Dearest Brother,
What a dreadful fuss you are making about me! If you were a Jew one would think that you had so much per cent. for it. If I now speak about myself, it must be in more modest terms, and certainly not from affectation.
I ought not to write to you just now, when I am somewhat unstrung. I would rather have communicated my thoughts to you, if only briefly, when in a more sanguine condition. I need scarcely tell you that you make a great impression on me, that through the rôle which you assign to me I see myself, not so much rewarded by comfortable ease, as kindled and spurred on to activity; this I mention to you particularly, to quiet you in regard to myself. When the looking-glass of one's will is thus held before one, one feels more prompted to acquire the power of doing; and, indeed, I believe I can only hope to reach this power by gaining for myself companions, in order, together with them, to attain to true art — a thing most certainly impossible to the solitary worker. You would not believe what trouble I give myself with this object, to call forth full understanding from all those who only half understand; yes, even to make myself intelligible to my enemies who do not, or will not, understand me; and lastly, I rejoice merely because I am always myself coming to a better understanding. My book, which now is to be called Oper und Drama, is not yet ready; it will be at least twice as big as the Kunstwerk der Zukunft. I have still the whole of December to devote to the conclusion, and then certainly the whole of January for copying and revising. In advance I can only give you the outline. (1) Exposition of the nature of opera up to our time, with the conclusion, "Music is a reproductive organism (Beethoven has used it, as it were, to give birth to melody) — therefore a female one." (2) Exposition of the nature of the drama from Shakespeare up to the present day; conclusion, "the poetical sense is a procreative organism, and the poetical purpose the fertilising seed which only comes with the ardour of love, and is the stimulus to the fructification of the female organism which must beget the seed received in love." (3) (Here only I begin.) "Exposition of the act of reproducing the poetical purpose by means of perfected tone-speech." Ah! would that I had said nothing to you, for I see after all I have really said nothing to you. Only this, in addition: I have spared no pains to be exact and complete; for this reason I at once made up my mind not to hurry, so as not to be superficial. I will still add a diagram; I am not sure whether I shall put it into my book.
Word-Speech. — Literature. History. Understanding.
Feeling.
Tone-Speech. — Lyric. Myth.
Intelligence.
Word-Tone-Speech. — Completed Drama. Dramatic Myth. Humanity.
Now to yourself! I share your probable anger against Kolatschek for splitting up the article. I have not yet caught sight of him so as to take him to task about it. Concerning your other articles, you can give yourself the answer beforehand, and indeed to this effect, that they will not appear in December. Hence about my operas I only know half your opinion. If I were to say, "I thank you," I should be afraid of making myself ridiculous; but if I were not once to say, "I am glad," I should rightly appear an ass to you. Besides, I really don't know what you dislike in your Lohengrin article in the Zeitschrift für Musik. There was one thing which seemed to me perhaps not to have satisfied you, and this was, at most, the pragmatic presentation of the plot; for the rest you have said much that is new to me, or, at least, shown what was known to me in a new, in your own particular, light, so that I can only thank you heartily for it. You must know well that I have learnt ever so much from you; in my new work I have had occasion to quote you once. Rejoice at yourself!
I hear you are again unwell! Yes; water can perhaps help you from within; but does a man only live from within, not also from without? And how is it there with you? Well, I am also going through some sort of a water-cure; besides baths of a morning, I drink cold water in bed. Now to-day let me just hastily throw out a suggestion to you. You cannot come and settle in Zurich, but if you made a real effort might it not be possible for you to pay me a visit in the summer? You could live and take your meals with me; the journey and leave of absence you could perhaps manage.
Farewell for to-day. I am not a Swiss citizen, but only a resident in the community; the withdrawal of the character of exile only depended upon that. Get Frau R. to tell you about my affairs with the theatre.
Farewell! Salute wife and child from your
R. W.
(My wife has made me a very comfortable new dressing-gown. This by way of news to yours.)
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 19