[...] I remained here for a few days before going on to Berlin, & although I have not yet met Küstner, the new intendant, I nevertheless had a number of useful meetings with Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn, Redern, Rellstab etc. Count Redern was most friendly & I learned that my opera has been accepted here not simply out of consideration for Meyerbeer, but after it had been subjected to a thorough scrutiny by the resident critics of the Royal Prussian Court Opera; this is very important for me in my relationship with Küstner: the affair, it may be added, cost me 4 valuable days in an inn. I then returned to Leipzig, & delayed there a few days, but only because of money matters; things have come to a head, but in a way that is really most welcome to me. My two sisters Luise & Ottilie, & my brother-in-law Hermann Brockh, had discussed my affairs among themselves, & decided to make over to me, from their own income, the sum of 30 thalers a month over a period of 6 months: this suits me very well, since it does not involve any third parties, & the money will, on the whole, be sufficient to meet my most pressing needs. I should in any case have had to accept this offer, since there was no other way open to me to obtain a loan of any size. You won’t believe how much things have changed: the 100 friends I had when I was last here no longer exist, or else they have grown so distant that I could not count upon them in such matters. I have not yet met Laube, he is out of town. You may infer from all this the present state of my finances, & whether I am in a position to manage without a single thaler: - but that’s enough of money matters for now! - To resume. - Back in Dresden, I was fully occupied doing the rounds of local dignitaries; everywhere I went, I was received as a man of standing: Lüttichau has once & for all left instructions for me to be given excellent seats whenever my wife & I present ourselves at the box-office etc. Reissiger welcomed me with the most unexpected cordiality, kissed me profusely, & immediately played me his new mass; I have been assured on all sides that he has never expressed himself so well disposed towards a new opera as he has towards mine. Winkler, well, that goes without saying. - Tichatschek ( - a singer, incidentally, very much of the kind that I need: admirable - ) has shown great enthusiasm for my work, & congratulated me especially on the fact that I shall be here for the rehearsals; he says that although Reissiger is admirably disposed towards me, he is very lazy. Heine I found very much as I had hoped: he is a kind & affectionate man, & has a sound education into the bargain: - only to him could I take my wife. Both she & I were much taken with Mme Heine, & a warm friendship may well be the outcome. My opera is now due to be taken in hand at the beginning of July & it should be performed at the end of August; Heine himself assures me that August is a good month inasmuch as visitors from all the surrounding health resorts pour into Dresden at about this time, with the result that news of my opera will be broadcast across half the world. However that may be, I still think that it will be delayed until the end of September. - [...]
[...] I may add that my regret at leaving Paris has grown a little less keen, not least as a result of your letter: my friends - that is a different story; otherwise, what I now regret is simply that my friends did not leave Paris with me, - for all its good points, Paris for people like us is no more than a resplendent grave in which our youthful energies ebb away, untapped. The devil take it! - This is something I would scarcely have admitted a week ago: the first impression you feel on returning from Paris to any of our larger cities is dreadful; it is almost impossible to say why this should be so, - but I imagine it must be comparable to what a fish feels on leaving the great ocean & finding itself in a small river: it’s true that it still breathes the same water, but the waves, the billowing movement, the immensity of the element, - everything becomes small & pitiful - & yet, basically, it is still the same water, only our imagination reveals to us the depths & breadths which essentially have nothing to do with our own course. — Here - I feel - is my homeland, this is where I belong, & my only desire is to have my friends here with me, since all that has made them dear to me is similarly a part of this homeland. What do you have there? Hunger & — inducements, yes, but let it be in Germany that you accomplish all that you feel induced to do. Whenever I find myself growing too much enamoured of Paris, all I need do is pick up the latest issue of the Gazette musicale: my love for the place vanishes in an instant - the devil take it! - [...]
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 45