Most honoured friend,
I have once again thought so much about you, concerned myself so much with you, and, at the same time, had so much cause to feel grateful for all you have done for me that I now, more than ever before, feel impelled to converse with you for a moment.
I have just returned from a journey which must certainly have been unique of its kind. I expect you will already have been informed by Uhlig of all the places I visited: from Lugano I went with my wife (whom I summoned to join me there) back to Lago Maggiore, across the Simplon to Wallis and Chammonix, and via Geneva back to Zurich. I was away for around 4 weeks. The cost of this wonderful journey was met through your own kindness inasmuch as I was able to use certain revenues which are due to me for the purposes of this holiday rather than for my immediate livelihood. I needed a holiday. I had previously completed the poem of the “Valkyrie” in the space of a month, without any interruption, and I could tell only too well from the results of this exertion how things really stood with me. My cerebral nerves were so badly affected that I found myself (other people of course can understand none of this) in a desperate state, but this much at least was clear, namely that if I am to produce anything else, it can only be achieved by subjecting my entire nervous system to a most elaborate course of treatment. Above all, I need a will of iron to keep a close check on myself, more especially to be able to break off completely from my work, both quickly and at frequent intervals, so that, by dint of regular outings, I may distract my cerebral nerves from their present self-destructive course. I had hoped initially that an extended holiday would help me to recover my health: the very thought of being able to savour the pleasures of Italy’s border had something uncommonly refreshing about it for me. But this journey has radically altered my view of myself, and its effect upon me has been to rob me of my last remaining illusions. I cannot of course deny that, on entering Italy, I was overcome by a sense of genuine delight; but I can no longer suppress the admission that - life no longer has any happiness to offer me. It was precisely there that I realized I am no longer capable of enjoying life, now that I have lost my youth. Yes, indeed - my dear Frau Ritter, I remained young until a certain event in my life with which you are already very familiar: then I became old over night. I now know that I have no more hopes for the future! On one unique and decisive occasion I tried to seize hold of life as it really is, to hold it tight, and to find in it my salvation: it passed me by, I sank back into the world of my own imaginings, and was forced to seek sustenance not in my heart but in my head, a furious effort which now consumes me, - and which will finally destroy me! There is nothing, nothing that I can conceal from myself in the long term by dint of my own imaginings; again and again I am forced to see through this elaborate illusion, no dream can gain hold of me, no theoretical pleasure can give me true enjoyment, and so I have finally lost all capacity for any enjoyment, with the result that I was soon bound to feel utterly alone and unhappy in Italy. - I returned via Geneva! well, I was calm, and I was pleased that it all gave my good wife a great deal of pleasure: indeed, I myself no longer felt any sense of pain, but only astonishment that I had to remain in the land of the living! —
Since I am, after all, an artist, I shall continue to lead this artificial life of mine as long as I can. Of course, only my art can still sustain me and disguise from me how insipid my life has become. The enormous effort it takes to do so is something I must seek to lessen as best I can. What this principally means is that I must at least spare myself the feelings of pain occasioned by over-frequent contact with the foolish world: a little house with a little garden, far off on the lake, in such a place I now believe I have discovered the surest means which art can offer of keeping myself alive. And it almost seems as though this final wish of mine, as it relates to my life, might yet be fulfilled: the German theatres are gradually helping themselves to my operas, and even the King of Prussia has recently commanded a performance of Tannhäuser to mark his birthday: however, nothing may come of it, for I have made so bold as to demand a very considerable fee from them in Berlin; and yet, if you remain loyal to me, it now looks as though I might still think of fulfilling the only wish which I have left in life. -
[...]
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 148