[...] Really I am only writing to prevent you from beginning to think I am ungrateful to you.
While I was with you I had to go through the dreadful birthpangs of my happiness, and you were my midwife; we saw and felt nothing but the distress and anguish of that birth; and it may well be that for actual mothers, delivery is a life-and-death process in which all thought of what is to be born is wiped out and pain remains the only reality. And yet I scarcely know how I could have gone through it all and eventually, without visible hope, have taken leave of you, in a tolerably self-possessed and endurable frame of mind, if there had not been some sort of consciousness in the depths of my being that I had, by my unheard-of sufferings, at least acquired a title to something greater, a title, indeed, which, if not acknowledged by the world, yet raised me by so much the higher above the world and so made of me, even in the depths of wretchedness, an inwardly hallowed and blessed man.
You, my dear friend, can bear witness that I have a right to rate my sufferings so high. Think to what depths I was abased. Surely it could not have been worse? Truly things were as bad as they could be! But see, dear precious friend, this deepest humiliation has raised me up at last; I felt that if I could bear all this and yet remain gentle and kind it must mean that some higher destiny was reserved for me. It flashed across me like lightning that now the curtain must rise and some wonderful happiness be displayed. It was the same with you, you said so plainly. Confess that we were both as though God-inspired! And, my friend, this was what I felt—that I did not mind whether that curtain rose in life, or first in death; that it would rise I knew.—And so it happened that when my wonderful good fortune came, I was not at all afraid; I was certain it would come, and was only startled that it should come with such express speed, now, yes, this very day and hour. The envoy [Pfistermeister] was actually with me when letters came from Vienna informing me of the disastrous turn things had taken there as the result of the ill-advised action of the friends I had empowered to act for me locally, so that I came to a swift decision to start for Vienna at once. My envoy accompanied me to Munich, where, having missed the connection, I had to spend the night, and early next morning I was prevented from pursuing my journey that day by an acute attack of illness. However, I pulled myself together sufficiently to visit the young King in the afternoon. At once all became clear and conclusive—the curtain had risen. A few days later I continued my journey to Vienna; what formerly could have been accomplished only by the most despairing effort and personal sacrifice was now easy to arrange. I returned with my servants and my faithful dog to my last new home where, upborne by the divinest love, I now enjoy the marvellous bliss which we brought to birth that feverish night at Mariafeld.
Do not doubt it, my dear. This happiness alone fully balances all the sorrows I have had to bear to the very extreme of misery. I felt that even if it never came I had yet been worthy, and it is this that makes me feel sure it will last. However, if you want further corroboration of the divine origin of this piece of good fortune, you shall hear it now. In the very year of the first performance of my Tannhäuser (the work with which I first set out on my new and thorny way), the year in which I felt impelled to such extreme productivity that I conceived Lohengrin and The Mastersingers simultaneously, a mother bore me my guardian angel!
At the very time when I was finishing my Tristan in Lucerne and was making incredible efforts to secure my return to Germany (till at last I turned in despair to Paris, there to wear myself out in enterprises repellent to my nature), a fifteen-year-old lad first saw my Lohengrin performed, and was thereby so deeply moved that thenceforward he based his self-education upon the study of my works and writings, telling his associates (as he tells me now) that I am really his only tutor and instructor. He follows my career and my troubles, my Paris calamities, my ruin in Germany, and nourishes but one wish, to gain power to prove the extent of his love. It was the boy's sole and devastating grief that he was at a loss to get his obtuse associates to take the necessary interest in me. Early in March this year—I know the very day—I realised the failure of every attempt of mine to resolve the confusion of my affairs; open-eyed, helpless and despairing, I watched the approach of horrible degradation. Then—quite unexpectedly—the King of Bavaria dies and my compassionate guardian angel ascends the throne in despite of Fate. His first care, a month later, is to send for me; while I, with your merciful aid, am draining to its lowest dregs the cup of anguish, the envoy is already seeking me in my deserted home at Penzing; he was ordered to take to the King who loved me a pencil, a pen, belonging to me.—How and when he met me at last, you know.—My dear, no doubt is possible here. It was that and it is that!—Ah! at last a tie of love, bringing no sorrow nor torment with it! What it is to me to have this splendid lad before me! On my birthday he presented me with the beautiful oil-portrait for which he sat expressly for me. This wonderful picture has shown me how to give others evidence that I have "genius"; look there, there is my "genius" before your very eyes!—
An intimate friend of the King's assures me that he believes the lad is thus grave and strict in affairs of Government in order to let no one gain undue influence, to preserve his independence and ensure his power to live for his love for me. He himself is perfectly aware who I am and what I need; I have not had to waste a word about my position. He feels that the royal prerogative ought to suffice to ward off all sordid cares from me, to leave me wholly free for my Muse, to procure the means for the production of my works, when and as I may wish. He spends most of his time here now in a small castle near to me; the carriage takes me there in ten minutes. He sends once or twice daily, and then I always hasten as to a sweetheart. It is most delightful intercourse. I have never known such lovely impetuosity in the impulse to seek instruction, such quiver and glow! And then his dear care for me, his enchanting purity of heart, his every expression as he assures me of his joy in possessing me; so we often sit together for hours lost in each other's gaze. He makes no display of me—we care just for each other. If I wished, so they tell me, the whole Court would be open to me, but he would not understand me if I wanted to play an ambitious rôle there. It is all so beautiful and sincere. How easy it makes it for me to be at peace in every respect; no one notices me and I encroach on no one; all the things we both inwardly despise go quietly on their way; we do not bother ourselves. Gradually everyone will come to love me, and even now the young King's immediate entourage are glad to discover and know that I am what I am, for everyone sees that my enormous influence on the mind of this prince can tend only to good and can do no one any harm. So day by day everything within us and around us becomes better and more beautiful!—
This is my good fortune, my friend! Can you doubt that it is the right thing? The right thing, yes, it must be right; now you shall see how it lasts and how all prospers. Doubt not!—
[Written a few days later.]
[...] I am in complete solitude here; I still lack a little company in the house; perhaps I may get Cornelius to come. Shall I be able to do without the "feminine" element? It is with so deep a sigh that I say No, that I must almost wish I could!—A glance at his dear picture helps me again! Ah, the dear lad! Indeed, he is everything to me—world, wife and child! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 583