My Dearest Motherling!
[...] I am certainly not one of your stiff and unbending characters. On the contrary I might justly be accused of having a too feminine mobility of soul. But I have enough enduring passion not to give up an enterprise once tackled till I am convinced by the very nature of the case itself. So it has been with me in Paris. I have become firmly convinced that it is utterly impossible for me to fight my way through, at any rate as long as I have only my own strength to rely on for the battle. As to those who prophesied something like this to me, I answer them that their prophecies, based merely on hearsay, could have no weight with me, and since, on the contrary, a man like Meyerbeer encouraged me to take on the struggle no one need be surprised that I, as a young man, preferred to attempt it—rather than make a cowardly retreat without an effort. And Meyerbeer was right—what I lacked in personal strength and attributes—money and fame—might well be replaced by other things, and he offered himself to lend me a helping hand and to assist me with his great influence. The fact that Meyerbeer was obliged to be away from Paris just the whole of this period was simply a piece of my predestined ill-luck, for influence from a distance is no use in Paris—personality is everything. I was soon forced to see that I should have to carry on singlehanded a battle I had undertaken in reliance on outside help, but I had to dare even that attempt. If I were one of those frivolous creatures of the present mode, had I some brilliant parlour trick or other, I might possibly have been able to push myself into some coterie which might finally have brought me to prominence without any real virtue on my part. Well may I say, thank God I was not made for that! I have had to despise men whom I have seen succeed in this way. I am myself possessed with such intense disgust for this kind of worthlessness that I am really glad to have acquired no flavour of it. All that remains for me in Paris now is to live penuriously upon the results of some drudgery I have found to do for a music publisher here, and quietly await the time when fortune and circumstances lead me in the desired direction. I shall be obliged by sheer necessity to cling to this, if the good fortune which seems about to come to me elsewhere does not fulfil all it promises. This piece of good fortune is the definite acceptance of my opera at Dresden. [...]
[...] Nowhere [...]—not even in Berlin or Vienna—could I get a more distinguished personnel for the principal roles of my Rienzi than in Dresden. Devrient and Tichatschek, I need say no more. In short, if God favours my plans this may mean the happy turning-point of my career.
I propose to go to Dresden some 14 days before the performance and so, my dearest little Mother, at last—at last I shall see you again. I am utterly horrified when I think that almost six years have elapsed since last I parted from you! Great God! who would have thought it? I shall meet you all again—all except my kind Rosalie!! Ah me! It was always a blessed thought to me that she who closely watched my growing pains, often with such tender participation, would also witness the happy issue of all my anguished strivings—and now I have to visit her grave! O my God, my God, keep my mother sound and well and leave her strength to rejoice in the prosperity of her children!
We shall not fail! Albert, too, will not, shall not, must not, cannot fail. May Fortune smile even on only one of us, for the happiness of one is that of all! Perhaps Heaven will make me the means and is preparing a place for me whence I can help Albert to his best hopes!—[...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 60