Dear Uhlig,
Schindelmeisser wrote to me from Wiesbaden about the score of Tannhäuser: I have granted it him conditionally, and referred him to you about the copy itself. If he asks for it, send it to him. I am not to have an honorarium, but a tantième (royalty), for which, of course, I do not much care. This communication is the reason why I shall again be brief.
Nevertheless the packet shall be sent off to you on this occasion. I cannot pick up again: my nerves are much relaxed, and I suffer from sleeplessness.
Only once again in my life can I sacrifice myself by preparing another performance; if I ever get so far, it will be with my Siegfried. Till then I must keep away altogether from undertakings of the sort: and after Siegfried I shall stop. Adieu, Capellmeister!!
With regard to the literary rôle which I have played during the last years, it begins to annoy me very much. I can only look back to it with pleasure in so far as I feel that by its means I have become quite clear in my own mind. But when I perceive the effect which I have produced on the outside world by my writings, I can only feel in a state of revolt and altogether out of humour. Tell me, among all the voices which have made themselves heard in this question, is there one man of whom one could say that he is in any way capable of comprehending what the matter treated really is? My opinion of the world of art and literature was certainly a bad one, but I had not suspected such boundless wretchedness! People have become so fearfully stupid that they literally can no longer read: am I to begin now to give them first lessons in reading?
So far as concerns the trouble you have taken in this direction for my sake, I beg of you at least do not excite yourself: if you happen to write, make jokes, but never get seriously angry, for by that means we shall become ridiculous. In your articles, which I have read, I find that you in this sense go much too far: for God's sake stop your attacks upon Riccius! and suchlike.
I can only expect to make an impression on young people, because they in general are capable of receiving new impressions. The old man of to-day is quite powerless to escape from routine: he never sees what is new, for which he has deadened all his receptive organs, but only himself and what is old. These people must be abandoned to a death by putrefaction; but in no wise must one fight with them.
Most painful of all are those new enthusiasts of mine, à la W. and K., who draw a scrupulous line between my extravagances and the sound (i.e., old-conventional) part of my work! Why should I want to know anything about them? I go no longer to read the papers at the Museum: the next thing I shall do will be to decline the musical papers. Send me now and then a joke, but never more anything serious! This intellectual diet may appear very egotistical; but I hope I have won a right to be egotistical, in that I have hitherto made myself too cheap to the world.
You might let me know what is still not clear to you in Part III. of Oper und Drama: is it perhaps the great importance which I claim for alliterative verse? In my opinion this is the only point about which I have not been able to make myself quite clear to others, because this indeed is only possible by deed. I still owe you this — but I hope no further theoretical explanation. But everything else must surely be quite clear to you, for it is certainly no matter of speculation, but in reality a statement of the nature of things and of their proper relation one to another.
Well, enough of this, and, let me hope, for ever. I already heartily regret my curiosity concerning D.
I see before me the whole labyrinth of dialectics into which this wretched individual would drag me if he should really arouse in me the passion to make myself intelligible to him. Hence I wish he would not write to me, because I know that, even with the most strenuous endeavours on my part, nothing could come of it. In his particular line D. has accomplished much, and that has made him obstinately vain; but with such people their particular line must be wholly overthrown, otherwise one cannot count upon any success; and, after all, this success can only be attained by downright murder. How can a man who is all method understand my inbred anarchy? D. is out and out a despot; he wishes to make people happy by compulsion; in him there is no trace of the revolutionist. He is quite wanting in naïveté; he has not a drop of artist's blood in him; but is he really an artist? He proves how much a clear, calculating compiler without a spark of productivity may accomplish: the new, the non-arbitrary, must ever remain foreign to him: he has no heart for it — i.e., his heart only reaches as far as the theatre-school, and for anything further he helps himself with the "imperfection of human nature here below, and the necessity for a richer unfolding of the same in some star or other." He is, strictly speaking, silly, densely dull, bourgeois, cowardly even to cruelty — or, to sum up, fearfully weak!
My intercourse with him — now I remember — was one long martyrdom. See here, for instance: he knows that he might expect something new from me, yet up to now he has not gone so far as to look at my books! What does it mean? Will he read for any other purpose than to contradict me? Will he have anything but his system before his eyes, and not perforce consider everything which differs from it a want of clearness on my part? But what have I to do with such a man, and what sincerity is there in him but his cowardice?
Well, I have enough here to do with men of this sort: I don't want any Dresden-court-theatre-deists in addition! Away with him! for now I am all occupied with my poems!
Unfortunately the Dutchman affair quite discomposed me, and now it will take me some time to get myself right. I still hope to be able to go to the country again. My surroundings are ofttimes very painful to me. Alas! I have again been downright wretched! Herwegh, the only one, was silent and suffered with me: what else could he do?
Now as regards the success of the Dutchman with the public, it was certainly a great one. X. will now rejoice at it: the pianoforte scores are selling like mad; only the day before yesterday an order went off for six complete pianoforte scores and a lot of detached numbers, potpourris, etc.
I now come to business, and will dispatch it in a few words.
With regard to the arrangement of the score of the Dutchman, I specially commend to your notice the Dresden-theatre score which I am now sending back; I formerly retouched it with red ink, and indeed more thoroughly than in my last version: the brass especially was much more carefully reduced. Only the overture — the close — has been lately handled by me in a more thorough manner. Get this Dresden score from Fischer as soon as it has returned. Concerning the Leipzig one, I enclose the desired certificate!
Best thanks for the catalogue of my music: however, I shall not require it much! Ten years ago, when I left Paris, I took away with me the Huguenots (quartet), Robert le Diable (two violins), La Reine de Chypre, and Zanetta, as I had still to make arrangements from them, for which part of the money had already been paid to me in advance: but, as this work became impossible for me in Germany, I afterwards paid back the money advanced, but kept the musical examples, which may certainly have cruelly troubled your imagination. This much to calm you!
The K.'s found it too uncomfortable at Elgg — and they were not far wrong — and, as Hahn himself advised, they are now at Zurich, where they are looking for a dwelling, and find it so pleasant that without any persuasion on my part they are already thinking of settling here.
So much for to-day! If I should have forgotten anything of importance, I will make up for it next time! Farewell, and remain good to
Your
R. W.
The letter from R.'s sister has deeply moved me, and I am rejoiced at A.'s energy of mind, which, anyhow, the poor girl could not understand. Why should he trouble to ask for my three opera poems? Dr. Schulze might, at all events, tell me indirectly through wife or sister how I could send news to him. Best greetings to Sch.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 63