Permit me to take your hand today and clasp it to my heart in reverence and gratitude. I approach the mother of the dear woman who, in order to be what she alone could be to me, allowed herself to be swayed by no consideration in the world, but to whom your own great heart has spared the heaviest sacrifice: for she had no need to break with her mother, for her mother understood her and stood by her side with words of sisterly comfort. This was a blessing which was to enfold me, too, in its salutary embrace. And so I may hope that you will not withdraw your hand when I come to you now to thank you for this kindness.
When, in a few days’ time, our bond is blessed in the sight of God and the world, I shall feel as though I myself am witness to a human event which, justly considered in all its phases and motives, may revive the observer’s oft-wavering faith in a noble destiny for humankind. Of all the afflictions that had to be borne here, not one was tainted with the affliction of selfishness: if, after untold anguish, we could no longer bear it not to belong to each other, it was only the pain of compassion with those whom we had to hurt that really gnawed at our lives. Yet it was a question of saving all of those lives that have a share in ours, that from the dark conflagration of suffering we may soon behold the clear light of consoling reconciliation shine forth.
Whereas I have often had to regard my life and my destiny as the middle of a whirlpool of most painful developments, I may well now gaze with joyful elation upon the meaning of this destiny of mine, now that its luminous ripples have grown quite calm. As a man reborn, I enter upon a life, the noble worth of which I can regard as merited in part only if I may see it as the reward of a life whose torments were undeservedly long, to the point when they could no longer be endured. Within and around me there lives and breathes an element of love whose creative powers enfold me in tender embrace, soaring aloft in order to celebrate the noblest of nuptials with each dawning day.
Thus I bless the mother who bore this unique woman for me, a woman who cast down her eyes sufficiently low to behold the wretch that I am, and who was high-minded enough to dedicate herself to me. And thus do I revere the noble woman who, like-mindedly, countered the high-hearted one with such powerfully inspiriting good-will. May my blessing and gratitude fulfil you with warmth, as praise, however slight, of your great goodness towards him who calls out to you his gratitude and blessing from the depths of his own fulfilled heart!
In true veneration, I am
your obed.
Richard Wagner
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 396