Qforttell ftnroecBttg ffiibratg 
 
 Stifutu, Nrro fork 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY 
 
 COLLECTED BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 
 1854-1919 
 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
 Music, 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924017141684 
 
RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
All rights resirved 
 
 Richard Wagner's 
 Letters 
 
 TO 
 
 AUGUST ROECKEL 
 
 Translated by 
 ELEANOR C. SELLAR 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 
 BY HOUSTON STEWART CHAMBERLAIN 
 
 BRISTOL 
 J. W. Arrowsmith, ii Quay Street 
 
 LONDON 
 Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Company Limited 
 
 fc& 
 
WAGNER. 
 
 BY 
 
 HOUSTON STEWART CHAMBERLAIN. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 TT is curious to observe how much deeper 
 the French go in their interest for Richard 
 Wagner than the English. The English flock 
 to Bayreuth, that is true, and they flock to 
 Richter's concerts and to the wretched 
 parodies of Wagner's operas with which the 
 metropolis is occasionally gratified; but even 
 among enthusiasts, hardly one in a thousand 
 knows anything about Wagner, the man,, nor of 
 the stubborn battle waged by him during fifty 
 
RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 years against a demoralised and demoralising 
 stage, and against the perversion of music — or 
 of what he calls " the Christian Art "—into a 
 mere accomplishment, a mere trade and handi- 
 craft. Hardly anyone in England (outside a 
 small cluster of enthusiasts) takes the trouble 
 to study seriously Wagner's doctrine of a new 
 form of Drama which resembles the Opera only 
 on the principle of " les extremes se touchent." 
 We simply like his music, or we don't like it, and 
 trouble our heads no further on the matter. In 
 France, on the contrary, the literature on 
 Wagner is almost as voluminous and at least 
 as valuable as that in Germany. All the 
 principal Journals and Reviews — the Revue des 
 deux Mondes, the Revue de Paris, the Revue Bleue, 
 the Revue Blanche, etc. — have frequent and 
 interesting articles on Wagner, signed by men 
 of the highest literary standing, such as Catulle 
 Mendes, MallarmS, Gaston Paris, Schure, 
 Wyzewa, not one of whom is a professional 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 musician, or would ever dream of severing the 
 composer in Wagner from the poet and the 
 philosopher. In short, the French have long 
 since discovered that of which we still remain 
 ignorant ; viz., that Wagner is not only a 
 remarkable musician, but a creative genius of 
 the very first order ; a man so many-sided in 
 his interests and so lucid and energetic in his 
 thought, that, quite apart from his music, he 
 deserves to be studied as one of the most 
 remarkable minds of this century. 
 
 Now, it is no good trying to swim against 
 the tide, and I fear even Mr. William Ashton 
 Ellis' admirable translation of Wagner's prose 
 writings is not likely to do much good until our 
 interest in Wagner has been aroused. Nothing 
 is so likely to arouse it as Wagner's letters, for 
 these show us the man; he seems to step out 
 of them bodily before our eyes. And this man 
 is so upright, simple, sincere, and lovable, such 
 a manly man, that we at once feel under the 
 
8 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 spell and long to know more about him. There 
 is nothing of the style epistolaire in Wagner's 
 letters ; they are always written rapidly, and 
 rarely is there a word struck out or altered. 
 Spontaneousness was one of the great charms 
 of Wagner's personal intercourse : it is the 
 same with his letters. A few of these, read 
 with the vivid remembrance of his music in our 
 ears, suffice to make one feel intimate with him. 
 His extraordinary sensitiveness comes out in 
 almost every letter. No impressions from 
 outside are necessary ; whatever subject his 
 thought rests on, his mind at once adopts a 
 peculiar complexion, his voice modulates into 
 the key most fitted to this emotion. In one 
 and the same letter he is boisterously gay as 
 a schoolboy, and suddenly, as the picture of a 
 suffering friend suggests itself, he strikes the 
 deepest chords of melancholy ; or, again, some 
 word casually dropped lays bare the underlying 
 philosophical current, and he launches forth 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 into subtle dialectical argument, such as would 
 do honour to a Petrus Abaelardus. However, 
 where Wagner is at home, and where we feel 
 that his words are master words — that is, when 
 he talks of the Drama and Music, and this, as 
 the absorbing aim and object of his life, is the 
 subject of almost all his letters. His interests 
 are many — politics, philosophy, religion, litera- 
 ture — but they all centre and culminate in Art 
 (understood in the comprehensive sense of the 
 German word " Kunst"). 
 
 Art is for him, as it was for Schiller, the 
 source and crown of civilisation ; Art is the 
 handmaiden of religion. And what Art is for 
 civilisation, that the Drama is for Art. The 
 Drama is not only the climax of the inventive 
 powers of man, but it is the fountain-head 
 from which the several individual arts originate, 
 and towards which they again converge ; it is 
 the heart that propels the life-giving blood 
 through the entire body, and which gathers it 
 
IO RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 back from each separate member in order to 
 infuse new life into the whole. There is no 
 reason, and in fact no possibility, of separating 
 Wagner's music from his Drama. " Go deep 
 enough, there is music everywhere," says 
 Carlyle, in speaking of Dante's Divina Corn- 
 media. The poet Wagner goes deep, and 
 what eyes cannot see, nor words utter, finds 
 shape and language in music such as his. 
 This is not the music of mere sensual melody 
 and rhythm that serves as an opiate after toil 
 and care, or as a pastime to charm away an 
 idle hour. It is a music akin to that in which 
 popular instinct had so often given expression 
 to feelings which the mere words of its ballads 
 and songs were able to convey but imperfectly ; 
 it is the music which the genius of Mozart 
 unconsciously lights upon, thus transforming 
 frivolous and preposterous libretti into immortal 
 creations; it is the music of those deepest 
 depths in which Beethoven lived and moved 
 
PREFACE. II 
 
 and had his being. Wagner's music is not 
 melodramatic, it is not intended to illustrate 
 the stage action ; with him the music is the drama, 
 and both the action which we see and the 
 thoughts that words give expression to are 
 merely a reflex, an "allegory" of the real 
 dramatic action, of the action in the "depths" 
 that Carlyle alludes to, where Music is the one 
 and only language of man and of all creation. 
 
 It was necessary to lay some stress upon 
 this point, for much in Wagner's letters would 
 be quite incomprehensible to anyone accustomed 
 to think of him as a mere musician, in the 
 ordinary superficial sense of the word. Such 
 a person would be perplexed to find Wagner 
 always engrossed in the poem and in the 
 dramatic action. Wagner, who dislikes theory 
 in Art, and who writes such books as the 
 Artwork of the Future and Opera and Drama 
 merely because this was the only means of 
 making way for his new conception of the 
 
12 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 Drama, rarely, if ever, in his letters starts 
 theoretical discussions concerning music. He 
 is naturally very full of his works, and what he 
 says is most instructive, both for our knowledge 
 of his works individually and for a thorough 
 mastery of his conception of Art and the Drama 
 in general. However, it will only be found 
 instructive to those who start unprejudiced, and 
 with the sincere desire, not of finding fault with 
 Wagner, but of understanding him and entering 
 into his way of feeling as regards the organic 
 relationship between Music and the Drama. 
 
 Three collections of letters by Wagner have 
 been published. One consists of some two 
 hundred letters to Liszt;* a second, of one 
 hundred and seventy-five letters to his Dresden 
 friends, Uhlig, Fischer, and Heine ; t the third 
 
 * An English translation of the Wagner-Liszt letters, under 
 the title Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, by the late Dr. 
 Hueffer (of The Times), was published by H. Grevel & Co., 
 King Street, London. 
 
 + The correspondence with Uhlig, in an English translation 
 by J. S. Shedlock, was published also by H. Grevel & Co. 
 
PREFACE. 13 
 
 collection of letters, those addressed to Roeckel 
 and here introduced to the English reader, is 
 comparatively very small — twelve letters only ; 
 but owing to a peculiar combination of cir- 
 cumstances, these twelve letters are so full of 
 varied interest, that perhaps no other publica- 
 tion exists which is so qualified to serve as a 
 first introduction to Wagner. 
 
 Liszt was, both intellectually and as a musician, 
 immensely superior to Wagner's other corre- 
 spondents. But this very superiority, added to 
 the fact that Liszt was constantly actively 
 engaged in propagating Wagner's works, and 
 in pleading his cause before kings and princes 
 and before the public, rendered it unnecessary 
 for Wagner to enter into details concerning his 
 poems in writing to Liszt as he does with 
 others. What forms the subject-matter of this 
 correspondence is, on the one hand, debate 
 and counsel concerning the endless difficulties 
 which beset his life ; on the other hand, the 
 
.14 RICHARD WAGNERS LETTERS. 
 
 outbreaks of passionate love and gratitude on 
 the part of the poor exile, who feels that but 
 for this great man's unswerving devotion he 
 must be lost for ever. The correspondence 
 with Liszt is thus a mine of biographical facts, 
 and at the same time one of the most pathetic 
 documents we possess concerning Wagner. 
 But, as Liszt says in one of his letters : " One 
 single chord brings our two hearts nearer to 
 each other than any amount of verbiage." 
 Intimacy is seen quite as much in what people 
 hold their tongues about as in what they say 
 to each other. 
 
 Wagner's letters to Uhlig are of a totally 
 different nature. Uhlig was a clever and a 
 refined man, gifted with a singularly receptive 
 intellect. Liszt never entered into the detail 
 of Wagner's thought, Uhlig did ; Liszt cared 
 little or nothing for Wagner's social aspirations 
 after a regenerated humanity, crowned by a 
 regenerated Art : he was content to know that 
 
PREFACE. 15 
 
 Wagner was a " divine genius," and to serve 
 him and admire his works. Uhlig, on the 
 contrary, was the first man to enter into the 
 spirit of Wagner's doctrine, and to understand 
 that no more than you can separate his music 
 from his poems, no more can you sever his 
 artistic from his social convictions. He was 
 the first also to acknowledge this publicly, and to 
 defend in the Press what may be called the 
 " Wagnerian doctrine." Political and social 
 questions, also questions concerning the essence 
 of music and of dramatic art, are thus naturally 
 and freely dwelt upon in these letters, con- 
 stituting their great interest. 
 
