusted myself. Lindemann's genius will not be able to overcome the difficulty of my absence from him: all that helps here is constant daily supervision with minute directions for treatment according to my quickly changing condition, and this not only for several weeks, but, really, always. So I'll have to write to Lindemann to thank him cordially for his friendly solicitude and his advice. It shall soon be done.
I have completed my poem; it is called The Ring of the Nibelung, a stage-festival play for three days preceded by an evening. Evening, The Rhinegold; first day, The Valkyrie; second day, The Young Siegfried; third day, Siegfried's Death. If I'm well, I'll begin the musical composition this summer.
I could send you a copy of it at this time: only I'm afraid it will not get there by mail; I have already had the worst experience in this way: I cannot send it sous bande. If I don't even find a good opportunity, I'll bring it to you personally in the autumn, when I really do hope to come to Paris.
I am at this moment completely unable to send you any money since we are about to move into a larger apartment and have to be so much more careful with our cash, which already consists of borrowed money. But don't let this stop you from writing to me again: I think we also have things other than money matters to tell each other. If you see Devrient, give her my best regards: I look forward very eagerly to seeing her again; it would be very nice of her if she would let me know the time of her arrival so that I'll be in Zürich. Liszt is coming to see me at the end of May or the beginning of June. At the end of May I also perform one of my works. Goodbye! Regards to my friends, and be a little more reasonable with me.
Your
R. W.
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 126