At last, best friend, I can write to you. I have been intending to do so for the last eight days, but the non-arrival of the longer letter, which you said was coming, kept me from doing so. The letter, in spite of all my efforts to get it sooner, only reached me yesterday evening. My impatience was great, for I knew that your letter would put an end to my indecision with regard to many matters; the news which it contained did so in the way I foresaw.
I presume that through Frau R. you have been informed of the change in my affairs; let me, then, be silent about the immediate past, and only briefly tell you this much, that I have got a new wife. Though, speaking generally, she is the old one, yet now I know that, happen what may to me, she will stand by my side until death. For my part, I certainly was not thinking of trying her in any way; but, as circumstances have turned out, she has passed through a fiery ordeal, which, indeed, all must endure who nowadays consciously wish to stand by the side of those who recognize the future, and steer towards it. My friends here have proved their mettle splendidly. I have aged much, and I now know for certain that I have entered on the second half of my life, and have left all hopes of great things behind me.
Strange that a friend, who in many important matters stands apart from me in his life and mode of thought, should take such interest in my whole being, should show such staunch fidelity, such active care. I mean Liszt. He does not understand my way of thinking; my mode of action is thoroughly opposed to his; yet he respects all my thoughts and deeds, refrains most carefully from everything which might in any way offend me, and appears to devote himself with his whole soul to one thing only — to be useful to me and to spread abroad my works. With the most detailed — I might say refined — care, he is now seeing to the production of my Lohengrin at Weimar, and from all that he has communicated to me, I am almost certain that it will succeed. He therefore begs me to support him in his efforts to get the opera likewise performed at Leipzig and at Hamburg. I have been compelled to reply to him that I could take no pleasure in such performances, because they would only prove failures. Wherever I offer myself, there I lose all influence. I have explained to him that I feel perfectly satisfied with regard to the Weimar production, because I know that he is there at the head of an enthusiastic and uncommonly willing personnel. Liszt, besides, informs me that there is some talk, should Lohengrin succeed, of commissioning me to compose my Siegfried for Weimar; for which purpose an honorarium would be paid to me in advance, sufficiently large to enable me to live undisturbed until the completion of the work. Thereupon I have answered that I would never have composed Siegfried as a castle in the air; but if Lohengrin turned out thoroughly satisfactory, I presumed that actors would thereby be trained for me at Weimar who, with proper zeal and earnestness, would be able to bring Siegfried to life in the best possible way. For the Weimar company, I would therefore specially get the Siegfried music ready for performance. Already I have procured music-paper, and a Dresden music-pen, but whether I can still compose, God only knows! Perhaps I can get into the way again.
You see, things having so shaped themselves outwardly, a great change has also come over me. The moment one feels connected with others one becomes much more settled, calmer, and freer, than if left entirely to one's own choice, which makes one not free, but only confused. So now the choice as to what I should do next tortured me: was it to be a poem, a book, or an essay? I seemed to myself so capricious, and all my doings so unprofitable and unnecessary. If, even by means of this indecision, I became clear, and through this clearness seemed miserable, I only received fresh confirmation when I came to see the effect produced by my writings. I anticipated that, in general, no further notice would be taken of them; but, only with a deep sigh, do I at last perceive that even by the few of our own party who took notice of them, they were quite misunderstood. Prejudice has such a firm hold, that only life itself can break it. Only a true artist — and he must be a man as well as artist — can understand the matter under discussion; but no other, not even if he have the best will thereto. Who, for instance, amid our artificial-egoistic handicraft-copyings, can possibly grasp the natural attitude of plastic art to direct, pure, human art? I entirely set aside what a statue-sculptor, or a history-painter, would say to this; but that even a writer on the aesthetics of art, in other respects well disposed — who is not working for his daily bread, like the one in the Deutsche Monatsschrift — should display such absolute want of thought; that on this subject he should fall into such nonsensical babbling about art as he has done — that is sad. Well, I read the notice of my last work. Then I went home with K., read clearly to him and to myself the section relating to the arts of sculpture and of painting; and, although thoroughly disposed to question, we both found the turning-point of all human history and art so clearly expressed, and intentionally developed at length, with special emphasis, in the section dealing with sculpture, that we were compelled to decide that these critics — who had not even noticed this important argument, but only seemed to assume that I, through ignorance, and because I wished to say something about these other kinds of art, had fallen into vagueness