What great joy you have given me again, dear lady! Believe me, if I had to recognise myself in none but the mirror shewn me by the world and all my friends therein, I soon should have to turn away with dread of looking back. Nor can I be quite open and true with any of them; there always remain spots and blind places, which I know not how to fill up. But if You answer me for once, how splendid I then appear; everything, including myself, then seems to me noble: I know that I am safe. —
Children, that we are three, is something wonderfully grand. It is unparalleled, my and your greatest triumph! We stand inconceivably high above mankind, inconceivably high! The noblest must become some day the truth: and the true is so incomprehensible, because it is so purely for itself. Let us revel in this high delight: it has no uses, and is here for naught — it can but be enjoyed, and but by those who are it to themselves.
So be you welcome on French soil: here the poet of the Nibelungen steps forth to meet you, and reaches you his hand. I congratulate you warmly on your journey to Italy. You go to find a boon that I am not to taste, and which I therefore wish you doubly. Enjoy the balmy sky, poetic land, the living past, for me as well, and thereby be you twice rejoiced. Gladly, beyond belief, would I be with you!
R. W.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to Wesendonck et al., trans. and indexed by William Ashton Ellis (Grant Richards, 1899), No. 23