Just out of bed.
Morning Confession
Oh, no! no! It is not De Sanctis that I hate, but myself, for surprising my poor heart again and again in such weakness! Shall I offer as excuse my indisposition, and my consequent sensitiveness and irritation? Let's see how it will work. The day before yesterday at noon an angel came to me who blessed and refreshed me; this made me feel so well and cheerful that in the evening I felt a sincere desire for friends in order to share with them my inward happiness; I knew I would have been very agreeable and friendly. Then I heard that no one dared deliver my letter to you in your house because De Sanctis was with you. Your husband was of the same opinion. I waited in vain, and finally had the pleasure of receiving Herr v. Marschall, who stayed for the evening with us, while his every word filled me with terrible hatred against all the De Sanctises in the world. He is the fortunate one who has kept her away from me! And by any merits of his? No, only by grace of her patience. I could not blame him for being so serious with you; everybody becomes so very serious when dealing with you! See how seriously I am taking it! To the point of torturing you! But why does she cultivate these pedantic obligations? What does the Italian language mean to her? Well, this I soon came to understand. But the better I understood, the more annoyed I became with that bore; he became blurred with Marschall in my dream, and out of this a figure arose before me in which I recognized all the misery in the world as my own. Thus it went on all through the night. In the morning I was reasonable again, and from the depth of my heart could pray to my angel; and this prayer is love! Love! My soul rejoices deeply in this love, the source of my redemption! Then came the day, with its miserable weather; the joy of being in your garden was denied to me; nor could I get on with my work. Thus my whole day was a struggle between melancholy and longing for you, and every time I felt a real longing for you, our tedious pedant kept on coming between us, he who had stolen you from me, and I couldn't help admitting to myself that I hated him. Poor me! I had to tell you! I simply couldn't help it. But it really was petty of me and I deserved a good punishment for it. What shall it be? Next Monday I shall come to tea after the lesson and I'll be really amicable to De Sanctis for the whole evening, and talk French for the edification of you all.
What a foolish Goethe dispute that was yesterday! That the concept of Goethe has been accommodated to the philistine world is fundamentally due to a misconception of the poet. However, that this was possible at all continues to arouse lively doubts in me about him, and more especially about his interpreters and adjusters. You know, yesterday too I did not object to anything, least of all to your great delight in Faust; but to be obliged to hear again and again that Faust himself should represent the supreme type of man ever created by a poet, this (very foolishly!) made me angry. I do not want my friends to be mistaken about this. Faust's original despair of the world is based either on his knowledge of the world—in this case he is despicable when after the change he rushes into the despised world with so much ado, and he is, in my opinion, one of those misanthropes who nevertheless throughout their whole life do not know any other ambition than to deceive men and to enjoy their admiration—or else, and this is how it is, Faust is nothing but a dreaming scholar who has not yet really sensed the actual world; in that case his development has merely been retarded, and one may approve of his being sent into the world in order to learn. But then it would be better if he really learned what there is to learn at the first beautiful opportunity, through Gretchen's love. But how happy is the poet when he frees Faust from this deep submersion in love, and one fine morning makes him completely forget the whole story. Thus, for his utmost pleasure, the actual great world, the world of ancient art, the practical-industrial world can be displayed before Faust's very objective contemplation. This Faust represents for me nothing but a missed opportunity; and the opportunity he has missed is nothing less than salvation and redemption. In the end the gray-haired sinner feels this himself and very obviously tries to atone for what he has missed by a final apotheosis—so entirely outside of his life, after his death, where it no longer embarrasses him, but where it can only be very pleasant to let the angel draw him to his breast and even awaken him to a new life. That is all very well, and Goethe always remains for me unfailingly great as a poet, for he always keeps on being truthful and cannot be otherwise; people may also call it objectivity when the individual never succeeds in absorbing the object, the world (which can be achieved only by most active participation in its suffering); such an individual only presents the object to himself; his mind is absorbed only by contemplation, by perception, not by taking part in its suffering (for by this he would become one with the world—and this absorption of the individual by the world characterizes the saint, not the poet of the Faust who has at last become an idol of the philistine). Finally, what I repeatedly enjoy in Goethe is that he has always felt the precariousness of his behavior and yet found no happiness in having so deliberately avoided the great compassion—and, as a whole, Goethe is for me a gift of nature, by means of which I learn to understand the world; and in this only a few can compete with him. He did what he could, and—honor be to him for that! But how can one try to turn his miserable Faust into one of the noblest types of man? The reason for this is that the world becomes frightened if the whole great problem of existence is at stake; how happy people are when at last Faust deserts his path and, since he does not want to renounce the world, decides to take it as it is. Indeed, if you only knew that even then no other than Mephistopheles remains his guide, and you should be prepared to be unceasingly tormented by this spirit of falsehood, after the magnificent Gretchen, the gentle redeemer, risen in grief, has turned her back on you. Goethe knew this very well; but you should know it too!
What nonsense I am talking! Is it the pleasure of speaking alone, or the joy of speaking to you? Yes, to you! But when I look into your eyes, then I simply cannot speak any more; then everything I might have to say simply becomes void! Look, then everything becomes so indisputably true to me, then I am so sure of myself, when this wonderful, holy glance rests upon me, and I submerge myself within it! Then there is no longer any object or any subject; then everything is one united, deep infinite harmony! Lo, that is peace, and in that peace the highest, the perfect life! O fool who would seek to win the world and peace from without! How blind the one who would not recognize your glance and find his soul there! Only inside, within, only deep down does salvation dwell! It is only when I do not see you—when I may not see you—that I can speak and explain myself.
Be good to me, and forgive my childishness of yesterday; you were quite right in calling it so!
The weather seems to be mild. Today I shall come to the garden; as soon as I see you—I hope I may be with you undisturbed for a moment.
Take my whole soul as a morning greeting!
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 175