 Now, what causes the peculiarity of Wagner's 
 letters to Roeckel is precisely the fact that this 
 correspondent does not submit his judgment to 
 Wagner's as that of a superior mind, but that 
 he discusses every point on a footing of 
 intellectual equality. Uhlig's cleverness showed 
 itself in nothing more than in the sagacity with 
 
16 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 which he gauged the immense superiority of 
 Wagner's mind over his own. Roeckel was 
 certainly gifted enough to feel the same, but he 
 did not feel it in the same degree. His 
 intimacy with Wagner dated further back than 
 that of Liszt and Uhlig, to a period when the 
 young poet and musician was himself still 
 hesitating on many questions, still wavering 
 between the promptings of the inner voice, 
 which impelled him to revolt, and the enticing 
 hope that Society, and with it theatrical art, 
 might be renovated by less radical measures. 
 Roeckel had been the friend and confidant of 
 this early period of mental fermentation. Day 
 after day, during five or six years, he had 
 discussed all these burning questions with 
 Wagner, and it is perhaps not advancing too 
 much if we attribute to RoeckePs high moral 
 courage and unflinching devotion to truth some 
 share in that final evolution which led Wagner 
 to break openly and without hope of return 
 
PREFACE. 17 
 
 with a theatre and a social organisation which 
 he at heart despised. This it was which made 
 of Wagner the truly great man he was. It 
 was natural that the friend who had witnessed 
 the critical phase of this evolution, and perhaps 
 been instrumental in the triumph of the heroic 
 principle over the worldly one, should feel more 
 independence in the presence of this master- 
 mind than those who encountered it later. 
 Wagner looked for contradiction and discussion 
 when he spoke with Roeckel, nor was he dis- 
 appointed. Moreover, in the hard school of 
 adversity, during the dreary years of imprison- 
 ment; Roeckel's mind seems to have acquired 
 a considerable inflexibility, not to say stubborn- 
 ness. Wagner pushed on boldly ; once he had 
 admitted the premises, he followed them out to 
 their ultimate conclusions. Roeckel refused to 
 follow him. No doubt Uhlig did not always 
 understand what the Master meant, and we 
 may be sure he occasionally differed from him ; 
 
1 8 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 but he did not discuss, his veneration for genius 
 would not have allowed him to do so. He 
 simply pointed out what he could not grasp. 
 Roeckel, on the contrary, although bound to 
 Wagner by the ties of the most intimate 
 friendship — a friendship that death alone 
 severed, — seems to have opposed him at every 
 point. His letters unfortunately are lost, but 
 we can guess at their contents from Wagner's 
 answers, and we have every reason to feel 
 grateful to Roeckel for the honest consistency 
 with which he contradicts Wagner about 
 politics, attacks his philosophy, and criticises 
 his poems. For it is to this pugnacious- 
 opposition that we owe the beautiful com- 
 mentary on the Ring des Nibehmgen and on. 
 the Drama in general in letter No. 4, the lucid 
 dissertation on Schopenhauer's philosophy in 
 letter 6, the inquiry concerning the influence 
 of philosophy on Art in letter 7, that on the aim 
 and scope of politics in letter 8, and so on. In 
 
PREFACE. 19 
 
 short, the special character and the peculiar 
 interest of these letters to Roeckel are due to 
 two causes. On the one hand, to Wagner's 
 great affection for this particular friend, and 
 consequent wish to be fully understood by him ; 
 and, on the other hand, to Roeckel's inability 
 to see things in the same ligh^ as his illustrious 
 correspondent, and to his plainspoken acknow- 
 ledgment of this fact. 
 
 Here it may be well to insert a few lines 
 concerning August Roeckel. The reader will 
 like to know who this friend was, to whom 
 Wagner clung so steadfastly. If, as the Latin 
 proverb says, "a man may be judged by his 
 friends," to know Roeckel will teach us some- 
 thing of Wagner also. 
 
 August Roeckel's father, Joseph August 
 Roeckel, was a native of the Palatinate. At 
 that time, towards the close of the last century, 
 this province was politically united with 
 
20 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 Bavaria, and it so chanced that Joseph A. 
 Roeckel, who had begun life in the diplomatic 
 service, was appointed Secretary to the Bavarian 
 Charg6 d' Affaires at Salzburg, which brought 
 him into the neighbourhood of Vienna, at that 
 time the metropolis of music. Here Baron 
 Braun, so well known in the history of music 
 as Beethoven's friend and as director of several 
 Viennese theatres, happened to hear the young 
 attache' sing, and was so much struck by his 
 beautiful voice and musical gifts, that he at once 
 proposed that Roeckel should take an engage- 
 ment at Vienna, where they were sorely in need 
 of a tenor. Diplomacy was a precarious career 
 at that moment — 1805, — and, after some hesita- 
 tion, Roeckel accepted Baron Braun's offer, 
 and exchanged diplomacy for the stage. In 
 Vienna he saw a good deal of Beethoven : one 
 of his first parts was as Florestan in " Fidelio." 
 He also came into contact with all the other 
 musical men of the day, more especially with 
 
PREFACE. 21 
 
 Hummel, who married his sister. Joseph A. 
 Roeckel later became director of the theatre at 
 Aix la Chapelle, and, after having acquired the 
 necessary experience in this branch, he made 
 proof of both pluck and talent, venturing as 
 the very first impresario to carry the German 
 opera to Paris and to London. 
 
 The reader will gather from all this how full 
 of interest must have been the youth of our 
 August Roeckel. Born at Graz in 1814, he 
 travelled with his father through Germany 
 whilst still a boy. He then spent two years in 
 Paris, where he witnessed the revolution of July, 
 1830, and afterwards lived for several years in 
 London. Constantly in the atmosphere of 
 music and surrounded by musicians, his great 
 aptitude for this art developed early, and already 
 at seventeen years of age he was such a 
 consummate chorus-master that the Theatre 
 Italien engaged him in this capacity, in the 
 hopes of bringing their chorus up to the level 
 
22 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 attained at Joseph A. Roeckel's German opera. 
 This last was conducted for some time by none 
 less than Hummel. But life in England seems 
 not to have suited August Roeckel's fancy, and 
 whilst his brothers, Edward Roeckel and J. L. 
 Roeckel, settled in England, August returned 
 to Germany, and joined his uncle Hummel at 
 Weimar, under whom he studied composi- 
 tion. After having been for several years 
 " Musikdirector " at Bamberg, he was ap- 
 pointed to the same post at Weimar, where, 
 having married the niece of the celebrated 
 composer, Albert Lortzing, he spent the 
 happiest years of his life from 1838 to 
 1843. In this small town, still alive with 
 the traditions of the great epoch only just 
 closed, Roeckel's talent and energy were fully 
 appreciated, and by none more than by Goethe's 
 daughter-in-law and her sons, Wolfgang and 
 Walther, the sincerity of whose friendship for 
 Roeckel and his family was put to the proof in 
 
PREFACE. 23 
 
 the bitter years that were to come. 1843 was 
 a momentous date in Roeckel's life. He 
 exchanged the quiet seclusion of Weimar for 
 Dresden, where the political effervescence was 
 already beginning to stir up the whole popula- 
 tion, and here he met Richard Wagner, with 
 whom he soon became very intimate. Both 
 these facts, or rather these two facts combined, 
 had a fatal influence on the rest of his career, 
 for they ended by throwing him out of the 
 profession for which he had been bred and for 
 which he had early shown such great gifts, and 
 by casting him headlong into the turmoil of 
 politics. A sorry exchange in any case, and 
 more especially for a man of such rigid principles, 
 who was far too honest, too high-minded and 
 self-sacrificing to be likely to serve his own 
 interests whilst serving those of the community. 
 August Roeckel has more than once been 
 called Wagner's " bad genius," a most absurd 
 accusation ; it would be much truer to say that 
 
24 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 Wagner's friendship, productive as it was of 
 deep and life-long happiness, was nevertheless 
 Roeckel's evil star. As " Musikdirector " to 
 the Dresden Royal Opera House, to which 
 Wagner had been appointed " Kapellmeister " 
 on the ist of February, the same year (1843), 
 Roeckel became Wagner's colleague : their pro- 
 fessional duties made them meet every day, and 
 they soon became intimate. Wagner's " Rienzi," 
 performed for the first time on the 20th 
 October, 1842, on this very Dresden stage, 
 and his " Flying Dutchman " following rapidly 
 (2nd January, 1843), had made his name 
 celebrated throughout Germany. When Roeckel 
 arrived at Dresden in the spring of 1843, Wagner 
 was just finishing the poem of " Tannhauser," 
 the score of which he at once began. In the 
 spring of 1845 " Tannhauser " was finished, 
 but before its first performance (on the 19th 
 October, 1845) " Lohengrin " was already 
 begun and the " Meistersinger " sketched ; and 
 
PREFACE. 25 
 
 scarcely had Wagner jotted down the last note 
 of the " Lohengrin " score, in the summer of 
 1847, when he launched forth into elaborate 
 historical researches for a spoken drama, 
 "Frederic Barbarossa," and forged his tetra- 
 logical musical drama, "The Ring of the 
 "Nibelung," out of the confused mass of mytho- 
 logical Sagas and legends of the " Edda" and 
 the " Nibelungenlied." In the same summer 
 (1848) in which Wagner wrote the complete 
 sketch of this opus summum of his life, he also 
 drew the outlines of his " Jesus of Nazareth," 
 which has been described by a Catholic priest 
 as " perhaps the most successful attempt ever 
 made to place the divine person of our Saviour 
 on the stage." This was what Roeckel was 
 witness to during the years 1843-1849, in 
 which he was Wagner's almost daily com- 
 panion. Before the evidence of such stupendous 
 creative power, his own talent, or rather his 
 belief in his own talent, vanished. Roeckel 
 
26 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 had written songs and compositions for the 
 pianoforte, and his appointment at Dresden he 
 owed to an opera, " Farinelli," which Wagner 
 (as I am told) thought well of. But how 
 insignificant and futile was all this compared 
 to the immortal works which he now saw 
 springing into existence day by day ! Had 
 Roeckel been less gifted intellectually, he would 
 not have recognised Wagner's genius, and had 
 he been less high-minded, he would have felt 
 envy, instead of admiration ; or, again, if his 
 own talent as musician had been more robust 
 and original, intercourse with Wagner would 
 have stimulated his creative faculties (as was 
 the case with Lizst, for example). As it was, 
 the proximity of genius seems to have blotted 
 out all Roeckel's ambition in the domain of 
 Art. Thus Wagner's friendship robbed him of 
 a life-interest, and almost drove him to con- 
 secrate his energy to another direction. He 
 did not give up his place at the Dresden Opera 
 
PREFACE. 27 
 
 House, but he became an active politician, a 
 pamphleteer, the editor of a revolutionary paper, 
 and a favourite orator at public meetings. His 
 enemies called him a demagogue, but that was 
 a base calumny. He was a tribune in the 
 proudest sense of the word, and no Englishman 
 who knows what the political state of Germany 
 was at that period will refuse, his admiration to 
 the man who, unlike so many other German 
 revolutionists, risked his liberty and his life for 
 the cause of the people against their tyrants, 
 and paid for it by thirteen long years spent in 
 a dungeon. 
 
