My dear friend,
I kept thinking I might receive a further letter from you, or from one of my other friends, which I could then answer at the same time as the present letter. I assume that at the moment you have nothing especially urgent to tell me, now that you know I am well provided for in one important respect. I was uncommonly touched and affected by the news from Frau Laussot in Bordeaux, and for more than one reason! My art has always found favour with women’s hearts, and that is probably because, for all the vulgarity which prevails at present, women still find it more difficult to harden their hearts as effectively as our political menfolk, who have succeeded in doing so to the general satisfaction of all and sundry. Women are very much the music of life; they are more open and unreserved in the way they assimilate things, which they then enhance by virtue of their sympathetic understanding. While waiting for news from Bordeaux, I was surprised to receive some money from Herr Vaëz in Dresden: I wrote to him at once, as best I could, and described the feelings evoked within me by these tokens of love and concern on the part of people whom I scarcely knew. Experiences such as these would inspire in anyone feelings of goodness, nobility and cheerful serenity, but their effect upon me at the present time has been to make me supremely happy: never has the awareness of freedom felt so beneficial as it does at present, nor have I ever received such clear confirmation of the fact that the only thing that makes us free is a loving association with others. If Frau Laussot’s help were wholly to enable me to see the immediate years ahead as free from the anxiety of having to earn my living, then those years would be the most decisive of my entire life, and, above all, of my career as an artist; for now I can face even Paris calmly and with dignity, whereas previously the fear of being forced by practical necessity to make concessions had, from the outset, discouraged me from making any move in the direction of Paris. That has now changed: whereas the message formerly was: deny yourself! become another person, become a Parisian in order to win over Paris for your own ends, - my present intention is now: remain entirely the person you are, show the Parisians what you want and what you are capable of producing from within yourself; get that idea across to them and, to enable them to grasp your meaning, speak to them in terms they can understand, since your aim, after all, is that of being understood by them for what you are. I hope you all agree with this? - And so I shall be going to Paris on the 16th of January 1850; a couple of my overtures are already in rehearsal there, and I shall be taking with me my completed scenario: it is - Wiland the Smith. I shall begin by attacking the 5-act form of opera, then the rule according to which every grand opera has to include a special ballet. If I succeed in winning over Gustave Vaëz to this idea, and if I can get him to understand my purpose and to share my desire to carry it through, then all is well, - if not, I shall keep on searching until I find the right poet. Every difficulty which I and my associate may encounter in implementing our plan will provide material for attacks which I shall launch in the newspapers, even though it means ruthlessly raking up the entire dunghill and allowing clean water to flow through it: I shall then be in my element, since my business is to bring about revolution wherever I go. If I go under in the process, well then, I shall regard such a defeat as more honourable than any triumph gained by an alternative method: even if I fail to report any personal victory, I shall nevertheless be of use to the cause. Victory here, however, will only be assured us if we persevere: the man who holds out to the end will inevitably win, and to hold out, for me - since I do not doubt in my strength of will - means having enough money to be able to launch an attack without the need to worry about my own existence. Given sufficient money I would, for ex., immediately have my pamphlets on art translated and distributed. Well, that will all become clear when I am there on the spot, and it will depend upon the means which are placed at my disposal. If my money runs out before the end, I can certainly count on help from another quarter, i.e. the social republic, which sooner or later is inevitable and unavoidable in France: once it comes, I shall be ready and waiting for it, having already effectively prepared the way for it in art. - I do not imagine that things will turn out quite as hoped for by my complacent friends who are biased in favour of our present inferior age; no, things will turn out differently and, if all goes well, for the better, since what they want is of use only to me, - whereas what I want is of benefit to us all. - You should not make such a fuss about my latest piece! But I would be a fool to say that I was not pleased to discover how much you had enjoyed it. Wigand has told me nothing about it; it is true that I have been sent 10 louis d’or from Leipzig for my earlier pamphlets, but nothing else was said. But I hope it is being printed? - The printing errors in the earlier pieces were dreadful and often completely distorted the sense. Could I ask you to correct the new one for me? I have asked Wigand if he will do the same. After I had completed the article, I was so firmly resolved never again to try my hand at anything similar that I now cannot help laughing at my resolve: I feel the need once again welling up inside me to write something else. If we are entirely honest with ourselves, then we really must admit that this is now the only thing which has any sense or any real purpose: works of art cannot be created at present, they can only be prepared for by means of revolutionary activity, by destroying and crushing everything that is worth destroying and crushing. That is our task, and only people totally different from us will be the true creative artists. It is only in that sense that I can envisage my forthcoming activities in Paris: even the work that I am writing and producing for there can only be a single moment in the revolution, a token of affirmation in the process of destruction. Destruction alone is what is now needed, - to build anything at present can only be arbitrary. [...]
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 99