and uncertainty — that these critics had misunderstood the whole book, since they looked upon the chief point, insisted on with energy — the downfall of the egoistic-monumental in favour of the communistic-present, with all its movement — only as a secondary aberration. At such moments one's hands fall, and one becomes convinced that all talking and writing on the matter is vain and unprofitable. When it really comes to pass, the public will quite understand; at present he alone understands it who is urged to it by necessity — that is, only one who is an artist, and, as an artist, has become human. I do not boast of the loneliness in which I find myself, but with all my soul could wish to lose myself among a million of persons of like deep experience and need. It was this, and no other impulse, which led me to write that essay; but I see now, clearer than ever, that the man who does not learn by himself, and by his own experience, will surely not get understanding from without. I had intended to set to work at another book — The Redemption of Genius — which should cover the whole ground. Feeling the uselessness of this book, I determined to content myself with two little essays: first, The Monumental; then, The Unbeauty of Civilisation, deducing the conditions of the beautiful from the life of the future. But what should I effect by that? Fresh confusion and nothing else! But above all no notice would be taken of it. So already the poem of Achilles haunted me: I wanted to get it ready for publication. Now you say Wigand will not even print Siegfried. God be praised! He has more sense than I. Then comes Liszt and orders Siegfried for performance at Weimar. That's the right thing — if at Weimar they make Siegfried only half-understood, that will be the most important thing of all for me: what people see they believe; and if they be but a few, they are certainly more than I could hope to win over and convince by writing. So, for the present, good-bye, author. Let alone the publication of Siegfried: it could only lead to confusion. Keep the manuscript!
Had I made these observations only to myself, perhaps I should have remained embarrassed; but now I have made them to you, and sympathy for you has quickly helped me. Since my return to Zurich I have procured all the numbers of the first half-year of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, and I have read not only all your articles, but nearly all the rest. First I read only your articles; they rejoiced me beyond expression, and, more than that, I learnt much from them. I thank you very much. In your own line you are a master: I cannot say more. Your thoroughness is crushing, and no one who has any brains in his head would venture to discuss with, but only to be taught by, you. Your two articles on the Beethoven Symphonies are of decisive importance, and it quite delighted me to see how the power of truth overswayed you in your view of things, so that in favour of this truth you cast to the winds your own former art-nature — yes, you, as if animated by love, annihilate the whole Beethoven who has touched us in so deep and sympathetic a manner, in order to see rise from these noble ruins the one, true, eternal art — the common good of all men; just as we recognized that Beethoven, in order to rise to the universality of a higher life, even annihilated his own most personal nature. In the individual this great process of self-annihilation only takes place unconsciously; but if we must annihilate this individual so beloved by us, this can only be done consciously, and whoever so compels his free will to do this, that man stands, in the history of human development, on a higher plane than the self-annihilator. So it is: you express what exists; we can do nothing else; it is the highest, and until we have declared this we are not earnest helpers in the work of the future. But I know what a mighty effort it must have cost you so to annihilate in yourself the egoism of your special form of art. I look all around, yet see no one whom I can compare with you; for just the fact that you were so definite, so absolute a musician distinguishes you. That man alone is capable of attaining to overpowering, strong, human love who has first felt love with fullest force in perfect individual, personal relationship; to destroy this power means then only infinitely to widen and extend it; you have been able to get so far for this very reason, that you were so positively, thoroughly, entirely a musician. What is now your position? Look into the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, and to your disgust you will recognize it! Your articles are not even read by those who write with you in the same newspaper, else would the Schumannist, at least, have waged war against you. Now, who has understood you? Dearest, confess that we are both crazy! I cannot see the absolute necessity for one and the same journal to contain at the same time the highest and the lowest, and I am therefore of opinion that you should look about for another paper; but when I perceive where, and among whom, I stand with my solitary pamphlets, I entertain strong doubts as to whether you will be better off anywhere else. Hear now what I advise! Give yourself up entirely to humour; develop your excellent capabilities for it more and more, and in a more definite manner. Write no longer seriously, and laugh incessantly; that is the only way in which one can preserve life and continue to be useful. Ah! how I have chuckled over the "Reflexionär" and the "Baron von Lorenz," etc. Suddenly everything seemed good. Wit only is still fruitful.