 The revolution which broke out in Dresden 
 in May, 1849, was entirely the doing of the 
 King of Saxony and his Ministry. By their 
 vacillation and continual shuffling they drove 
 the people mad, and, when Dresden rose, the 
 whole intelligence of the country — the Univer- 
 sities, the Bar— rose with it, and the then legal 
 Government of Germany, the Frankfort Parlia- 
 
28 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 ment, openly sided with the Saxon people 
 against their rebellious Ministers. The Saxon 
 people, who were perfectly loyal subjects of 
 their hereditary Monarch, and only claimed 
 the rights they possessed by law and the 
 accession of their country to the Constitution 
 voted at Frankfort, whereby a united Germany 
 was to be established, would have won the 
 day. But Count Beust, the King's chief 
 counsellor, called on the Prussians for aid, who 
 were, of course, too happy to profit by the 
 occasion to gain a firm footing in Saxony. The 
 Parliament at Frankfort stigmatised this armed 
 intervention as " a scandalous breach of the 
 Constitution." But in the meantime the 
 Prussian troops had already reached Dresden, 
 and had crushed the people's aspirations 
 after liberty and law in the way military 
 Powers usually do such things. The horrors 
 enacted by the soldiers and officers make 
 one's blood run cold. Roeckel, one of the 
 
PREFACE. 29 
 
 few leaders of the movement who retained his 
 coolness and courage up to the last, was con- 
 demned to death, a sentence that was commuted 
 into life-long imprisonment. He never would 
 consent to do as the others, and petition the 
 King's indulgence ; having committed no crime, 
 he needed no forgiveness, nor would he ever 
 consent to sign a paper pledging his word 
 never again to engage in politics. On the 
 contrary, he used to tell his prison authorities 
 that, as soon as he was free, he would again 
 attack the Government as it deserved. And 
 so Roeckel was one of the very last men 
 to be let out of prison. Not until 1862 did the 
 Saxon Government grow sufficiently ashamed 
 of itself to put an end to this persecution. 
 Soon after, the Prussian army once more 
 appeared before Dresden and threw up earth- 
 works (some of which may still be seen) all 
 round the town, but the Royal Government 
 had not as much pluck in 1886 as had the 
 
30 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 wretched inhabitants in 1849 ; it thought dis- 
 cretion the better part of valour, and submitted 
 without striking a blow to Prussia's conditions. 
 As for Count Beust, he had proved such a 
 prodigious diplomatist that he was considered 
 ripe for Austrian service ; nor did he disappoint 
 his cunning allies of heretofore. 
 
 Before returning to Wagner and to the 
 letters contained in this volume, it may be well 
 to finish this brief sketch of August Roeckel's 
 life. It will not detain us long, for nothing very 
 remarkable occurred after his release from 
 prison. Politics absorbed his whole interests, 
 and journalism was the only means open to 
 him of serving his political aims and at the 
 same time that of earning his livelihood. And 
 so we find him as newspaper editor, first at 
 Coburg, then at Frankfort, later on (under 
 Wagner's protection), in 1866, at Munich, 
 which he soon had to leave, however. He 
 finally settled in Vienna as editor of the Kleine 
 
PREFACE. 31 
 
 Presse. The mere geographical sequence 
 suffices to show that Roeckel remained up to 
 the end an irreconcilable enemy of Prussia. 
 He had longed, and he had fought, and he had 
 suffered, for a great, united, and independent 
 Germany, and now that the dream of his life 
 was accomplished, he shut himself out volun- 
 tarily from his "Fatherland." Thus we see 
 him at the close of his life not only sharing the 
 same fate as the great antagonist of Germany's 
 unity and his own personal persecutor, Count 
 Beust, but actually on the best terms with him 
 — the once enemies united by their common 
 hatred of Prussia, and Roeckel, the undaunted 
 Liberal, actually serving to the best of his 
 abilities a reactionary and anti-German Govern- 
 ment. It is a singularly melancholy fate, and 
 doubtless contributed to shorten his days. In 
 1 87 1 he had a first attack of paralysis ; others 
 followed. He never recovered to any extent, 
 and had soon to give up his journalistic work 
 
32 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 and retire to the house of his youngest son, 
 Richard Roeckel, at Pesth. There he died, on 
 the 15th June, 1876, two months before the 
 first performance of his great friend's "Ring 
 des Nibelungen " at Bayreuth. The only work 
 of Roeckel's that remains of him is his book 
 Sachsen's Erhebung und das Zuchthaus zu Wald- 
 heim (the revolt of Saxony and my prison at 
 Waldheim). Wagner alludes to it in the 
 twelfth letter of this collection. It is a most 
 thrilling narrative, and although the author, 
 with his great modesty, keeps himself in the 
 shade, one seems to become quite intimate with 
 him during those long years of imprisonment. 
 No one can read it without respecting him and 
 loving him. Roeckel was the sort of man for 
 Englishmen to understand and appreciate. 
 
 And now let us go back to that other man, 
 whom it will always be infinitely more difficult 
 
PREFACE. 33 
 
 to understand because, as one of the most 
 perfect types of absolute genius, or, as Carlyle 
 would have put it, of the Hero as poet, his 
 intellect moved in obedience to laws different 
 from those which govern ordinary men. 
 
 I have pointed out the absurdity of the 
 opinion which stamps Roeckel as Wagner's 
 evil genius and thinks that it was his fault that 
 Wagner got mixed up in the revolt of 1849. 
 Years before he and Roeckel first met, Wagner 
 had declared, " My path leads me to open 
 revolution against what the present day calls 
 Art." And as, in Wagner's mind, the Art of a 
 nation or of an epoch is not a casual excrescence, 
 but the logical outcome of the whole life of 
 Society, a corrupt Art is unquestionably indica- 
 tive of a corrupt Society, and to revolt against 
 Art is to revolt against the Society from which 
 this Art springs. In this sense, which, it will 
 be allowed, admits of no equivocation, Wagner 
 may be said to have been a revolutionist ever 
 3 
 
34 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 since 1840, and his very latest writings leave 
 no doubt that he continued to be a revolutionist 
 down to the day of his death. But the events 
 of 1849, which marred and broke poor Roeckel's- 
 life, have in Wagner's life no importance 
 beyond that which the increased experience of 
 men and things signifies for such a mind. As- 
 a generous man, he could not hesitate on which 
 side to place his sympathies, and when the 
 actual conflict came — the fighting in the streets, 
 the flocking in of the peasantry into the town, 
 to ward off the foreign enemy and to stake their 
 lives for their rights, — we are not astonished to 
 see that his sympathy with the people is 
 sufficiently marked to awaken suspicion on the 
 part of the authorities, and to force him to seek 
 safety in flight. No doubt Wagner felt the 
 influence of the wave of enthusiasm which 
 swept across Germany in 1848-49. No doubt 
 he was at that moment the victim of many 
 illusions, and set his hope on men and on 
 
PREFACE. 35 
 
 popular movements ; but all this remains for 
 him superficial and external. He is like a rock ; 
 the waves break at its feet and sometimes cast 
 their spray up to its very head, but the rock 
 neither moves nor crumbles. In reality, Wagner 
 never at any time had any sort of sympathy 
 with politics properly so called. Politics and 
 diplomacy, to Wagner's mind, go only skin 
 deep. They can do no more than settle details, 
 no more than hurry on events or retard them a 
 little ; and whilst seeming to lead, they in reality 
 obey, driven on by deeper currents they have 
 neither power to stay nor to alter. In regard 
 to this question, the eighth letter of this 
 collection will be found particularly interesting. 
 It was those deeper currents which alone 
 absorbed Wagner's attention. He was a good 
 and loyal Saxon, but he never utters a word 
 against Prussia; later on we find him the confidan t 
 of the King of Bavaria at a most critical 
 period of history, but he does not gravitate 
 3* 
 
36 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 southward, as did Roeckel, for his judgment is 
 not blinded by political prejudice ; he was a 
 staunch and enthusiastic German, yet no man 
 had a keener eye for the shortcomings of his 
 countrymen, and whilst Germany after 1870 
 knelt adoring at the feet of the man of blood 
 and iron, Wagner pointed out how little this 
 mere politician was in touch with the higher 
 aspirations of the nation, and how he had 
 reaped, but could not sow. 
 
 I have thought it necessary to insist at some 
 length on this point, because the difference 
 between Wagner and Roeckel is not merely one 
 of degree ; it is not merely that the one is a 
 genius and the other a man of talent, but it is a 
 difference which affects the whole man. What 
 bound them together in friendship was evidently 
 sympathy of character, and not intellectual 
 affinity. By this I do not mean to convey that 
 Roeckel was intellectually inferior to men like 
 Liszt and Uhlig, but that the natural bent of 
 
PREFACE. 37 
 
 his mind led him to diverge from Wagner on 
 many, perhaps on most, points, and that he 
 was far too independent a character to be over- 
 awed, even by genius. He and Wagner were 
 both high-minded, outspoken, and unselfish 
 men. Otherwise they were as dissimilar as 
 possible, and I imagine that this dissimilarity 
 constituted an additional zest to the friendship 
 which bound them to each other. Both are 
 idealists ; but the one is a man who enlists his 
 enthusiasm in the cause of the wrongs and 
 sufferings of those who surround him, who 
 longs to rescue the oppressed and to reform 
 what is corrupt by practical means, by changing 
 the form of government, by influencing public 
 opinion, and so on; in short, he is essentially 
 a politician, and the practical politician ends by 
 eclipsing the poet and the artist his inner soul 
 harboured. The other, on the contrary, is a 
 creative genius, intensely wrapped up, it is true, 
 not in Art only, but in all the questions that 
 
38 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 concern the welfare of his country and of 
 humanity at large, but who is quite incapable 
 of doffing, even for a single moment, the 
 artist and the poet, in order to discuss 
 present events in a matter-of-fact, political 
 way. When he does get mixed up in politics, 
 as he did in 1849, and again later in Munich, 
 he is yet never a party man, for what he aims 
 at soars high above the conflicting currents of 
 the passing moment. " The political events of 
 the day never had any interest for me," writes 
 Wagner in 1864. What does interest him are 
 the great currents that sweep humanity on 
 through centuries, to weal or to woe. In his 
 Art and Revolution, written (1849) whilst his 
 contemporaries were discussing the Frankfort 
 Parliament, the growing influence of Prussia, 
 and so forth, Wagner traces back the origin of 
 the present state of society to the age of 
 Pericles and of the decline of the Greek 
 tragedy, and the Future he foretells is one 
 
PREFACE. 39 
 
 "the poet alone can conceive of." Thanks to 
 his extraordinary powers of imagination, genius 
 sees not only the one short passing moment, 
 with its actors and all the petty influences 
 which they obey, but grasps the Past out of 
 which this Present grew, thus discerning in 
 history Fate and Providence, and dives down into 
 the depths of the unconscious but none the less 
 propelling soul of nations, distinguishing with 
 the keen eye of the poet a future still veiled 
 to other men. No wonder Roeckel and Wagner 
 often disagreed. 
 
 I do not think a detailed commentary to 
 these letters is necessary, still less a critical 
 examination of their contents. In order to 
 understand them and to enjoy them, it is 
 sufficient to know who the man was who wrote 
 them, and who the man was to whom they 
 were addressed. They will be found full of 
 varied interest. Those who know nothing 
 about Wagner will get but a one-sided, yet 
 
4° RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 true and vivid, impression of his remarkable 
 personality; those who have a superficial 
 acquaintance with him will realise how little 
 they knew up to now; the few who would 
 enrich their mental lives by a comprehensive 
 knowledge of this great mind and noble 
 character will read these letters over and over 
 again, and always find new matter to claim 
 their attention and captivate their thought. 
 
