[...] It really was not nice of you not to come to see me, and yet I know, of course, that for you home, husband and child come first, and so you are among the absolutely happy. [...]
Well, I am not among them. Just imagine what it is like for me—utter weariness of life wrestling in me with the conscious resolve now at last to employ my life aright. Only—curiously enough!—I am never happy about my resolutions! I notice that it is all mere affectation with nothing genuine behind it. And this is why a profound disbelief in my life often appears to me in alluringly soothing guise; like those brief moments when one is falling asleep, and enjoys true blessedness.—
Well, I have a young King who really dotes upon me—you can have no conception of it! I remember that in my early youth I dreamed that Shakespeare was alive and that I actually saw and spoke with him in the flesh; the impression made on me is unforgettable and I yearned to see Beethoven as well (he was then dead). Something of the kind must be the experience of this dear mortal in this case. He tells me he can still scarcely believe that he really has me!—No one can read his letters to me without amazement and delight. Liszt thinks his receptivity is reciprocal to my productivity. It is a miracle! Believe it! And should not that make one glad? Indeed, it must—and yet, how hard, how hard it is for me to rejoice! Nothing less than this wonderful King would have sufficed me—else it were finished, utterly finished!
And I had actually already been abandoned by all my old friends—it was really you only who still believed in me.—
I have been quite alone again for some time, like living in some bewitched castle. I cannot deny that I find this utter solitude very bad for me now. Believe me, it is an evil which will bleed away my life. Unhappily, things were similarly bewitched before, when I had friends with me; there was no blessing or peace. Poor Bülow came at the beginning of July very run down, with overwrought and shattered nerves, and had cold, bad weather all the time. Consequently, his stay did not suit him and he fell victim to one illness after another. Added to that a tragic marriage—a young and quite extraordinarily gifted wife, the very image of Liszt, but intellectually superior to him.—
If only it were my nature to extract from things and circumstances my share of comfort upon the surface of life! Well, I am not like that; I am fool enough to take everything seriously. It was most important to snatch Bülow the artist from his insanely nerve-wracking employment and find him a nobler field of work.
It was easy to persuade the young King—for whom, too, it was a very important matter—to appoint Bülow as his pianist. I hope to have the Bülows living permanently with me very shortly. I have impressed on both that there is only one hope of salvation for us all—community in creation of, and work for, the highest art.—That would give us a reason to endure and take hold—in despite of difficulties and life-weariness.—As you see, nothing goes smoothly for me! For instance, Lassalle's death! The poor man was actually with me (through Bülow's agency) a fortnight before his death, to persuade me to intervene with the King of Bavaria against his ambassador in Switzerland (Dönniges). (For I am simply regarded as an all-powerful favourite; recently I was appealed to by the orphans of a female poisoner!) What do you say to that? I did not know Lassalle at all; on this occasion he displeased me intensely; it was a love-story of sheer vanity and false pathos. I saw in him the type of the great men of the future—I can only call it the Germanic-Judaic.—
I have still no house in the town. I want something promising permanence, and can find nothing. I am to have something built for me, but that takes two years. Shall I really live so long? And yet I shall. My young King is saving up [...] to get funds for the production of The Nibelungs. I have not had one day of real rest as yet; I hesitate as to what I shall take up next. Probably I shall end by setting everything else aside and finishing The Nibelungs; if I tell the King that, I shall be still better off. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 590