Best Friend,
How angry you will be with me for not having written at once, as you wished, immediately after receipt of the last number of the Monatsschrift! How it happened I really don't know. I only remember one thing, that I worked the whole forenoon with fanatic diligence, and in my lonely walk after dinner I conversed so constantly and in so lively a manner with you, that when evening came it no longer appeared necessary to write to you; and I set to work again. At last I was seized with a furious fit to finish my book, so as not to write to you until I could send you a part of it in a tidy copy; this resolution was conceived and carried out. I send you to-day the first of three parts, and intend to send the second as soon as I have a tidy copy ready, and in like manner the third, so that you may not have all on your hands at once, and that your head may not get confused with hasty reading. You will thus be able to look at my stuff at your leisure, and you might give it to the R.'s to read, without causing any delay in the publication. The first part is the shortest and easiest, perhaps also the most interesting; the second goes deeper, and the third is a piece of work which goes to the bottom of the matter. The whole will be a book of from four to five hundred pages. I will communicate with you later on about the publisher; I think we'll try J. J. Weber at Leipzig; X. would, after all, not take it; besides, he is now — as I already wrote you — in bad odour: no one will have anything to do with him.
Well, that is one thing settled! Now about your article in the Monatsschrift! I must tell you quite briefly that it has given me great pleasure, and I thank you for it. You are of immense service to me — or, if you prefer it, to the cause — by the sobriety of your conception and by your mode of presenting it; and I know this sobriety demands more strength and greater mastery of the subject than the fireworks which, for instance, Biedenfeld has let off in the Europa about me. I am really delighted at your articles which are to appear in the next number of the Monatsschrift. Only be firm and indefatigable; there is a fearful lot still to do!
The greatest joy that you have caused me is, however, the clear prospect which you hold out of paying me a visit this coming summer. You see, flesh and blood is still the all-important thing. As I told you, I have, up to now, always taken my walks here with you. Everything is settled: you take the train as far as the Lake of Constance (it doesn't cost much). On Swiss ground, on the other bank of the lake, I will await your arrival in the steamer; then we shall drive over St. Gall to Wattwyl; there we get out, and go on foot through the Toggenburg country (heavenly!) to the Zurich lake; from Schmerikon the steamer takes us to Zurich, to the "Villa Rienzi," as the country-house in which I live, close to the lake, is called by all my friends. I am curious to see if you will miss Pillnitz and Saxon Switzerland. Then we shall take a Swiss friend with us and go for a week among the Alps. You can return home viâ Strasburg and Frankfort: all the way by rail. I think you can manage with 100 thalers: if you have more, all the better — if not, you have enough. Well, it will be a happy time.
I have now also become half a water-man; I have at once followed your advice about the Neptune girdle! I hope it will do me good. Altogether I feel that I am much better than last year: I work hard — i.e., for a long time at a stretch — and do not appear the worse for it; it is also an advantage to be somewhat quieter in my home — i.e., clearer, more discreet, more intelligent, or whatever you like to call it.
Apropos! Have you already heard of the Brussels affair? Think of my surprise when I received a most cordial invitation from Brussels to have my Lohengrin translated and performed there. I felt as if I had fallen out of the clouds. Anyhow the offer gives me great joy, even if nothing comes of the matter; first of all, the translation must be entirely according to my wishes; and secondly, I must be sure about the singers before I definitely give my consent. Liszt has already sent in these conditions for me; in order to inspect and hear the singers, I should naturally have to go myself to Brussels. Well, we shall see! Anyhow, the people there deserve praise, for they don't make a leap in the dark; but the conductor there, "Hanssen," knows my operas.
But no one will find fault with me now for being cautious; I have just had a nice lesson from Paris! You have perhaps read about the Tannhäuser-overture stories there! Would I had only done as I wanted when I learnt they wished to give it there! I wanted at once to have the parts taken away, because I foresaw everything as it has happened! But they say there that I am stubborn and over-excitable! Well, I am in for it, and now people are making merry over me: it is quite delightful! Enjoy the joke, and read the feuilleton in the National about this concert. You will see! Well, Paris is, after all, indifferent to me — and so not much harm is done!
Now, farewell, my dear old friend! Write to me soon again, and make proper preparations for the Swiss journey!
Salute old Fischer, and tell him that I thank him much for his letter. I will soon write again to him!
Farewell; heartiest greetings to wife and children from your
R. W.
(You can confidently write to me to my own address.)
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 20