LETTER I. 
 
 My dear Friend, 
 
 I have quite recently heard as a fact that 
 you and your companions in misfortune are 
 allowed to receive letters, not only from your 
 nearest relatives, but also from your friends, 
 provided that those letters merely touch on 
 personal interests, or at any rate on such 
 matters as have no reference to politics. Now, 
 as my desire was, in the first place, to express 
 my deep and anxious solicitude as to your 
 fate, and in the second place to inform you 
 how things had befallen me, I resolved at 
 once to write to you. But, first and foremost, I 
 was anxious to know exactly how you were as 
 regards health. It was, therefore, a great plea- 
 sure to me to hear from your private doctor that 
 
 41 
 
42 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 there was no truth in the rumour of your having, 
 through impatience and insubordination, for- 
 feited the favour of being allowed to occupy your 
 time in literary work, and, further, that you were 
 bearing up well under the circumstances, and 
 that your vigour was undiminished. I admit 
 that it is only since hearing this account of you* 
 that I feel able to write to you as I should like. 
 
 You will readily believe that ever since we 
 parted I have anxiously striven to have news of 
 you, and, as far as was possible, I have kept 
 myself informed as to your fate. Soon after 
 we last met, it chanced that your wife and I 
 were in the same town ;f but owing to a peculiar 
 combination of circumstances, it was quite 
 impossible for me to call upon her. Soon after 
 I heard that your brother Edward had offered 
 
 * See Wagner's letter to Uhlig, dated May ioth, 1851. 
 
 t In Weimar. What prevented Wagner's calling on Frau 
 Eoeckel was the news of the "Steckbrief " (police notice), 
 and his having to escape over the frontier to Switzerland as 
 •quickly as possible. 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 43 
 
 her a home, and that he was taking care of her 
 
 in a truly fraternal way. I wrote to him not 
 
 long ago, and received no answer; but as I 
 
 addressed my letter in a haphazard fashion to 
 
 Bath, it is quite possible that it never reached 
 
 him ; consequently I should be very glad to have 
 
 his right address. I hope you will be able to 
 
 write to me very fully concerning yourself and 
 
 your wife. I look forward with keen sympathy 
 
 and with eager impatience — hoping for the best 
 
 — to your letter, and in the meantime I feel 
 
 that the best thing that I can do, knowing your 
 
 interest in me and my affairs, is to tell you 
 
 shortly how things have fared with me. 
 
 The external circumstances of my life are 
 
 easily told. After our separation, or rather at 
 
 the close of the disastrous events J when we 
 
 last met, I went first to Paris, but there I felt 
 
 everything was at once repugnant to me ; and 
 
 % This is in allusion to the political troubles in Dresden 
 from 3rd to 9th of May, 1849. 
 
44 RICHARD WAGNEM'S LETTERS 
 
 though I was only remotely brought into contact 
 with the artistic world, its whole conditions so 
 repelled me that, after a very short stay, I left 
 and went to Switzerland, and at Zurich I 
 speedily found amongst the Swiss a circle of 
 devoted, loyal, and sympathetic friends. This 
 beautiful Alpine land at once revived me. I 
 trust that you have sufficient fortitude not to 
 be cast down by hearing this in your captivity. 
 After I had lived down the painful impressions 
 made on me by recent events, by the contrari- 
 ness of present circumstances, and more especially 
 by the fate of many of my friends, I felt my 
 individual life quickened and restored to warmth 
 and fulness by deliverance from the fetters and 
 constraints of an impossible position. It is 
 not necessary for me to tell you that I look on 
 my release from the post of conductor of the 
 Dresden opera as a providential piece of good 
 fortune. With my whole nature, both as man 
 and artist, in absolute opposition to my work 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 45 
 
 and my position, the only hope of deliverance 
 was in a complete severance of my bonds. 
 From the moment of that severance I felt that I 
 had an important part to play ; I realised that I 
 was the only artist who as such had grasped the 
 movement of the times. On this subject — i.e. on 
 Art and its relation to life — I spoke out my views 
 publicly as an author. Of course I do not know 
 if you were allowed to see my writings. The first 
 publication was a short pamphlet, entitled Art 
 and Revolution, in which I denied to everything 
 that passes muster as Art in the present day 
 the true quality of Art. In a small book that 
 appeared shortly after, The Art-work of the Future, 
 I demonstrated the impotence of modern Art, 
 resulting from its disintegration into different 
 branches, which constitute the sole artistic life 
 of the present day. And to this I opposed the 
 Art of the future, the only Art that is truly in 
 touch with life and penetrated with vital force, 
 and represented it in such a way that it stood 
 
46 RICHARD WAGNERS LETTERS 
 
 out in sharp contrast to the merely academic, 
 or merely fashionable, Art of the present 
 day. 
 
 When I had completed this work, I had 
 occasion, early in 1850, to return to Paris. 
 During the interval Liszt had been working 
 hard in my interests. He and my other 
 friends were convinced that my one hope of a 
 career lay in making my mark in the Paris 
 Opera House. In spite of a sense of despair, 
 I forced myself to yield the point to them. I 
 sketched out a scenario, and started once more 
 for Paris. The effort nearly cost me my life. 
 My detestation of the artistic world of Paris, 
 and the constraint that I had to put on myself, 
 had such a powerful influence on me and 
 affected me so strongly that it brought on com- 
 plete nervous prostration, and from that prostra- 
 tion I only recovered by a tremendous effort of 
 will — a sort of act of desperation — which con- 
 strained me to turn my back on all my friends and 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 47 
 
 to seek refuge amongst, utter strangers. At that 
 very time — I was in Bordeaux — I learnt through 
 a French newspaper that you and Bakunin* 
 had been condemned to death. I wrote you a 
 letter, hoping that it would reach you in time 
 to bid you both a last farewell. Soon after I 
 discovered that the rumour had been a false 
 one, and the letter which I had sent to Dresden 
 to be forwarded to you was, naturally enough 
 under the circumstances, detained. My intention 
 to fly from my friends was frustrated by the great 
 sympathy and affection evinced for me by a certain 
 family. This household, composed almost entirely 
 of women, lived some considerable time in Dres- 
 den, and is known to you, if I am not mistaken, 
 through your brother. I owe more than I can 
 say to them.t But, first and foremost, let me 
 
 * Bakunin was the famous Russian revolutionist who with 
 •Huebner and Tzschirner had commanded the insurrectionists 
 at Dresden. After the repression of the revolution he had 
 been taken prisoner at Chemnitz. 
 
 f This refers evidently to Frau Julie Ritterand her family. 
 
48 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 mention Liszt ; his love for me and his untiring 
 devotion to my interests are almost incredible. 
 Whatever in my nature remains incompre- 
 hensible to his mere logical reasoning, he 
 succeeds in entering into by an ardent intuitive 
 sympathy, the force of which is astounding. 
 He has had my " Lohengrin " performed at 
 Weimar, and in a manner that made it a real 
 success — so much so, that they now speak of 
 giving the opera at Dresden, but to this proposal 
 I have made the most decided objections, and 
 for many reasons. There is something to me 
 ludicrous in the idea, which I hear maintained 
 by many people, that it would be possible to 
 bring about a reconciliation between my present 
 self and the old condition of things. You see, 
 my dear friend, how little one is understood, 
 especially if one has the soul of an artist. 
 
 Lately I have once more given expression to 
 my convictions as a man and as an artist-poet, 
 — in the first place, and at some length, on the 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 49 
 
 subject of my own dramatic Art, in a book 
 entitled Opera and Drama, and upon my own 
 individual relations to Art ina "Communication 
 to my Friends," which will appear as the preface 
 to an edition of my three poems, The Flying 
 Dutchman, Tannhauser, and Lohengrin. The 
 first-mentioned work will shortly be brought out 
 by Heber ; the second by Breitkopf and Hartel. 
 How I wish that I might be allowed to send 
 you these books. HarteFs firm are engraving 
 the pianoforte score of " Lohengrin," and — 
 as you will be astonished to hear — they also 
 mean to print the full score of the opera. 
 From this you will see that public opinion 
 has taken me into high favour as " artist " ; 
 but in the said "Communication" I have made 
 it very clear that I care for no sympathy from 
 those who distinguish between the "man" and 
 the " artist," and I have pointed out the folly 
 of making such a distinction. How unworthy 
 — how, to put it frankly, absolutely contempt - 
 4 
 
SO RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 ible — our " Art " of the present day is, has at 
 last become apparent now that it has cast 
 aside all sense of shame and openly acknow- 
 ledges that its one concern is to be a paying 
 business. You may imagine how unhappy 
 a man of my stamp feels under such circum- 
 stances. With open eyes, I have to abandon 
 myself to illusions, in order to find my justifica- 
 tion for a creative activity, conscious all the 
 time that my activity merely serves to deceive 
 me as to the general rottenness of things. 
 
 To continue theorising would be repugnant 
 to me, and Liszt has stimulated me to a new 
 work of Art. I have done the poetic version of 
 Young Siegfried, which I confess has been a 
 source of great happiness to me. My hero, a 
 child of Nature, has grown up in the forest 
 under the care of a dwarf (Mime, the Nibelung) 
 Who has brought him up in the hope that he 
 may become the slayer of the dragon — the 
 guardian of the treasure. This treasure of the 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 5 1 
 
 Nibelungs constitutes a very important element 
 in the poem. Every sort of crime is connected 
 with it. Siegfried is a being much like the 
 youth in the fairy tale who goes out into the 
 world that he may learn what fear is, which 
 he quite fails to do, owing to his healthy 
 natural instincts and his inability to see things 
 otherwise than as they actually are. He 
 slays the dragon, and kills his foster-father 
 the dwarf, who for the sake of the treasure 
 was secretly plotting to murder him. Sieg- 
 . fried, in whom the longing to escape from 
 loneliness has awakened, is led by the voice 
 of a bird — intelligible to him from the moment 
 when he accidentally tasted the dragon's 
 blood — to the fire-girt rock where Brunhilde 
 lies in a deep sleep. Siegfried penetrates 
 the flames, kisses Brunhilde, and the woman 
 in her awakens to the raptures of love. I 
 cannot enlarge farther on the subject now ; 
 possibly I may be allowed to send you the poem 
 4 : 
 
•52 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 itself. Only one word more : in our ardent 
 discussions together we have already touched 
 on this subject — It is not possible for us to 
 attain to all that we can be and should be, 
 so long as the woman is unawakened. But 
 why do I harp upon this string to you, my 
 poor friend ? Believe me, I too am sad that 
 I can do nothing beyond harping and singing. 
 I shall finish my Young Siegfried, but not for 
 one moment shall I be deceived about it, or fail 
 to see that it is a beautiful illusion and that 
 reality is the one thing that matters. It often 
 seems to me that our invisible bonds have a 
 more constraining power than the actual fetters 
 by which others are bound. And yet, this I 
 know, and this comfort I can offer you — do not 
 be vexed with me, for it is the one hope by 
 which we can all encourage one another, — let 
 us strive to be and to keep healthy and 
 natural, lor therein lies, everything' — hope, 
 comfort, confidence. 
 
