My dear Liszt,
I must say, You are a friend. Let me say no more to you, for although I always recognized in friendship between men the noblest and highest human relation, it was you who embodied this idea in its fullest reality by letting me no longer imagine, but feel and grasp, what a friend is.
I do not thank you, for you alone have the power to thank yourself by your joy in being what you are. It is noble to have a friend, but still nobler to be a friend.
Having found you, I can put up with my banishment from Germany, and I must look upon it almost as fortunate, for I could not have possibly been of such use to myself in Germany as you can be. But then I wanted you of all others. I cannot write your praise, but when we meet I will tell it you. Kindly and considerately as you treat me, you may feel sure that I as fully understand and appreciate the manner of your care of me. I know that you must act as you act, and not otherwise; and for the manner of your taking care of me I am especially thankful. One thing gives me anxiety: you forget yourself over me, and I cannot replace what you lose of yourself in this. Consider this well.
Your letter has in many respects made a great impression on me. I have convictions which perhaps you will never share, but which you will not think it necessary to combat when I tell you that they in no manner interfere with my artistic activity. I have felt the pulse of our modern art, and know that it must die, but this does not make me melancholy, but rather joyful, because I know that not art, but only our art, standing as it does outside of real existence, must perish, while the true, imperishable, ever-new art has still to be born. The monumental character of our art will disappear; the clinging and sticking to the past, the selfish care for continuity and possible immortality, we shall cast off; the Past will be Past, the Future will be Future, to us, and we shall live and create only in the Today, in the full Present. Remember that I used to call you happy in your particular art, because you were an immediate artist, actually present, and appealing to the senses at every moment. That you could do so only by means of an instrument was not your fault, but that of the inevitable conditions of our time, which reduces the individual man wholly to himself, and in which association, enabling the single artist to expend his power in the common and immediately present work of art, is an impossible thing. It was not my purpose to flatter you. I only expressed half consciously my knowledge that the representative alone is the true artist. Our creations as poets and composers are in reality volition, not power; representation only is power—art. Believe me, I should be ten times happier if I were a dramatic representative instead of a dramatic poet and composer. With this conviction which I have gained, I am naturally not desirous to create works for which I should have to resign a life in the present in order to give them some flattering, fictitious immortality. What cannot be made true today will remain untrue in the future. The vain desire of creating beyond the present for the future I abandon, but if I am to create for the present, that present must appear to me in a less disgusting form than it actually does. I renounce fame, and more especially the ridiculous spectre of posthumous fame, because I love my fellow-men too much to condemn them, for the sake of my vanity, to the poverty in which alone the posthumous fame of dead people finds its nourishment.
As things are, I am incited to artistic creativeness, not by ambition, but by the desire to hold communion with my friends and the wish to give them joy; where I know this desire and this wish to be satisfied I am happy and perfectly content. If you in little Weimar give my Lohengrin with zeal and love, joy and success, and were it only for the two performances of which you write, I shall be happy in the thought that my purpose has been perfectly accomplished, that my anxiety about this work is wholly at an end, and that now I may begin another effort at offering something new in a similar manner. Judge then, can you blame my conviction which rids me of all egoism, of all the small passions of ambition? Surely not. Ah, that I might be able to communicate to all of you some of the blissful strength of my convictions!
Hear now what effect your letter has had upon me.
Last May I sent the poem of my Siegfried to a book-seller to be published, such as it is. In a short preface I explained that the completion and the performance of my work were beyond hope, and that I therefore communicated my intention to my friends. In fact, I shall not compose my Siegfried on the mere chance for the reasons I have just told you. Now, you offer to me the artistic association which might bring Siegfried to light. I demand representatives of heroes such as our stage has not yet seen; where are they to come from? Not from the air, but from the earth, for I believe you are in a good way to make them grow from the earth by dint of your inspiring care. Although our theatrical muddle is hopelessly confused, the best soil for all art is still to be found in our foolish actors and singers; their nature, if they have kept their hearts at all, is incorruptible; by means of enthusiasm you can make anything of them. Well then, as soon as you have produced Lohengrin to your own satisfaction I shall also produce my Siegfried, but only for you and for Weimar. Two days ago I should not have believed that I should come to this resolution; I owe it to you.
My dear Liszt, from what I have told you you will see that, according to my view of the thing, your amiable anxiety for the further promulgation of my Lohengrin has my sympathy almost alone on account of its material advantages—for I must live—but not with a view to my fame. I might have the desire to communicate myself to a larger circle, but is he likely to be listened to who intrudes? I cannot and will not intrude. You surely have done enough to attract the attention of people towards me; shall I too buttonhole them and ask them for a hearing? Dear friend, these people are flabby and cowardly; they have no heart. Leave them alone! If I am to succeed, it must be through people who care about the matter. Where I must offer myself I lose all my power. How can I care about a "Leipsic representation"? It would have to be a good representation, and how is that to be achieved unless some one like you undertook the thing? Do not forget that Weimar also would not exist for me if you did not happen to exist in Weimar. Good Lord! All depends upon one man in our days; the rest must be dragged along anyhow; nothing will go of itself. Even money considerations could not determine me to arrange performances which would of necessity be bad. Lord knows, although I have no money, I do not trouble about it excessively, for I have a notion that somehow I shall not starve. Just when I have nothing at all something always turns up, as, for instance, your last news, and then I feel suddenly calm and free of care. You see, dear friend, as long as you remain true to me I do not despair. As to your excellent proposal with regard to the treatment of Gluck's operas, which has given me great pleasure, I shall soon write more definitely.
Although I have many more things to tell you, I think it better to conclude on this page. You say so many things to me that I become quite confused when I have to think of a detailed answer. I know that I am safe with you as a child in its mother's bosom. What more is required beyond gratitude and love? Farewell, and let me press you to my heart.
Herr von Zigesar will have a letter very soon; for the present I send him my best thanks for his valuable letter and his touching sympathy with my work. One more thing: a certain conductor, Abt, from this place will be at Weimar on August 28th to hear Lohengrin. Kindly reserve a seat for him.
My best remembrances to Genast and my brave singers. I rejoice when I think of these good people. A whole family, Ritter by name, will come from Dresden to Switzerland next year, to settle near me; they also will be at Weimar. I am writing to Uhlig.
Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #3835, Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt — Volume 1, No. 35