Dearest, Best Friend,
I do not really write a letter to-day, but only wished a short notice to reach Uhlig with regard to a Wigand matter, about which he wrote to me lately. Now that I have at last got into a quiet home here, my fingers are absolutely burning to write my pamphlet, Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft, the composing and issuing of which have become for me a veritable heart-need. The work is instinctively expanding itself under my hands to the full — and, as I now see, to its necessary — proportions; and I think you know me: when I have anything of this kind on my mind, I curse the time which I must spend on eating, sleeping, and necessary recreation, and for which I must twitch off a corner from my appetite for work. For nothing in the world, then, could I constrain myself to devote a morning to letter-writing; but I merely give up a few moments to the settlement of other matters. That is why you receive no letter from me to-day, but only a couple of very hasty lines, as I cannot possibly post a letter to Dresden without at least saying good-day or good-night to you!
Do not be vexed with me for preferring to write direct to Wigand in the "Wibelungen" matter, and not, as you wished, through you; for I could settle it in a few words with Wigand, but to you I should have had to write quite a treatise, in order to quiet your scrupulous soul. But when I am occupied with anything so engrossing as my present work, I like to be kept from it for as short a time as possible. So do not be vexed with me for this! For, after so nice a letter as the one I have just received from you, you would have no right to be so. Be assured, I could wish for nothing pleasanter than to receive such a letter every day, not perchance on account of the flattery in it, but because of the true heart-and-soul interest which it caused or excited in me.
However, I did not mean to write you a letter at all, and so you shall not even get so much as half a one!
As soon as my work — which is turning into quite a book — is finished, which I hope, with the copy, will be the middle of November, I will write nothing but letters for a whole week — letters — immense letters — and you shall receive an extra-special pleasant one: also brother Fischer's letter shall not be so bad. Give him one hundred thousand greetings, the good, excellent soul, and tell him how I am impaled on the Work-of-the-Future.
If meanwhile you receive any news from Wilhelm, I beg you, in the most pressing manner, to write to me at once. Yet, apart from that, you would rejoice me above everything if you would soon let me hear a trifle again.
Best and heartiest greetings to wife and child from myself and my wife! Keep in good health, and do not be such a cursed egoist as to complain about future decrease of ability to work, etc. What the devil have you got your son for? How we always look upon our own powers as our only ones, while the glorious extension of our being through that of others, especially of our own children, we contemptuously overlook: "We all know nothing as yet of love!"
More of this another time! Farewell, and make yourself familiar with the idea that we shall soon see each other again — certainly before the two years are over! Adieu!
Your
Richard.
And was I not delighted with your family picture, and Wilhelm's portrait in plaster, which both arrived here safe and sound?! In thinking of what is far off, one often forgets what is close at hand — so it was in my last letter! The best of thanks, and the assurance that your emigration in effigie to Switzerland and under my roof has made me ever so happy. You are all hanging at full length on our walls — better, however, than the Hungarian generals in Pesth and Arad! Kind thanks, old fellow!
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 163