I have been dipping into the biography of Schopenhauer, and felt indescribably attracted by his personality, which has so much that is akin to your own. An old longing came back to me, to look into that inspiredly beauteous eye for once — that deep mirror of Nature which is the common heritage of genius. I recalled to mind our personal commune; before me I saw the whole rich world you yourself had unlocked to the childlike mind; my gaze clung with rapture to the magic edifice; higher and higher throbbed my heart with fervent gratitude; and I felt that nothing of all this could evermore be lost to me! As long as breath is in me, I shall aspire and strive on; and that is your doing. Schopenhauer himself you were not to know, and your tone-creations were never unlocked to him: What does that matter? — he would smilingly exclaim to-day — We two belong to the Whole; an eye that looks on loneliness is our lot!
The book contains an excellent portrait, in which the crass assertion of photography is beautified and transfigured by the spiritual might of the man himself.
Some day when you leave Paris to come nearer to me, I shall enjoy sharing a book with you, at least now and then, without having to trouble you to go to the embassy for it. My poor little box has come back to me, and I have set it dolefully aside. When once you settle down somewhere, I shall certainly smuggle things into your house again, as surely as the goblins pursued the poor peasant. — How fares it with the health — and with the work?
Yours in her heart!
Mathilde Wesendonck.
Source: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck, trans. William Ashton Ellis (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905), No. 157