[...] He who wishes to know his age and the spirit of that age should make the same demands upon it as I myself made when I undertook my work! I have recognized our age for what it is, and at the same time have lost all my illusions as to its worth. For how is it possible to go on deluding ourselves as to the shameless wretchedness that lies all around us when every attempt to point out the way to salvation is met by open and undisguised abuse? We want to be worthless: this has been our motto ever since the Jesuits handed over this world of ours to the Jews. Everything is lost here! The Emperor and his Reich may take as much pleasure as they like in their military regulations: what they are protecting is not worth a straw! -
Yes! My King! I shall complete what I have begun. Had I been a rich man, I should willingly have staked my whole fortune on it; for ultimately it is a question of the material levers that are used to wrest some spirituality from this world. One day my work will exist, in order no longer to exist. For I am not thinking of any lasting influence; in the eyes of the world, those who think of my work as a whim are not mistaken. For, really and truthfully, my work lacks a sure foundation: there is nothing that exists already to which it can attach itself. What we once strove to achieve in Munich has now - like everything else - passed into Jewish hands: I suffer grief upon grief at the utterly degenerate spirit that now informs performances of my work - in the very place where they once flourished to the point of being models of their kind. In Vienna they showed willingness to comply with my principles, and this reawakening of good will on their part encouraged me to go there in order that, over a period of time, I might present correct and unmutilated performances of all my older works (which - curiously enough! - still continue to fill the coffers). I performed wonders, - but at the cost of exertions which I should prefer not to have to submit to again! Miserable singers on tremendous salaries, who openly declared that I was there to their detriment, since I was showing them the bad habits into which they had fallen, without being able to give them the strength to break free from them permanently. They admitted I was right, but what use to them was this sudden conversion since they would inevitably revert to their former faith! The energetic support which the administration gave me served only to incite the press against me, so that I soon had cause to regret having wanted to show these people my works in their proper light! -
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 435