You often give me cause, dear Minna, to ponder whether of the two is better, to stay silent as to certain of your utterances, or reply to them. As a rule I think it of more benefit to both of us, to pass over this and that in your letters in silence, above all when it only deals with me; and I have also found this verified by thereafter learning from yourself that I had attached too much importance to your observations here and there. The case is different, however, when I have to see that it concerns ideas which so often recur for your self-torture; then I am bound to feel I ought to do my utmost to explain things for your reassurance. Above all I see, to my regret, that a readily excusable feminine vanity prevents your ever realising what one strictly means by love. With me this feeling comes into play when another's sympathetic interest in me moves me to thank him no longer in words, but by deeds; so long as I feel compelled to make return to anyone by an assurance of my gratitude and friendship, I feel that things are not quite straight between the two of us as yet; only when I feel I need no longer do so, but may accept the boon conferred upon me as a gift which, I may rest convinced, delights the giver almost more than myself, the receiver; thus, when I have no further need of words and protestations, but must even account them superfluous and out of place, — only then do I also feel transferred to the position of rediscovering my own welfare in another's, of recognising the good turn I do him as a charity shewn myself; when he suffers, of setting his interest on a thorough equality with mine; and when he suffers very much, even of subordinating my welfare to his, since it becomes clear to me that my personal welfare can repose on nothing save the restoration of that other's.
In your very exhausted condition you must be allowed to overlook the fact of my finding myself in the said mood and position towards yourself; yet, in spite of a seemingly contradictory experience, you ought to judge that if at the end of 25 years I am now behaving the most pronouncedly thus towards yourself, it must also constitute the leading feature of my whole relation to you. — What one has accordingly to understand by Love in its noblest sense, however, never comes out between husband and wife till their relation has matured. What begets that relation is something quite different; it is a charm of shorter or longer duration, but fleeting of its very nature: in common parlance one calls the condition when one is under the spell of this charm, being in love (Verliebtheit). This phase — for it is only a phase, and therefore changeable — makes us eager and selfish; for it is nothing but the longing to possess the other exclusively and for one's will. Hence that prodigious jealousy which is almost a preponderant factor in this passion: to ensure ourselves a right to jealousy, i.e. to keep everyone else away from the coveted object, we enter engagements without reflection, without pondering whether other circumstances permit, yes, even without regard as to whether we are ensuring the happiness of the coveted object of our selfish longing, or may not rather be endangering it in the extreme, — engagements and alliances that have no other aim whatever than the making us legitimate owners. This is the foundation of all marriages for so-called — love. No heed is paid to outward circumstances; perhaps a simple glance around, a moment of calm reflection, tells us that under present circumstances, the insecurity of our outward position and everything connected with it, the consequences of a precipitate marriage must inevitably be embarrassing, disheartening, full of want and care; but the blind lust for undivided possession of the other blots out all reason: self-will conquers, and the consequences, cares, sorrows, hardships and distress — which unavoidably follow in the train of an immature and outwardly precarious situation with no civic bottom to it — not only do not fail to appear, but become the more serious and painful, the more high-spirited and passionate the individuals who attract each other.
Now see, dear child, when I wished to give people a notion of the genesis of my works, and consequently of my psychological development, I could not pass over such a momentous crisis in my life, as that which attaches to our union, without remaining unintelligible. It would have been foolish and entirely opposed to my real object, if I had sought to narrate our love-tale at full length; all I required were just a few brief strokes to indicate an episode of some importance which, for that matter, occurs in the life of so many, nay, of most men, and need be only briefly touched because one presupposes that everyone knows well enough what here is meant: to wit, the necessary consequences of a youthful marriage contracted at the behest of passion, without calm consideration of outer circumstances, against all obstacles and objections raised by that practical common-sense which foresees trouble.
