Well, what more do you want? I have just written a "most complimentary" letter to Brendel, which is to go off at the same time as this one. I offer, for the future, to be an occasional contributor to his paper. Are you satisfied now?
I am back again in Zurich since the beginning of the week. The cure has worked wonders with me; my lightness of head and general state of bodily well-being open up to me a new world. I have done well to discontinue the really severe regime. Only think, I bathed lately in water of only three degrees of heat! Rest and attention to diet, rather than any particular treatment, will now do me good. But I do not give up the bath, only take the chill off up to ten degrees. In other matters I remain a strict water-man: dry bread, with milk, in the morning, but only with water in the evening. For dinner: English cookery — vegetables cooked in water and meat roasted on a spit, which my wife had to procure. Last Monday, in honour of our wedding anniversary, my Swiss confederates spent the evening at my house. They boozed, as is their wont; and my disgust at this hard drinking, without which these unfortunate fellows have not a spark of mirth or wit, completely convinced me of my real cure. I can no longer conceive that anything could happen, or that I could fall into any misfortune, which would make me again have recourse to wine, beer, etc. So I revel in an enjoyment of health of which — as I now consciously enjoy it — I had no conception. My unimpaired spirits and constant good humour — which, in spite of the weakness resulting from the last severe treatment, have never left me — always afford me a ready answer to stupid scoffings: that I don't, for instance, need wine to be merry, and that I can get on very well without the seedy effects, etc. I now take a childlike interest in things to which already I had become indifferent — e.g., about our new house, which is certainly small, but cosy and quiet. With truly childlike joy, every day I bring in something to make our exile home more complete and comfortable. So now I have had my "complete works" bound in red: there are already five volumes; the three opera poems will make the sixth.
These trifles exercise a beneficent and diverting effect on my over-excited mind, just as a hip-bath soothes the head; and, like this, I intend them to form part of my regime. Besides, my artistic plans are spreading out before me, and ever becoming richer, more pleasurable, and more decided; and it is with quite a shiver of delight that I think of soon working them out. Also, my plans have a practical bearing; much I may perhaps make possible which lately seemed beyond me: in this I am specially helped by K.'s noble and clear understanding. So you will still see me accomplish something real — but more about that when my scheme is riper!
But I say to you further, that I thoroughly well understand my condition, and do not in the least deceive myself about the fact that, as yet, I am not fully restored to health. I am only on the right road to a complete cure, and this I shall effect in the spring, when I think of returning at the end of March to the hydropathic establishment.
So much about this for to-day! So I have received Oper und Drama. Weber informs me that you have already three copies. If you can really make good and advantageous use of the third copy, act according to your judgment. If not, send it to me by post; I shall have it interleaved, so as to be of service in the preparation of a possible second edition.
Do not be anxious about the changes in the preface to the three opera poems! How can you think I had changed anything of vital importance! Nothing in it could really be altered; better leave the whole unpublished. No, to people of that kind, in constant fear of the censorship, it is mere secondary matters, single expressions, and strong figures of speech, that are offensive. You will receive the alterations for correction, and by them will see that only what is trivial or perhaps useless is left out; and even of this sort very little.
Lately I have asked Härtels for the last sheets of the preface. Since it has lasted so long, the announcement of my latest works had better be made more in conformity with my latest resolves, i.e., without "Weimar." Go, please, once more to Frau P., with friendly greetings to her in my name, and tell her that my wife assures me she had the following scores — which she did not give to Frau H. — stowed away in Frau P.'s attic: Rienzi, six copies; Tannhäuser, five copies; Flying Dutchman, four copies. She had these clearly noted down by Natalie, and a memorandum to this effect now lies before me. So if the scores are not to be found in the attic, Herr Heinrich Brockhaus must have carried them off by mistake with the books to Leipzig; and I should then be much obliged if Madame P. would claim the same from her brother, and then hand them over to you. The library, which that gentleman has in keeping as security for a debt, will very shortly be redeemed.
Best greetings to Fischer. I thank him very much for his friendly letter, which I intend very soon to answer. (Though I do not know what I ought to write to him. He writes as if every one in Dresden were so infatuated with Lohengrin as to want it put into rehearsal at once, and that really only my obstinacy stood in the way of an immediate performance. I, however, hear from all quarters that the management is of quite another mind: is that not ridiculous?)
Good-bye! good-bye! for to-day! Greetings to yours, and especially to my little Elsa — Madame Lohengrin! — give her plenty of water, and not too much medicine!
Please give friendly greetings also to the R.'s. Yes, now it's quite another matter with your
R. W.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 46