Besides, Kolatschek — who is here in Zurich, as he was in danger of being shoved from Würtemberg to Austria — told me your articles have given him enormous pleasure, and that in any case he will print them in the Monatsschrift, only he must wait a little, so that what is purely artistic may not appear too early in a paper which has only touched upon art in the most general manner. The Monatsschrift, however, is getting on and will prosper.
Now to another matter.
Dear brother, something must be done with you; you cannot stop in the Dresden band-mire. You are no giant in health, and your liveliness, your great diligence in intellectual pursuits, must pull you down, so long as you continue your orchestra-fiddling, physically of so absorbing a nature. You know the family R. is thinking of migrating to Switzerland next spring; you ought to come with them. As what? First of all, as a sensible man, who takes life easily, spares his health, prepares himself for future fitting activity, and already now is of as much service on all sides as he can be to intelligent and sympathetic men. You will do here all you do in Dresden, only not the one thing which you ought not to do, i.e., you will no longer go fiddling in the orchestra. On the contrary, you and K., perhaps also S., will be engaged in giving concerts; in winter especially you could give public quartet-performances. I will guarantee you a good subscription list. How stand matters now? Have you any means? If not, can you, to begin with, raise a small sum? If you, the R.'s, and we, instead of three or four homes, were to have one, do you not think, provided each one were to act, work, and assist to the best of his power, that we should live better and cheaper than if separated? I merely throw out the suggestion, for I have no intimate knowledge of your situation. I only know that the Ritters are very fond of you, and would willingly have you with us. Take counsel with yourself; look upon it as the most important decision of your life, be merciless to all obstacles; and talk over the matter with Frau R. It can and must be done!
I feel very well again just now in Zurich, and I would choose to live here rather than anywhere else in the whole wide world. We have a most delightful dwelling by the lake, with the most magnificent views, garden, etc. In an old coat I go down to the lake to bathe; a boat is there which we row ourselves. Besides, an excellent race of men, and whichever way we turn — sympathy, politeness, and the most touching readiness to do service: yea, more, and more trusty, friends than I could ever find in beautiful, big Dresden. All are glad to see me; of Philistines here I only know the Saxon exiles. Ah, how unfortunate and worthy of pity you seem to me there!
K. gives me much pleasure, and I am pleased to see that he does what is sensible of his own accord. His capacity is extraordinary; he understands with marvellous quickness. When he is walking out alone with me, he expresses the most amiable confidence; at such moments he can talk your head off, but always with charm and animation. To the astonishment of all, he lately gave a piece of his mind to a parson, in an inn, so that the latter stood perfectly aghast. I should like, for practice' sake, to make him music director of the Winter Theatre show here; perhaps I can manage it. Meantime, he is learning Scandinavian. Curiously enough, he spurred me on to Siegfried, even before Liszt's incentive.
Listen! Cannot you come at once to us? Be assured you will not in any way repent of it, and you will only experience one sorrow — not to have done it sooner.
Now farewell for to-day! I hear you are at the baths with Kummer! May you both prosper! I shall also rejoice heartily if Kummer comes. My health is better; however, as yet I have no real strength, and feel, for the most part, very tired; but the nervous complaint has much abated. Ah! let us above all things get healthy. If we have it in our power, we are not deserving of life if we avoid any sacrifice whatever on that account.
Farewell! Write soon, and give me a favourable decision.
Your
Richard W.
I must, after all, write to Feuerbach. Make inquiries about the place where he lives, and send him the enclosed letter. Whether I shall really get his works in this manner, according to Wigand's intimation — "he may ask for them himself" — is a matter on which I must still reflect.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 14