Dear friend,
I was sorry to discover from your letter, which I received today, that a letter I wrote to you - following your last communication from Berlin - had not yet arrived. It had been a question of finding out your address there, which I thought I did not know, until I was finally reminded of the old Thiergarten Hotel.
Well, - it was all the kinder of you not to be deterred from writing again! - All praise to you for doing so! And the news you sent me was also of interest of course, since I see you are still protected by the magic enchantment of hope. -
That is because of your faith, and, since you are young, there is still a good deal you can live to see. In my own case, nothing will take root any longer except perhaps the assumption that I may yet be able to produce something that will allow me to forget the misery of the world. As a result, my chief concern is how to work myself up into a good mood and maintain that mood as long as is possible; and in this I shall be helped more especially by an improvement in my health. I am still trying to get acclimatized here: the sea-baths cannot be used until June, but they should finish things off for me. In consequence I have provisionally decided to stay here until the end of the autumn, and then spend a whole year settling in at Wahnfried. I shall then finish off the full score of Parsifal - at a single sitting, so to speak. If all goes well, we shall then perform it in the summer of 1882 (with or without a “School”!). -
Are you intending to survive the whole time in Bayreuth? Or are you planning excursions to Kharkov - or Naples? - Wondrous things would you see here, but - only if you put all the Berlin profits into the Bayreuth fund!? - Well, see if you can find some more good news to tell me. Your last article has really caused a furore: Levi was utterly stupefait, and - it seems - genuinely pleased by it. And so: it is still early days! Qui vivra verra!
Sincere regards and every good wish for your continuing prosperity.
Your obedient servant
Richard Wagner.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 477