That you will not get it out of your head that I meant to expose and even accuse yourself, to me seems so nonsensical and perverse, that I hitherto have scarcely known how to reply to you; because I couldn't see in what way to enlighten your mind on a thing so simply understandable that I really hope to find no misconstruction of it has occurred to others, saving perhaps to persons of the Sch.'s intelligence and so on, for whom at all events I never wrote my book.
I am very sorry now, at any rate, I had that Preface printed then; for it was far too poetically (genial) written for the majority of readers even half to understand. Thus I also have to regret that in the whole of this Preface you still pay no heed to anything except that passage, and maybe could wish that I had seized the opportunity of writing a fuller account of my life, when I should also have been able to give yourself a handsome testimonial in the eyes of all the world for your self-sacrifice and loyalty. If you understood the whole, however, you would also see that it never struck me to write a biography — a thing I really should have thought absurd and droll enough, to say nothing of puffing my wife — but on the contrary, that I touched in brief hints merely on such points in my life as seemed needful for displaying the course of my artistic development. So, if anyone should speak to you in future of that passage with a dubious look, just laugh them in the face and say: "Bless my soul, after leading me a pretty dance with his ridiculous jealousy, just to prevent anyone else coming near me he insisted on marriage; and in such unfavourable and beggarly circumstances, that my calm reflection told me in advance what misery we should have to undergo. But what was I to do? I loved him also. And so we pair of callow youngsters rushed into a misère which soon enough became so grievous and acute that I myself believed I couldn't bear it any longer; and since besides my headstrong young husband's heavy load of debts, with a summer out of work in front of us, he further plagued me with the fiercest outbursts of an intolerable jealousy, one day I ran away." —
Thus, dear child, might you answer in full keeping with the truth, and you would have explained that passage correctly. But I presume that no one but a stupid person could put you in a position dictating such an answer; since a person of sound intelligence would understand the passage by itself, and never think of driving you into an explanation that would end by rather raising doubts about your love for me, than mine for you. For a really intelligent person then would ask you in reply: "So you could run away like that from your young inexperienced husband in the sore plight he was in, as well as you? According to that, you did not really love him, did you? For a wife who truly loves her husband, and cannot help loving him, no doubt may feel very wretchedly injured by his outbursts, but so soon as her simple love-instinct reminds her that even those outbursts sprang from nothing but the passion of love (you know, of course, that passionate love and jealousy have made men murder their beloved!), moreover, that the unhappy, hard and grievous plight in which you left him was after all itself a consequence of the imprudence with which he had insisted on marriage when it would have been better to await a more propitious season, and therefore had strictly proceeded from his ardent affection for you, — so soon as she remembered that, she couldn't possibly run away from him; since that very misery, at bottom, must have borne witness to her of the uncommon strength of his affection."
As a fact, dear child, there are many would answer you thus; and as you're so particularly fond of indulging these old reminiscences, I will simply tell you that a very calm and intelligent man of great feeling actually gave me this to reflect on at the time itself — when, accusing myself in excuse of you, to reconcile him to your conduct I had given him the elucidation I have put into your mouth above for future use. You know him quite well, and doubtless will not have much to say against him; it was Hermann Brockhaus, whose letter of that epoch also lately fell into my hands again. — As said, though, should this serious reply be ever made you, then without detracting from your honour you might answer somewhat thus: "Undoubtedly my love for Richard had vanished in those troublous days, but I do not believe it would have gone that length if a man of good position and ample means had not approached me at the same time with so strong a show of heartfelt sympathy for my sufferings, and protested that sympathy in such alluring fashion, that under all these conflicting impressions I wavered for a while; and since Richard's love for me only manifested itself in such wounding explosions that I could scarcely recognise it any more, I was unable to perceive in it sufficient recompense for all the misery this unfortunate headlong marriage had brought on both of us. Yes, I must reproach myself with having allowed it to unsettle my mind awhile, and anyone who takes account of everything will be able to forgive the young wife for so far yielding to temptation that she kept away from her husband at first, treated