You will easily believe, dear friend, by how many and what varied feelings I am moved each time I think of the Past we had in common, of your imprisonment, and now at last of your liberation. Accept my sympathy on this last turn of events, and above all let me congratulate you, if you are able truly to enjoy your liberty. It is not easy to make clear what I mean by this. Anyhow, you are at present in an enviable position. It is as if you were awakened from a long winter's sleep; thanks to your incredibly vigorous nature, your powers are strengthened, and at the same time have kept their freshness.
You have suffered much, but your sufferings now may pass for dreams: they have not changed you in any way; for, as I can see from your printed report, not only have you remained the same in all respects, but your desire to take things up exactly where you left them has strengthened. It is nothing short of a miracle, and it does not occur to me to pity you, for I should not know where my condolences would come in. As you have chosen open political agitation for the field of your future activity, it follows that you are full of hopes for the future of events. With so wide a field of vision before you, cares for your home and family must seem to you secondary considerations. Your nature demands a sphere of activity which shall bring you into touch with men and things, and you will have no difficulty in gratifying your desire. In short, everything that has become a burden to me, and all that I avoid on principle, appears desirable to you and attracts you, and the freshness which you have kept, thanks to your long privation, will save you from a too speedy disillusionment and disgust. As for me, I shall watch you with great interest, and shall rejoice that a man of such parts and so good a fellow as yourself should have been preserved in full vigour for a work which I recognise as necessary, though personally feeling no vocation for it. When I tell you further that I ask nothing of the world but that it should leave me unmolested, granting me only what is necessary to my happiness — namely, leisure and peace of mind for my work; when I add that, with a willing servant and a dog, I have all that I want, and can get on perfectly well; and that, with the exception of a really clever friend (whom I entertain as an angel), I can exist without seeking intercourse with anyone, you will understand with what peculiar feelings I shall contemplate you attaching yourself once more actively to a party and cheerfully associating yourself with blockheads and riffraff of all sorts. But that is your affair.
To give you fuller particulars about myself, I must tell you that I have with infinite difficulty established myself here in great privacy and retirement, in order to produce a new work. My wife, to my surprise, came from Dresden to help me. She remained here ten days, and it was during the early part of her visit that your letter arrived. As regards the Art World and the Theatre, I mean in the future to have as little as possible to do with either of them; in this way, I shall perhaps succeed, as you succeeded in prison, in thinking better of the world than it deserves (though a single visit to the Weimar Theatre promptly dispelled all your illusions). Therefore I am striving to shut myself up in a similar prison, if possible, in solitary confinement. Believe me, my imprisonment is not less involuntary than yours was. There is not much difference in the matter of constraint; in fact, brutal constraint such as you were subjected to may agree better with an energetic nature than does the fate which forces me into seclusion. But I will not deny that I should most probably have submitted just as little as you did to the constraint imposed on you. Sometimes, indeed, I used to wish that you might free yourself at whatever cost, and I used to urge your people to go through with all the necessary forms. I now see that you could not have done it, and I feel the utmost admiration for your behaviour towards your tormentors. Clearly your conscience must be your only reward. But if you mean to pursue politics, I am curious to know how you will begin. In my opinion, it would be wisest if you were to seek office in some Liberal service, for I am almost convinced that nothing can be achieved in politics save in a practical way, and armed with power. And this is, after all, the one essential thing in a sphere where obviously you can do no more than deal with the urgent necessities of the moment, undertaking from time to time necessary repairs, without which there would be confusion and an absolute block. According to my experience, to be political means always to have nothing else in view but what is possible in an immediate future, for then only can you hope for results; and political activity, without results, is sheer nonsense. Ideas belong to the domain of Philosophy, but have no meaning to the majority of mankind, with whom any higher form of thought at once becomes superstition or folly.
Well, I hope we may meet before long; a trip eastwards is not an altogether impracticable idea to me, and most gladly in that case would I stop at Weimar. You will, I hope, find me quite unchanged; indeed, more accessible as regards hopefulness and belief in progress than I could wish, which only means that one will always be an ass. I am glad just now to be engaged on a work which gives me pleasure. Would to God I had got well into it. Once more, thanks for your letter, and do not misunderstand me in any respect. I am a suffering mortal — nothing more. Farewell! Be heartily welcome amongst free-ranging bipeds, and believe with what genuine envy I look on you. Best remembrances to your people.
Yours,
Richard Wagner.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to August Roeckel, trans. Eleanor C. Sellar, with an introductory essay by Houston Stewart Chamberlain (J. W. Arrowsmith, 1897), No. 8