Dear Friend,
You will certainly realise what joy your letter has given me when you think of my situation, which places all my joys at a distance and never close at hand. I am so dependent on someone's caring about me, that now I can only receive happy and encouraging impressions as by some fortunate chance. Such a chance it was which brought me you, when I could least of all expect a musician suddenly to accord me notice. I cannot possibly describe to you the impression you made upon me at that time. I became a new man through you. Really it is largely your fault that I have not yet abandoned art, and I scarcely know whether to thank you for it! My broken health makes me long so greatly for life—not just for length of days simply—but for a short (oh, so willingly short!) but a healthy life. I am forced to see that I can only recover my health now by abandoning my suicidal attitude to our modern art together with my artistic activities as a whole. Since I cannot delude myself with mere appearances, since I can no longer seek fame or "recognition" in art, but simply the satisfaction of a need which life denies me—the need of love—so, too, I can no longer cheat myself into believing that, under conditions of public art which are a true reflection of my love-denying life, this need can be satisfied even approximately. Experiences such as the acquisition of your friendship really do no more than conduce to fresh disorders. For what else can our intercourse be but the mutual communication of our similar dissatisfaction? Verily, I must think myself happy now to find friends who share my feelings sincerely, however comfortless the world about us! For it troubles me greatly to see that most of the dissatisfaction felt is dissatisfaction only with the externals of our life as artists—and most of the friends I meet are like that—while all I really care for and desire is to be the reformer of opera! But when two meet, such as we, who value art only as the expression of life, we confess a mutual cause of complaint and bewail a situation common to both, yet which is the only one we care to be in as it is the most righteous.—So there we remain, at the theoretical stage, and cannot get beyond it. Even our actual works of art can only call up theoretical vision, since in the end we must always be wrecked upon the impossibility of successful presentation of our work. And when we consider, furthermore, that even this (impossible!) satisfactory presentation of the work of art would still be no more than an attempt to express the unsatisfied need of life, we are forced to admit that a full realisation of the situation can only lead to madness! If there were such a thing as a will capable of overruling the necessity of one's own being, I should assuredly will not to be an artist any longer; and how I long to be able to forget all about art and have done with feeling life a perpetual burden! Unhappily, though, there is no way of escape for me, and anything I could do to flee from art would be more artificial than art itself. When you see me staggering on under my burden, though, don't imagine I see before me a clear goal, to reach which I do this or that—to bring this or that within my grasp. It all goes on involuntarily, simply because I must.
As you see, [...] I am drowning in theory again, which is all the more foolish as I know no reason why I should tell you what your clear brain has undoubtedly perceived for itself already. To add something practical, I can do nothing better than express the wish that you should contrive to visit me in Switzerland next summer with Uhlig. [...]
The performances of my Tannhäuser, about to take place now in Germany, are really of very trivial value to me. They will be horribly badly done, of that I am sure, and the result will be that some things will please, as some things will displease, through sheer misunderstanding. No one will enjoy them intelligently, and I laugh beforehand at both success and failure. If you read my demands upon the performers you will realise that I can expect no true success anywhere.—
Now then, after you have received these melancholy outpourings, let me end by thanking you with all my heart for the gift of your friendship, and rest assured that if we can be any help to each other, it is thus. But go on with your good work and send me—do not be horrified!—your Songs and do write again very soon. Chiefly, however, think over an early journey to Switzerland! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 226