Best Friend,
Here you receive the second part. The third will, I think, follow in a fortnight. I should really like, before sending this off to-day, to have known whether you received the first part properly. The inscription "printing matter" always makes me suspicious as to whether it is opened, etc.
So as not to forget it, I at once mention a mistake in writing, which I beg you to correct. In speaking of "historic" music, I make a play upon words, and call it "hysteric." I have written this word incorrectly thus, "histeric"; do restore the y. Writing now weakens me so, that I always write with trembling, confused hand.
Now I must say what I think about the matter of publication. This time I must go prudently to work, for I must be fairly well paid for this book. I am now without any money-source, and at any rate, for my own negligence I ought no longer to be a burden to others. Nevertheless, I confess I cherish the bold thought of not selling my book for less than sixty louis d'or. It has cost me four months' incessant work; and besides, it is a thick volume. Naturally it is merely a question how we shall set about the matter. If we could only really learn from Wigand how the Kunstwerk der Zukunft sold, we should know better what to ask. I told you I had J. J. Weber at Leipzig in my mind. I fixed on him because Liszt wrote to me that he was thinking of offering his pamphlet on Lohengrin to him, and hoped he would publish it. Then I noticed that Eduard Devrient's theatrical writings appeared there; and, besides, that he had done good business with Laube's plays. Now, as I have also the thought of publishing my three opera poems with a long preface, so J. J. Weber appeared to me to be the right man to whom I could offer both these works. Just now by chance J. J. Weber's Illustrirter Volkskalender has fallen into my hands, and I see that with this publisher I have fallen into the primeval quagmire of reaction.
That has made me more than doubtful. Firstly, will he, after all, accept a writing specially directed against the state? Secondly, is it advisable to offer it to him? On the last point my friends wished to quiet me; they altogether refused to attach any importance to the sentiments of a bookseller.
Enough: Kolatschek offered of his own accord to open up communication with the publisher of the Deutsche Monatsschrift (now Kühtmann at Bremen) respecting my book. I accepted, so as in any case to have a choice. If I came to an understanding with Kühtmann, some sections of the book would first have to appear as special articles in the Monatsschrift. This certainly will not in any case do harm, for it attracts and excites attention. (It would of course be mentioned that these articles were fragments of a larger work about to appear; in any case the publisher must first be found and made to agree to this.) In the accompanying manuscript you will already find three articles marked with pencil. When everything is in order, you might pick out something for the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik; or I myself would indicate what should be selected.
Now let me know whether you had any other publisher in your mind. I will, however, enclose a small letter, as a preliminary inquiry, to J. J. Weber. If you have no valid objection against it, see that it is sent to Leipzig. So much for to-day about this matter.
Your "Instrumental music" has given me great pleasure. You are quite right in saying "that men are not to be made artistic, but that art is to be made human." Now I am curious about the second article, which I shall probably have to quote in my third part. Generally speaking, I don't like citation; there is something pedantic about it. What has once been openly said is common property, and no longer does it belong to him who has said it. In this sense I would forgive myself all plagiarism, for I should not count it as such.
You are right in publishing certain things from my organization manuscript; I am curious to see what you will get out of it. Ought not the church music to be included?
Was the new year's leading article really yours? Surely not. The premature science made me laugh heartily. Even now must I learn that I should not have discovered the most important conditions for the form of the drama of the future had I not, as artist, lighted quite unconsciously upon them in my Siegfried. I have a great mind to write an open letter to Brendel for his paper.
I am somewhat out of sorts. In a fortnight I will lounge about a bit, as well as I am able. I have had to lay aside for a time my Neptune girdle, on the advice of a first-rate physician, who is in favour of water-cure. Farewell! Greet wife and child.
R. W.
I feel inclined to dedicate my book "To thinking musicians and poets." What's your opinion? Would not the poets cry out that I am madly arrogant? Greetings to the Ritters.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 21