TO, AUGUST ROECKEL. 53 
 
 And now, my poor dear friend, I beg you, if 
 you are allowed to write, to send me news of 
 yourself, and as much in detail as possible; I 
 shall always answer you, if permission to do so is 
 granted, to the best of my powers, in the hope 
 that my letters may cheer you and give you 
 courage to endure with patience and fortitude. 
 Farewell ; and when you are feeling sad, think 
 with affection of 
 
 Your faithful friend, 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
LETTER II. 
 
 Zurich, 
 
 12th September, 1852* 
 
 Your letter, my dear friend, has rejoiced me 
 
 more than I can say. It was both unexpected 
 
 and unhoped for ; and it gives me such strong 
 
 evidence of your cheerful and patient courage, 
 
 that no better news could have come to me, 
 
 and certainly nothing more fitted to raise my 
 
 own spirits and encourage me. My health is 
 
 not of the best, and though physically I appear 
 
 sufficiently robust, my nervous system is in a 
 
 very depressed state, gradually growing worse — 
 
 the result of my self-abandonment to that feverish 
 
 and excessive sensitiveness, in virtue of which I 
 
 * This letter was sent to Liszt to forward (see letter to 
 Liszt of same date). 
 
 54 
 
RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 55 
 
 am the artistic being that I am. The nerves of 
 my brain especially have been so worked upon by 
 this constant dwelling in a world of imagination, 
 with no reality to balance it, that now I am 
 only able to work at long intervals and with 
 frequent breaks, otherwise I should certainly 
 fall into a state of constant and protracted 
 suffering. I was in that condition when your 
 letter reached me ; its contents, taken in con- 
 nection with your situation, formed a striking 
 contrast to my situation and to my state of 
 mind. It confirmed the feeling I have often 
 had before, that a state of semi-liberty is more 
 humiliating and oppressive than complete 
 bondage ; but I fear it would not be quite easy 
 to make clear to you what I mean. My published 
 writings testify to my want of freedom as an 
 artist ; the lash of compulsion alone forced me 
 to become an author, and nothing was further 
 from my thoughts than to write " Books." Had 
 it been otherwise, the chances are you would 
 
56 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 not have had cause to complain so much of my 
 style. But the time for literary work is past 
 with me ; to have gone on with it, would have 
 killed me. On the other hand, I have embarked 
 on a great artistic undertaking, namely, the 
 completion of a poem consisting of three dramas 
 with a separate prologue, which I shall then set 
 to music, and which — God knows when, where 
 and how — I mean some day to have put on the 
 stage. The whole poem will be called The 
 Ring of the Nibelung ; the prologue, "The Theft 
 of the Rhine-gold ; " thejirstpart of the drama will 
 be "The Walkure;" the second part, "Young 
 Siegfried;" and the third part, "Siegfried's 
 Death." The three dramas are completed ; but I 
 have still to put the prologue into verse. By the 
 end of this year, I hope to be able to submit 
 the printed poem to my friends. The working- 
 out of the whole subject (in my present state of 
 health) will, of course, need a great deal of 
 time; as to the performance, that must be 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 57 
 
 relegated to a nebulous "future." With regard 
 to the scheme, you will receive full information, 
 in the very detailed "Communication to my 
 Friends," in which I treat of my own artistic 
 development. This "Communication" forms 
 the preface to my three "opera poems" — The 
 Flying Dutchman, Tannhauser, and Lohengrin. 
 The book appeared at the beginning of this 
 year, and I gave orders for a copy to be sent 
 to you: probably you were forbidden to see 
 it;, but should this not be the case, let me 
 know, and I shall see th^t the matter is put 
 right. Instead of the pianoforte score of "Lo- 
 hengrin," which you expected from Hartel, I 
 am sending the full score of the opera which 
 Hartel has just brought out, to your dear wife; 
 she will ascertain if she may forward it to you. 
 I am sure you will find the full score the more 
 satisfying of the two. I am also sending you 
 some shorter papers, on questions of art, which 
 I have written at different times as the occasion 
 
58 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 demanded. The most recent was a book of 
 instructions for the performance of my "Tann- 
 hauser." For you must know that at the present 
 moment a considerable number of German 
 theatres are preparing to bring it out ; even the 
 Berlin Court theatre is making arrangements 
 for its performance, and I anticipate that ere 
 long this opera will have been given in all our 
 theatres. Unfortunately, this prospect can no 
 longer give me pleasure — in every respect it 
 comes too late ; and besides, I know that the 
 work will never be performed as I meant that 
 it should be. Possibly, performers and public 
 may appreciate the softer, more emotional parts 
 of the work; but they will never realise the 
 energy of passion that underlies it. I also 
 greatly doubt whether this unexpected and 
 growing fame will pave the way for a per- 
 formance at a future day of my Nibelung 
 dramas; for, in my opinion, the possibility of 
 such a performance depends on conditions quite 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 59 
 
 alien to the prevailing ideas on life and art. 
 The most painful thing to me — in spite of 
 apparent success — is to recognise that I owe 
 the greater part of this success to a misunder- 
 standing of the true meaning of my work ; on 
 this subject I have no further illusions. 
 
 If you are once more allowed to occupy your 
 time with literature, let me know whether I may 
 send you books from time to time. I am sure 
 you would find Feuerbach's writings most stimu- 
 lating. I should also like to introduce you to 
 a poet who has lately struck me as being the 
 greatest of all poets — I mean the Persian poet, 
 Hafiz, of whose writings we now possess an 
 admirable German translation by Daumer. 
 Truly, his poems have struck terror into my 
 soul. We, with our pompous European culture 
 and intellectuality, must stand abashed in the 
 presence of this product of Oriental genius, 
 stamped with such unerring mastery, such lofty 
 serenity. I feel sure that you would share my 
 
60 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 astonishment. To my mind, the only merit of 
 recent European development is to be sought 
 in a kind of universal disintegration ; whereas 
 in the work of this Oriental I recognise a 
 precocious striving after individualism. 
 
 I mean shortly to write to your dear wife a 
 long letter ; how I wish that I could say any- 
 thing to comfort and cheer her. My own affairs 
 are shaping themselves pleasantly enough, and 
 I am thankful to be relieved from pressing 
 anxiety as to the more immediate necessities of 
 life : but I am very lonely ; I miss sympathetic 
 surroundings, and more than ever I am painfully 
 conscious that what in me is exceptional and 
 peculiar acts like a curse, separating me from 
 my kind, and cutting me off from the ordinary 
 enjoyment of life. A prisoner would not 
 understand why I so constantly am downcast 
 and longing for death ; and yet I feel it 
 so strongly, and understand so clearly whence 
 it comes. But enough on this subject. You 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 6 1 
 
 will laugh at me, and indeed I cannot dispute 
 your right to do so. One thing I long for, 
 and that is, that you may receive permission 
 to write to me often ; if you can hold out that 
 hope, you will indeed give me a great pleasure. 
 Farewell, and may you go on bearing up in 
 your misfortune as bravely as hitherto. This 
 is the earnest wish of your 
 
 Affectionate friend, 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
LETTER III. 
 
 Dear Friend, 
 
 A short time ago I at length received long- 
 expected news of you. From your letter I 
 gathered that some books which I despatched 
 for you had not yet reached you ; so I applied to 
 your excellent wife, but owing to her being ill 
 it was some weeks before she could reply to me, 
 and ever since then I have been deeply engaged 
 in absorbing work. From all these causes there 
 has been some delay in my answer, for which 
 you must pardon me : hence, too, this feeble 
 preface to my present letter. 
 
 I sent my new poem, "The Nibelung's Ring" 
 (of which only a few copies are printed for 
 private circulation among my intimate friends 
 and acquaintances), in February of this year to 
 
 62 
 
RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 63 
 
 Weimar, in order that your wife might forward 
 it to you. You do not mention it ; but your 
 wife maintains that the copy was sent to 
 Waldheim : should it not yet have reached you, 
 the omission must be due to causes which 
 would make the despatch of a second copy 
 quite useless. Therefore I think it better to 
 trouble you once more in the matter : you 
 might make definite enquiries. In the event of 
 the book having been lost, let me know at once, 
 as in that case a second shall be forthwith sent 
 to Waldheim. In the meantime, and till I 
 hear from you that you have read the book, 
 further discussion of it is useless. 
 
 I had also destined for you at the beginning 
 of last year my " Three Opera Poems, together 
 with a Communication to my Friends " (Leipzig : 
 Breitkopf und Hartel), but from your letter I 
 gather that the book never reached you; I 
 therefore send it to your wife, in order that she 
 may convey it to you. I have put up with it 
 
€4 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 two other works that you expressed a wish to 
 have, Hafiz (in two volumes) and Feuerbach's 
 Lectures on the Nature of Religion. 
 
 It seems to me, and I rejoice to think it, 
 that you are in the mood and frame of mind 
 when these books will be a real refreshment to 
 you. I trust that you are well, and that you 
 have succeeded in preserving that disposition of 
 mind which allows one to be solaced by the 
 inspiring influences of the Beautiful, even 
 though doomed to the forced resignation of a 
 captive. But in this respect you are, perhaps, 
 no worse off at the present moment than the 
 rest of us. As things are just now, the really 
 Beautiful can only exist for us in a theoretical 
 vision ; that it could exist, that it will some day 
 actually exist, and be apprehended and enjoyed 
 by beings absolutely like unto ourselves in 
 feeling — that thought alone can comfort us, as 
 it must comfort you. Truly, this is our only 
 consolation ; and in sympathy with a future 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 65 
 
 generation, we already experience a quickened 
 sense of well-being and gain. Therefore I do 
 not hesitate about sending you Hafiz, 
 
 Feuerbach's book is to a certain extent a 
 risumt of all that he has hitherto done in the 
 field of philosophy. It is not one of his really 
 celebrated works, such as The Essence of 
 Christianity, or Thoughts upon Death and Im- 
 mortality, but it is a short-cut to a complete 
 knowledge of his mental development, and 
 of the latest results of his speculations. I 
 should be glad to think of you as strengthened 
 and encouraged by contact with his clear, 
 vigorous mind. 
 