him hostilely and misled him as to her steps, and faltered in her choice between him and another to such a point that that other, alas, could give himself the look of my having shewn more favour to him than really was the case. But that relation itself was my ordeal, and in it I first gained full conviction of my love for Richard, which finally emerged as the fruit of that regrettable aberration. For, precisely when it had to come to a decision, I plainly recognised how fond I was of Richard, so that I prevailed on myself to confess my fault to him — who had meantime abandoned all hope of me, and taken up an engagement in far-off Riga — and to ask his forgiveness, averring that nothing save the gotten consciousness of my great love for him could have moved me to do so. Richard himself, too, had meanwhile had much to get over, and in particular his love for me had been put to a hard test: appearances had imbued him with the suspicion, indeed the belief, that I had completely betrayed him and surrendered myself to another; newspapers had been sent him from Hamburg, in which he read that I had been staying at the same hotel with that other; what else could the poor fellow believe, than just the worst? Indeed, he had received letters in which he was positively taunted on account of my behaviour; whilst covert and overt insinuations were made him even by members of the theatre at which he was, ridiculing him as a cheated husband. He stood that test, however, and it proved that his earlier fierce and froward passion had made place for a true and earnest love. He answered me at once with devotion, forgave me all, called me to his side, and never afterwards discussed my lapse with anybody, even under the sorest temptations arising later. So love, belief and loyalty had taken their abode with us, and the trials of our youth were past, even though the hard trials of maturer life itself remained in store for us. With Richard's individuality, which on the one hand qualified him for the creation of such important works, and in the end for such unusual successes, it could not but be, on the other, that strong shadows also thereby fell upon our life. I am not referring to the constant outward cares and trouble, although they sorely taxed my strength: but it could not be avoided that his original artistic temperament, the peculiarly emotional and enthralling fervour of his works, should keep him in the same state of excitation as was conveyed by them to others, and thereby troubling of my own repose must necessarily arise. So considerable an artist as my Richard, and constantly at work with such passionate tools, retains throughout his life a certain juvenility which often, no doubt, must become alarming to the wife at his side; whereas in the accustomed narrow circle of the household that wife remains near him as an ancient possession, which one often doesn't notice any longer just because one is so familiar with and certain of it, from without new figures may present themselves toward whose effect the anxious wife may have to be forbearing. Luckily he was cut off from the world during the time of his actual triumph, and perhaps many an anxiety thus passed over my head; yet I was not left without painful experiences, which affected me all the more violently as the constant distress and unrest of our life unfortunately had made me and my health intensely sensitive. In exchange, however, I have also reaped the comforting experience that when it came to an extremity, and sorrow overwhelmed me, I could rely on Richard once again; for it was precisely then he proved the faithfulest and most unselfish to me, thereby justifying me in the conclusion that he most heartily reciprocates my love and loyalty, and finally would bow to anything and give up everything, to raise me up and be a good husband to me to the best of his ability. — That's how things stand with us, and now — ask me no further questions."
I believe this answer would be thoroughly truthful and wise, and thereafter you might hold up your head with tranquil pride. I'm not annoyed with you for placing me in the position of having to prescribe it to you, but I beg you to lay to heart this undoubtedly clear and veracious résumé of our relation as my answer to your repeated indictments, and to make its substance yours; which cannot possibly fall hard, or be distasteful to you. And so, dear Minna, cease tormenting yourself, and reflect that if you therewith torture me as well, it is only through its making me feel so concerned to see you still so agitated inwardly. As for myself, my mind is so clear on these points, and I have arrived at such deep inner calm, that I feel perfectly secure and justified in my every act in this regard; for I may tell myself, I seek my only welfare now in no one's suffering any further for my sake. — Let that suffice you also for your peace of soul; if you cannot represent the past to yourself in a conciliatory light, then put forth all your power to forget it, and abide by what I am to you. —
Soon more; I shall write again tomorrow or the next day! Farewell! Thanks for your letters.
Thy Richard.
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 2 (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909), No. 172