Wagner's Letters

Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck

Undated · Zurich

Overview

Sent with the completed sketches for Act II of Tristan, Wagner marvels at the "wondrous birth of our child of sorrows" and asks whether, after all, they were meant to live, since no one could be asked to forsake his children.

Letter

What a wondrous birth of our child of sorrows! Had we to live, then, after all? From whom could it be asked, that he should forsake his children? —

God stand by us, poor creatures!

Or are we too rich?

Must we help ourselves unaided? —

Source: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck, trans. William Ashton Ellis (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905), No. 56

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