 I also enclose a programme of some musical 
 performances which I organised recently at 
 Zurich; they will interest you. But you will 
 wonder why I brought myself to consent to a 
 concert performance of such a fragmentary 
 selection from my operas. The matter is 
 easily explained. In the first place I had an 
 5 
 
66 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 intense longing to hear something out of 
 "Lohengrin," more especially the orchestral 
 prelude. Jn order to get together a sufficiently 
 large orchestra for the performance, it was- 
 necessary to arrange for a regular concert, 
 therefore I added other selections. The for- 
 mation of this orchestra (consisting of about 70> 
 musicians) cost not less than 9,000 francs, 
 which sum, however, when I made my project 
 known, was secured by guarantees. Any one 
 who knows Zurich and its excellent bourgeois 
 and Philistine community cannot fail to be 
 astounded by this fact ; and I confess that this 
 proof of exceptional trust and unwonted affection 
 touched me very deeply. The performances were 
 perfect ; I had brought the best musicians all 
 the way from Germany, and the result was one 
 1 of great and increasing artistic significance for 
 Switzerland. For I do not doubt that — when 
 I am ready for it — means will be provided 
 here for an adequate performance, according to 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 67 
 
 my own ideas, of my dramatic works. To bring 
 this about it will be necessary that I should 
 devote myself for some years exclusively to 
 the education of a company such as I require. 
 When that is achieved I shall have all my 
 operas, above all my Nibelungen drama, per- 
 formed during a whole year in a theatre specially 
 erected for the purpose, built of light materials, 
 but adapted to the true needs of dramatic 
 representation. I shall then have attained, if 
 not my ideal, at least all that mortal man can 
 aspire to. In the meantime I must save my 
 strength and health — often very feeble — in order 
 to accomplish the music of my Nibelung drama. 
 This will take me at least three or four years. 
 
 The performance on different stages in 
 Germany of my " Tannhauser," and shortly of 
 my " Lohengrin," have no interest whatever for 
 me ; I know that for the most part they leave 
 my intention and meaning unexpressed, and that 
 they in no essential way rise above the level 
 5* 
 
68 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 of ordinary operatic performances. Although 
 from time to time I make surprising discoveries, 
 and am especially astonished, by the effects 
 produced in smaller theatres by these operas, 
 thanks to the enthusiastic efforts of young 
 conductors ; yet, take it all in all, and in view of 
 the general deplorable state of things, I cannot 
 feel other than cold and unmoved; and I 
 confess that the spread of my works is only 
 valuable to me in regard to material advantages. 
 Thanks to the improvement in these matters, 
 my position has become much more tolerable, 
 and especially do I enjoy the privilege of having 
 no longer to work absolutely with a view to 
 money. No matter what I undertake here, I 
 decline to be paid for it (which indeed I should 
 do even if I were entirely destitute of means ; 
 Art-producing for the sake of mere money is 
 the one thing that would alienate me from Art, 
 as indeed it is the cause of the confusion 
 existing in so many minds on the truer nature 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 69 
 
 of Art and all its works). Thus I might say 
 that my life is pleasant enough were I only 
 different to what I am. As it is, not only do I 
 feel the degradation of the general condition 
 of things more keenly than others do ; but as 
 regards my own personal life, it is only in the 
 last few years that I have realised — alas ! too 
 late — that I have never rightly lived. But on 
 this subject I will not trouble you ; such 
 complaints were not meant for your ears. But 
 this much I must say to you : my art is be- 
 coming more and more like the song of a 
 captive nightingale haunted by illusions and 
 longings, and it would suddenly lose all meaning 
 if I were allowed to grasp at the realities of life. 
 Yes, where life ends, Art begins. In youth we 
 turn to Art, we know not how or why ; and only 
 when we have gone through with Art and come 
 out on the other side, we learn to our cost that- 
 we have missed Life itself- If I could deceive 
 myself with fresh illusions, all would be well ; if 
 
7° RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 it were in me to be proud and vain, how happy 
 might I not be at this moment. My fame is 
 ever on the increase ; I am looked upon as an 
 unheard-of phenomenon, impossible to classify ; 
 pamphlets and magazine articles innumerable 
 are written about me; misapprehension and 
 admiration reciprocally work each other up. 
 How unspeakably indifferent I remain to it all ! 
 Nothing would induce me to return for a 
 moment to quill-driving, I am so discouraged by 
 constant misapprehension of my writings, and 
 disheartened by realising that the inner meaning 
 of my whole being and of my views remains a 
 closed book. One thing alone could avail to 
 comfort me. Not only am I admired, I am 
 also beloved — where criticism ceases, love steps 
 in, and many hearts have been brought closer 
 to me. But this very sympathy remains a 
 thing apart, aloof from me ; it only touches my 
 life indirectly, and that life having taken the 
 bend it has, I can only contemplate this wealth 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 71 
 
 of love as from a great distance. If I could 
 become a thorough egoist it would be better for 
 me ; but there is no help for it, and, like you, I 
 feel it is only by resignation that I can be true 
 to myself. 
 
 Dear friend, I have been speaking to you 
 about myself, and there are still many things of 
 all kinds that I should like to tell you, but I 
 cannot unload all my freight at once. I do 
 wish that you could obtain leave to write to me 
 more often; frequent communication is needed 
 to keep up a flow, which otherwise gets stopped 
 up by a certain restraint. I cannot write to 
 you about yourself, for you alone can enlighten . 
 me and give me the key to your present 
 existence ; I do not even venture to tell you my 
 opinion of yourself and of your position. What 
 I think of you and feel towards you I must 
 keep to myself, otherwise I should incur the 
 suspicion of wishing to make you vain. All 
 that I can say to you about yourself is, that I 
 
72 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 should seem to myself very absurd if I were to 
 attempt to give you advice ; but if you can 
 suggest any way in which the advice or counsel 
 of a true friend could be of use to you, you 
 would confer a happiness on me. If you think 
 of anything let me know ! I hope that my 
 packet of books will reach you ; I am with you 
 in spirit while you read them. Let me know 
 whether you have received the "Ring of the 
 Nibelung," and, if not, whether you will be 
 allowed to have it. It is the climax of my 
 present artistic achievement. Answer this as 
 soon as possible. And now, farewell for the 
 present. If you are not able to write at an 
 early date, let me know through your wife 
 whether you will be allowed to receive another 
 letter from me. I shall then take up the thread 
 of much that I have left untold, as I have a 
 great dislike to sitting down more than once to 
 a letter, and at present my brain is quite dried 
 up. Farewell. Keep up your courage and your 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 73 
 
 patience — we none of us can pull through 
 without the one and the other. 
 Your 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
 Zurich, 
 
 June 8th, 1853. 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 Zurich, 
 
 25th January, 1854. 
 
 How I came to leave your letter unan- 
 swered for almost four months is a matter 
 easily explained to myself; but it will be more 
 difficult to make it clear to you, my dearest 
 friend. Anyhow, the chief blame is due to the 
 importance and interest of your letter. To 
 answer it in any way adequately was not so 
 much a question of my will as of my power to 
 do so. All last summer I was very unsettled. 
 Liszt paid me a visit in July ; later, I went to 
 St. Moritz in the Grisons (6,000 feet above the 
 sea) ; in the end of August to Italy — at least to 
 such parts of it as are open to me,* — Turin, 
 
 * Owing to Wagner's exile from Saxony, the Austrian 
 provinces were interdicted to him. 
 
 74 
 
RICHARD WAGNER'S lETTERS. 75 
 
 Genoa, Spezzia : from there I intended to go to 
 Nice and to remain there for some time ; but in 
 a strange land my sense of solitude so over- 
 whelmed me that suddenly, and partly in con- 
 sequence of a purely physical indisposition, 
 I fell into a state of melancholia, and set out 
 with what speed I could across Lago Maggiore 
 and the St. Gothard, and came straight home. 
 While I was recruiting here your letter reached 
 me, and at the same time I heard from Liszt 
 asking me to meet him in Paris. I spent the 
 month of October there, which caused the 
 newspapers to infer that Liszt and I had the 
 intention of bringing out my operas on the Paris 
 stage. During all this confusion I was unable 
 to answer your letter, and meant to do so on 
 my return to Zurich. But once there, I was 
 overcome with such an intense longing to get 
 to work at the music of my " Rheingold " that 
 I was not in a proper frame of mind to reply to 
 your critical remarks on my poem. No ! really 
 
76 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 I could not. So I threw myself passionately — 
 after an interval of six years — into music, and 
 determined not to write till I had finished the 
 composition of "Rheingold." Well, that is 
 done, and now I understand my own reluctance 
 to answer you sooner ; for now, the work being 
 accomplished, I am in a quite different position 
 to reply to your criticism, or rather not to reply 
 to it — that doubtless were best, for you are 
 right in criticising ; but I, too, am right in con- 
 ceiving and carrying out the work as best I can 
 and may. Therefore, I shall not quarrel with 
 you about it, but I should like to talk it over a 
 little with you. 
 
 But in the first place, and in regard to my 
 actual letter, let me tell you what a boon you 
 conferred on me by the accounts you sent me of 
 yourself and of your well-being. I come back 
 to it : you strike me as being almost happier in 
 your position than I am in mine. Every line of 
 your letter bears witness to your perfect sound- 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 77 
 
 ness and sanity. Now I admire you for this. 
 The fact that you are allowed to write me a 
 letter of five sheets proves that there has been 
 an improvement in the actual conditions of your 
 life, for which I am indeed thankful ; though 
 I must confess I can imagine circumstances 
 under which I might have to forego every 
 alleviation to existence, without suffering a pang 
 on account of that which I was called on to 
 renounce. One thing is paramount — freedom ! 
 But what is freedom ? Does one mean by it — 
 as our politicians seem to hold — lawlessness ? 
 Certainly not ! Freedom is sincerity. He who 
 is sincere — that is, true to himself, in perfect 
 harmony with his own nature — he is free. 
 Outward constraint is powerless unless it suc- 
 ceeds in destroying that sincerity in its victim, 
 and inducing him to dissemble, and thus attempt 
 to make himself and others believe that he is 
 something different to what he really is. That 
 alone is true servitude. But one need never 
 
78 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 submit to that. Let a man be actually in 
 bondage, if he preserves this sincerity of soul, 
 he keeps his essential freedom intact, at least 
 in a higher measure than another who has 
 ceased to feel that constraint — active every- 
 where in the world — simply because he has 
 submitted wholly to its power, and for its sake 
 has consented to play the hypocrite. 
 
 I believe that this sincerity (Wahrhaftigkeit) 
 is in fact no other than what philosophers and 
 theologians mean when they talk of truth 
 (Wahrheit). Truth is an idea, and by its nature 
 is nothing else than sincerity in concrete form. 
 The simple meaning of this sincerity is nothing 
 else than reality (Wirklichkeit), or, better still, 
 the Real, the Actual (das wirklich Seiende) ; and 
 that only is real which is appreciable to the 
 senses (sensuous), whereas what is non-appreci- 
 able to the senses is unreal and merely abstract 
 and imaginary. If, therefore, I am right in 
 considering sincerity as the most complete mani- 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 79 
 
 « 
 
 festation and expression of reality, Truth is 
 nothing else than the abstract idea of this 
 feeling, at least that is what it has become in 
 philosophy. And yet this idea is as far removed 
 from reality as sincerity, as I conceive of it, is 
 akin to this latter, and consequently from all 
 time no word has given rise to so much error 
 as this word Truth, which gradually has become 
 the source of every sort of fallacy, till finally 
 the idea — as must always be the case with mere 
 abstract ideas — has become nothing but a term 
 (word), and out of terms one can always build 
 up a system ; but it is a very different matter to 
 lay hold on reality. We have no certain expe- 
 rience of reality except through feeling, and 
 feeling, be it remembered, is once and for all 
 an affair of the senses. 
 
