My dear friend,
I have a headache, & am not feeling well, but cannot delay any longer replying to your kind & encouraging letter. Believe me, people like us are delicate plants which have great need of a little warmth, & what could be more heart-warming than so generous an approach as the one you have made me? I have few friends since I am so totally lacking in the gift that is necessary to go out & acquire any: I have little to offer them but must rely upon my own good fortune to provide them. But there is a look in their eyes which enables me to recognize them, - then all I need do is call them by name, & they are mine. This is how all good fortune comes, - who then would doubt in your own faith? Let us both trust in it & be friends for life!
And in truth I must thank Heaven for revealing my true friends now! I have now reached a turning point in my life which people call good fortune: nobody asks whether the way here has been easy or whether I suffered a thousand torments in the course of it, and most of those with whom my present good fortune has led me into contact begrudge it to me. I see the way ahead very clearly & feel with a degree of almost painful embarrassment to what extent I must be on my guard & with what care I must watch over my daily routine. But there is much that appals me about such an attitude! Since all I say & do comes straight from my heart, I should much prefer to be rid of such cares. If only the world knew to what extent these cares gnaw away at the pure kernel of the artist’s existence. That we have to be both artist and sly-boots at one & the same time has undoubtedly robbed the world of many a thing of innocent beauty. - If I am to find true happiness in the midst of this so-called happiness, then I must be permitted to win friends, or rather friends who give themselves to me as you have done: they will be few in number, but that is what is so good about it! Remain loyal to me, - my innermost soul will always be open to you, & always be yours to call your own! -
Your letter is the only agreeable & cheering thing to have happened to me here, so you see that without you - my friend - all else that has befallen me here would have left me indifferent or been simply disagreeable. On the whole the weather has been bad & my health is not of the best. I am following your advice & drinking Marienbad Kreuzbrunnen: to begin with, it did me a world of good - but whether it’s something I’ve eaten or whether I’ve done something else to provoke a relapse, - my old complaint returned yesterday & the day before in a particularly violent form. I think I am not sufficiently relaxed, I am always distracted & in a hurry.
Breitkopf & Härtel have just informed me that, gratified though they were to have been offered the flying Dutchman, now that they have learnt the terms of my offer - I had demanded 1000 thalers (including the grand piano), they prefer for the time being to forgo the pleasure of accepting it. I have replied to the effect that it seems to me inconceivable that anyone would be prepared to risk a not inconsiderable amount of capital on an undertaking for which they were not prepared to pay the usual purchase price - a sum which Br. & Härtel have often paid in the past; - until such time as they find this price acceptable (& they should bear in mind that at a later date the price may go even higher), my offer would not be repeated. And this indeed is my firm resolve, a resolve which my secure position here fortunately enables me to maintain, since I now find myself, at the cost of only a small personal sacrifice, in the position of being able to sit back & wait, without denying myself anything in the process, until such time as I no longer need undersell my operas. - But you see how things stand with anyone born in our own city of Dresden! -
Apart from this, most of the things that have happened recently have been marked by a degree of stupidity calculated only to put me in a bad mood; one exception to this was a letter I received from Riga in which my correspondent wrote to tell me of the impression which my flying Dutchman had had on him, from which I see that its impact was precisely what I had intended it to be. -
My Tannhäuser is resting & I feel little inclination to rouse him; admittedly, I have begun composing the music, but what I have done is not worth mentioning! Two things are lacking, - rest and (I can think of no other word for it) - contentment. I am not content, that is to say, my mood is inwardly & outwardly discordant: I am too easily distracted & long for rest, - not the inactivity of an idler but, on the contrary, a concentrated restlessness: I do not wish to have to think of all manner of different things, but only of a few things at once. But I expect that many years will have to slip by before I achieve such a state of harmonious calm, for I have to make up for ten years of my past. In spite of everything I am looking forward to next winter: certainly, I hope that I shall at least be able to satisfy my longing for outward contentment; that itself is worth a good deal, since external discontent can cause almost unbearable torment. -
Like a proper egoist, I’ve again talked only about myself, as if I were a fellow of some importance! But that’s how it is, we are all so terribly preoccupied with our own selves. [...]
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 59