My dearest friend,
Here’s a pile of new things from me! You see, my poem is finished, and even though it has not yet been set to music, it has at least been set in type and printed, and printed, moreover, at my own expense and in a limited edition, which I intend to present to my friends so that - if I die before completing the work - they will have received my testamentary bequest to them in advance. - Those who know my present circumstances will be bound to think this another of my extravagances when they receive so expensive an edition: so be it! The real world now behaves in so niggardly a way towards me that I have not the least desire to imitate it. -
[...]
As for the poem itself, there is nothing more I can or wish to say at present: if you find the time to read it through sympathetically, you will say to yourself all that I could possibly tell you. I - shall write no more verse. - But the prospect of setting all this to music now attracts me greatly: as regards the form, it is already fully fashioned in my head, and I have never been so clear in my own mind about the musical execution of a work as I now am in relation to this poem. I need only the necessary incentive in life in order to find the indispensable mood of cheerful serenity which will allow the motives to well up inside me freely and gladly. -[...] Good luck with the “flying Dutchman”! I cannot get this melancholy hero out of my head! I keep on hearing:
“Ah, spectral man, who can tell when you’ll find her!”
together with:
“One chance remains to gain this poor man his peace and salvation”
but it’s too late now! for me there is no longer any possibility of redemption, except for - death! Oh, how happy I should be to die in a storm at sea, - but not on my sick-bed!!!
Indeed - I should be glad to perish in the flames of Valhalla! - Mark well my new poem - it contains the world’s beginning and its end! -
I must now set it to music for the Jews of Frankfurt and Leipzig - it is just the thing for them! -
I must stop, this epistle is beginning to get out of hand! - let me conclude briefly! - Adieu! my Franziskus, my only friend - you who tower up to meet me with your giant’s heart! Indefatigable man that you are, fare you well! And if you play the Ballad tomorrow - think of me! I am sitting alone on the sofa, staring into the lamp, and brooding on my - great good fortune at having rescued you at least from the wretched world! Yes, indeed! It is that which keeps me going! Fare you well, my friend! accept my most tender greetings!!
Yours,
Richard W.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 158