 It is clear that in using the word senses, the 
 idea to be conveyed is not mere animal senses, 
 as the term is contemptuously applied by philo- 
 sophers and theologians, but the human senses 
 
So RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 capable of reaching to the stars and of measuring 
 their courses. 
 
 Having established this, I think we shall be 
 at one in our views concerning the "World" (in 
 so far as it is the domain for the exercise of this 
 feeling of sincerity) if we allow ourselves to be 
 guided exclusively by the one genuine source of 
 experience, namely, sensation, and only pay 
 attention to impressions derived from this 
 source. Man, acting in conformity with his 
 organisation, has recourse to endless expedients 
 in order to grasp the Universe as a whole : these 
 expedients in all their endless complexity are 
 simply a group of concepts ; and in our pride at 
 having thus attained to a concept of the world 
 in its entirety, we lose sight of our true position, 
 forgetting that after all we have grasped nothing 
 but the concept, and that consequently we are 
 simply taking pleasure in the instrument of our 
 own making, while all the time we remain 
 further removed than ever from the reality of 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 8 1 
 
 the world. But the man who can find no lasting 
 delight in the phantasms of this illusion at last 
 becomes conscious that his own mind rebels 
 against its tyranny. He recognises the unreality 
 of this barren illusion, and feels impelled to 
 turn to reality and to approach it by means of 
 feeling. Then the question arises : how is this 
 to be done, seeing that reality conceived of as a 
 whole can only be made intelligible to the 
 intellect, and cannot be brought into relation 
 with feeling ? It can only be done by recognising 
 that the essence of reality consists of infinite 
 multiplicity (Vielheit) . This inexhaustible multi- 
 plicity, incessantly renewed and renewing, can 
 only be apprehended by feeling, as the one ever- 
 present though ever -varying element. This 
 variability is the essence of the real ; the unreal, 
 or that which is imagined, alone being invariable 
 and immutable. Nothing but what is variable 
 can be real. To be real — to live — what is it 
 but to be born, to grow, to bloom, to wither 
 
82 RICHARD WAGNERS LETTERS 
 
 and to die ? Without death as a necessary- 
 concomitant, there is no possibility of life : that 
 alone has no end which has no beginning ; but 
 nothing real can be without beginning, only 
 abstract ideas. 
 
 Therefore to be at one with truth is to give 
 oneself up as a sentient human being wholly 
 and entirely to reality — to encounter birth, 
 growth, bloom, blight and decay frankly, with 
 joy and with sorrow, and to live to the full this 
 life made up of happiness and suffering — so to 
 live and so to die. This is " to be at one with 
 truth." To make such a consummation possible 
 we must entirely renounce the pursuit of the 
 Universal. The Universal is made manifest to us 
 only in separate phenomena, for of such alone 
 can we in the true sense of the word take 
 cognizance. Now we can only fully grasp a. 
 phenomenon if we can at one and the same 
 time completely absorb it, and be absorbed by 
 it. Where must we look for the most complete 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 83 
 
 example of this marvellous process ? Ask 
 
 Nature. We must look to love, and to love 
 
 only. All that I cannot love remains outside 
 
 myself, and I remain outside of it — a condition 
 
 in which a philosopher perhaps, but not a sincere 
 
 man, may imagine that he grasps phenomena. 
 
 Love in its most perfect reality is only possible 
 
 between the sexes ; it is only as man and woman 
 
 that human beings can truly love. Every other 
 
 manifestation of love can be traced back to that 
 
 one absorbingly real feeling, of which all other 
 
 affections are but an emanation, a connection, 
 
 or an imitation. It is an error to look upon 
 
 this as only one of the forms in which love is 
 
 revealed, as if there were other forms co-equal 
 
 with it, or even superior to it. He who after 
 
 the manner of metaphysicians prefers unreality 
 
 to reality, and derives the concrete from the 
 
 abstract — and, in short, puts the word before 
 
 the fact,— he may be right in esteeming the idea 
 
 of love as higher than the expression of love, 
 6 * 
 
84 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 and may affirm that actual love made manifest 
 in feeling is nothing but the outward and visible 
 sign of a pre-existent, non-sensuous, abstract 
 love ; and he will do well to despise that love 
 and sensuous function in general. In any case 
 it were safe to bet that such a man had never 
 loved or been loved as human beings can love, 
 or he would have understood that in despising 
 this feeling, what he condemned was its sensual 
 expression, the outcome of man's animal nature, 
 and not true human love. The highest satis- 
 faction and expression of the individual is only 
 to be found in his complete absorption, and that 
 is only possible through love. Now a human 
 being is both man and woman, and it is only 
 when these two are united that the real human 
 being exists, and thus it is only by love that 
 man and woman attain to the full measure of 
 humanity. But when nowadays we talk of a 
 human being, such heartless blockheads are we 
 that quite involuntarily we only think of man. 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 85 
 
 It is only in the union of man and woman, by 
 love (sensuous and super-sensuous), that the 
 human being exists ; and as the human being 
 cannot rise to the conception of anything higher 
 than his own existence — his own being, — so the 
 transcendent act of his life is this consummation 
 of his humanity through love. He can only 
 renew it, the whole of life being after all but a 
 constant renewal of the multiplicity of vital 
 phenomena ; and it is this renewal which alone 
 explains the true nature of love, approximating , 
 it to the ebb and flow of the tide — constantly 
 changing, and ceasing only to begin afresh. It 
 is therefore a grievous error to look upon that 
 power in love, by virtue of which it constantly 
 renews itself, as a weakness ; and, on the other 
 hand, to glorify as the real, lasting love that 
 abstract, imaginary feeling, centred on God 
 knows what, which after all is but the spectre 
 of real love. The mere possibility of its indefi- 
 nite continuance proves the unreal nature of 
 
86 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 this abstract sentiment. Eternal, in the true 
 sense of the word, is that which annuls finite- 
 ness (or, better, the idea of finiteness). But 
 between the real and finiteness there is no con- 
 nection to be established, for the real — namely, 
 that which is characterised by change, reno- 
 vation, and multiplicity — is the negation of 
 what we imagine to ourselves as finite. The 
 infinity of the metaphysician is eternal unreality. 
 Finiteness is a mental image, which sure enough 
 has power to strike terror into our souls ; but it 
 can only do this if we have lost our hold on 
 reality. If, on the contrary, we are possessed 
 by a sense of the reality of love, that terror 
 vanishes, for love annihilates the notion of 
 limitation. To sum up, only that which is real 
 can be eternal, and it is through love that we 
 attain to the most perfect manifestation of 
 reality; therefore Love only is eternal. The 
 fact is, egoism ceases at the moment when the 
 " I " passes into the " Thou." But it is impos- 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 87 
 
 sible to keep a firm hold on the " I " and 
 *' Thou " if one is bewildered by notions of the 
 Universal. " I " and the " Universe " merely 
 mean "I" my own self; and the Universe is 
 only then real to me when it passes into the 
 " Thou," and this can only happen through the 
 medium of the loved one. This process can be 
 renewed through the medium of child, or of 
 friend ; but in order to love child or friend with 
 a perfect love, a man must have first known 
 what it is to lose himself in an all-absorbing 
 feeling, and this he can only learn through his 
 love to a woman. At the best, this feeling for 
 child and friend is only a makeshift, a fact of 
 which those are most conscious who have most 
 fully realised the ecstasy of mutual love as 
 between man and woman. All other affections 
 are merely a proof of the multiplicity of our 
 human nature, which brings to light strange 
 anomalies, sometimes of an absurd, but equally 
 often of a tragic, kind. 
 
88 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 But enough ! I venture to intrude on your 
 solitude with this confession of faith, for I feel 
 sure that there is no fear of your saddening 
 yourself by agreeing with me. Not only you, 
 but I — indeed, each one of us — live at the 
 present moment under circumstances and con- 
 ditions which we can only look upon as stop- 
 gaps and makeshifts ; for each of us the only 
 true, the only real life can only exist in the 
 imagination as an unattained ideal. I had 
 reached the age of thirty-six before I had 
 divined the true meaning of my creative im- 
 pulse ; up till then Art had seemed to me to be 
 the end, life the means. But the discovery had 
 come to me too late, and the result of following 
 this new bent could not be other than tragic. 
 A wider outlook into the actual world forces 
 home the conviction that for the moment Love 
 is impossible. It has come to this, that one of 
 my friends, in addressing himself to Germans, 
 could affirm with truth : " You do not know 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 89 
 
 what Love means. How should men be capable 
 of loving who have no initiative of Character ? 
 The thing is impossible." Therefore if we must 
 put up with a makeshift, it seems to me it were 
 best frankly to accept things as they are, and to 
 abide by this acknowledgment of the truth, 
 even if this avowal bring us no other good 
 than the proud consciousness of having gained 
 a knowledge by means of which we may be 
 enabled to guide the wills and aspirations of 
 mankind into the way of redemption. It is 
 true that in doing this we are working for 
 humanity as a whole ; but we are driven to it 
 by realising the fact that the individual cannot 
 be happy by himself, but only when all are 
 happy can he obtain perfect satisfaction. As 
 you perceive, this is quite your point of view ; 
 only for me it is not a final standpoint — merely 
 a temporary platform, a means to an end. This 
 end is still ignored by the majority of mankind ; 
 but I have indicated above what I understand it 
 
go RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 lo be, namely, the perfect consummation of love 
 as the fullest, most complete perception of 
 reality, of truth; but not an abstract, ideal, non- 
 sensuous love (such as alone is possible in the 
 present state of things), but the love of the "I" 
 and the " Thou." 
 
 It follows that I look on all the prodigious 
 efforts of the human race, and on all our actual 
 science, as ways and means towards an end, 
 which in itself is a very simple, but a very 
 divine thing. I, therefore, respect all these 
 •efforts; I recognise a necessity in every onward 
 step, and I rejoice heartily at each new 
 advance ; but personally I cannot take part in 
 all this striving (which, strangely enough, is 
 ignorant of its gain), seeing that the simple end 
 to which it all tends stands out so prominently 
 before me that I cannot turn my eyes away 
 from the object to the means. 
 
 Only the pressure of a great movement could 
 bring about such an act of self-denial on my 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. gi 
 
 part; and I should hail that with joy as the 
 sole means of redemption for me. 
 
 And now, you must not take it ill if I only 
 smile at the advice you give me to tear myself 
 away from dreams and egoistic illusions, and to 
 devote myself to what alone is real to life itself, 
 and its aspirations. For I, on the contrary, 
 believe that I am devoting myself to absolute 
 Reality, in the most effective, deliberate, and 
 determinate way by carrying out my own views, 
 even those that entail the most suffering, and 
 by dedicating every one of my faculties to this 
 end. Surely you yourself must agree with me 
 if, for example, I deny to Robespierre the 
 tragic significance which hitherto he has had 
 for you, or only admit it with considerable 
 qualifications. This type is peculiarly un- 
 sympathetic to me because in individuals 
 constituted as he is there is no trace to be 
 discovered of that which constitutes the true end 
 and aim of humanity since our degeneracy from 
 
92 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 Nature. The tragic element in Robespierre's 
 character really consists in the spectacle he 
 offers of utter helplessness, when, at the goal of 
 his highest aspirations to power, he stands 
 confronted by his own incapacity to make any 
 sort of use of this power that he has attained. 
 It is only in the confession of this helplessness 
 that he becomes tragic, and in the fact that his 
 own downfall is brought about by his inability 
 to achieve anything towards the happiness of 
 mankind. I am thus of opinion that his case is 
 the precise converse of what you conceive it to 
 be. He had no high end in view for the sake 
 of which he condescended to unworthy means ; 
 on the contrary, it was to disguise this absence 
 of any such end, and to conceal his own want 
 of resource, that he had recourse to the ghastly 
 paraphernalia of the guillotine, for it has been 
 proved that the "Terror" was carried out 
 purely as a means of government, and in 
 maintenance of authority, without any sort of 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 93 
 
 genuine passion ; it was conducted on purely 
 political grounds — that is to say, in an ambitious 
 and selfish spirit. In the end, this miserable 
 being, who at last had no other resource than to 
 advertise his inept "vertu," put the means in 
 place of the end,, as happens with all these 
 purely political heroes, who duly come to grief 
 from their own incapacity with such uniformity 
 that it is to be hoped the whole class is shortly 
 destined to disappear from history. On the 
 other hand, I maintain that my " Lohengrin," 
 according to my own conception,* symbolises 
 the most profoundly tragic situation of our age, 
 namely, the longing which besets us to descend 
 from the highest heights of mortal contempla- 
 tion and to plunge into the depths of human 
 affection — the desire to be immersed in feeling 
 — that desire which modern reality is as yet 
 powerless to satisfy. 
 
 On all this I have enlarged sufficiently in my 
 
 * That is to say, not "Lohengrin " pruned down and 
 distorted for the use of Opera Houses. 
 
94 RICHARQ WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 preface. It would only remain to indicate 
 what, situated as I am, I feel impelled to do in 
 furtherance of the aim of bringing both myself 
 and mankind nearer to that which I recognise 
 as the goal of human endeavour — a goal from 
 which I, as an individual, am cut off, because 
 the rest of mankind as yet deliberately cut 
 themselves off from it — unless I were to have 
 recourse to means which I can now no more 
 bring myself to use. Here my art must come 
 to my aid, and the work that I conceived under 
 this influence is no other than my Nibelung 
 poem; I am inclined to think that it was not 
 so much the obscurity of my version of the 
 poem, as the point of view which you persist- 
 ently adopted in opposition to mine, which 
 was the cause of your failing to understand 
 many important parts in it. Such mistakes are 
 of course only possible in the case of a reader 
 who substitutes his own ideas for those of the 
 poet, while the simple-minded reader, perhaps 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 95 
 
 unconsciously to himself, takes in the matter 
 
 more easily, just as it is. For myself the poem 
 
 can only be interpreted in the following way : — 
 
 Presentment of reality in the sense in which 
 
 I have interpreted it above. Instead of the 
 
 words — 
 
 "A fateful day is dawning for the gods ; 
 And wilt thou not deliver up the ring ? 
 Then be assur'd thy race ere long shall end — 
 Thy noble race — in shameful overthrow." 
 
 I now make Erda say merely — 
 
 •• All that is — ends : 
 A fateful day dawns for the gods : 
 I counsel you beware of the ring." 
 
 We must learn to die, and to die in the fullest 
 sense of the word. The fear of the end is the 
 source of all lovelessness, and this fear is only 
 generated when love itself begins to wane. 
 How came it that this feeling which imparts 
 the highest blessedness to all things living was 
 so far lost sight of by the human race that at 
 last it came to this : all that mankind did, 
 
96 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 ordered, and established was conceived only in 
 fear of the end ? My poem sets this forth. It 
 reveals Nature in her undisguised truth, with 
 all those inconsistencies which, in their endless 
 multiplicity, embrace even directly conflicting 
 elements. But it is not the repulse of Alberich 
 by the Rhine-daughters — the repulse was inevi- 
 table owing to their nature — that was the cause 
 of all the mischief. Alberich and his ring would 
 have been powerless to harm the gods had 
 they not themselves been susceptible to evil. 
 Wherein then is the root of the matter to be 
 sought ? Examine the first scene between 
 Wotan and Fricka, which leads up to the scene 
 in the second act of "The Walkiire." The 
 necessity of prolonging beyond the point of 
 change the subjection to the tie that binds 
 them — a tie resulting from an involuntary 
 illusion of love, the duty of maintaining at all 
 costs the relation into which they have entered, 
 and so placing themselves in hopeless opposi- 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 97 
 
 tion to the universal law of change and renewal, • 
 which governs the world of phenomena — these 
 are the conditions which bring the pair of them 
 to a state of torment and mutual lovelessness. 
 
 The development of the whole poem sets forth 
 the necessity of recognising and yielding to the 
 change, the many-sidedness, the multiplicity, 
 the eternal renewing of reality and of life. 
 Wotan rises to the tragic height of willing his 
 own destruction. This is the lesson that we 
 have to learn from the history of mankind : to 
 will what necessity imposes, and ourselves to bring 
 it about. The creative product of this supreme, 
 self-destroying will, its victorious achievement, is 
 a fearless human being, one who never ceases 
 to love : Siegfried. That is the whole matter. 
 . As a matter of detail, the mischief-making power, 
 the poison that is fatal to love, appears under 
 the guise' of the gold stolen from Nature and 
 misapplied— the Nibelungs' ring, never to be 
 redeemed from the curse that clings to it until 
 7 
 
98 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 it has been restored to Nature and the gold 
 sunk again in the depths of the Rhine. But it 
 is only quite at the end that Wotan realises 
 this, when he himself has reached the goal of 
 his tragic career; what Loge had foretold to 
 him in the beginning with a touching insistence, 
 the god consumed by ambition had ignored. 
 Later in Fafner's deed he merely recognised the 
 power of the curse ; it is only when the ring 
 works its destroying spell on Siegfried himself 
 that he realises that only by restoration of 
 what was stolen can the evil be annulled, 
 and he deliberately makes his own destruction 
 part of the conditions on which must depend 
 the annulling of the original mischief. 
 
 Experience is everything. Moreover, Sieg- 
 fried alone (man by himself) is not the complete 
 human being : he is merely the half; it is only 
 along with Briinhilde that he becomes the 
 redeemer. To the isolated being not all things 
 are possible ; there is need of more than one,. 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 90 
 
 and it is woman, suffering and willing to sacrifice 
 herself, who becomes at last the real, conscious 
 redeemer : for what is love itself but the "eternal 
 feminine " (das ewig Weibliche). 
 
 So much for the broad and general lines of 
 the poem, which may be taken as summing up 
 its more particular and special features. 
 
 I cannot believe that you have misapprehended 
 my meaning and intention : only it seems to me 
 that you have attached more importance to the 
 connecting links and parts of the great chain 
 than they, as such, deserve ; and as if you had 
 been bound to do this, in order to read into my 
 poem your own preconceived ideas. As a whole 
 I do not agree with your criticisms with regard 
 to a certain want of lucidity and distinctness of 
 statement : on the contrary, I believe that a true 
 instinct has kept me from a too great definite- 
 ness ; for it has been borne in on me, that an 
 absolute disclosing of the intention disturbs true 
 insight. What you want in drama — as indeed 
 
100 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 in all works of Art — is to achieve your end, not 
 by statement of the artist's intentions, but by 
 the presentment of life as the resultant, not of 
 arbitrary forces, but of eternal laws. It is just 
 this that distinguishes my poetical material from 
 all the poetical material which alone absorbs 
 poets' minds at the present day. 
 
 For example, by insisting, as you do, that the 
 intention of Wotan's appearance on the scene 
 in "Young Siegfried" should be more clearly 
 defined, you are prejudicing in a marked manner 
 the fateful element in the development of the 
 drama, which to me is so important. After his 
 farewell to Briinhilde, Wotan is in all truth a 
 departed spirit ; true to his high resolve, he 
 must now leave things alone, and renouncing all 
 power over them, let them go as they will. 
 
 For this reason, he is now only the "Wanderer." 
 Look well at him, for in every point he resembles 
 us. He represents the actual sum of the Intelli- 
 gence of the Present, whereas Siegfried is the 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 101 
 
 man greatly desired and longed for by us of the 
 Future. But we who long for him cannot 
 fashion him ; he must fashion himself and by 
 means of our annihilation. Taken in this way, 
 Wotan is, you must acknowledge, highly inter- 
 esting; whereas he would seem to us most 
 unworthy if he appeared as a subtle intriguer, 
 which indeed he would be if he gave counsel 
 apparently against Siegfried, though in reality 
 favourable to Siegfried and consequently to 
 himself. That were a deception worthy of our 
 political heroes, but not of my jovial god, bent 
 on his own annihilation. Look at him in his 
 juxtaposition to Siegfried in the third Act. In 
 presence of his impending destruction, the god 
 has at last become so completely human that — 
 contrary to his high resolve — there is once more 
 a stirring of his ancient pride, brought about by 
 his jealousy for Brunhilde — his vulnerable point, 
 as it has now become. He will, so to speak, 
 not allow himself to be merely thrust aside ; he 
 
102 RICHARD WAGNERS LETTERS 
 
 chooses rather to fall before the conquering 
 might of Siegfried. But this part is so little 
 premeditated and intentional, that in a sudden 
 burst of passion the longing for victory over- 
 powers him, a victory moreover which he admits 
 could only have made him more miserable. 
 Holding the views I do, I could only give the 
 faintest and subtlest indication of my design. 
 Of course I do not mean my hero to make the 
 impression of a wholly unconscious creature : 
 on the contrary, I have sought in Siegfried to 
 represent my ideal of the perfect human being, 
 whose highest consciousness manifests itself in 
 the acknowledgment that all consciousness 
 must find expression in present life and 
 action. 
 
 The enormous significance that I attach to 
 this consciousness which can scarcely ever find 
 adequate expression in mere words, will be 
 quite clear to you in the scene between Siegfried 
 and the Rhine-daughters. Here we see that 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 103 
 
 infinite wisdom has come to Siegfried, for he 
 has grasped the highest truth and knows that 
 •death is better than a life of fear : knowledge of 
 the ring, too, has come to him, but he does not 
 leed its power, for he has something better to 
 do ; he keeps it only as a proof that he at least 
 has never learnt what fear means. Confess, in 
 the presence of such a being, the splendour of 
 the gods must be dimmed. 
 
 What strikes me most is your question, "Why, 
 seeing that the gold is restored to the Rhine, is 
 it necessary that the gods should perish ? " I 
 feel certain that, at a good performance, the 
 most simple-minded spectator will be left in no 
 doubt on that point. Certainly the downfall of the 
 gods is no necessary part of the drama regarded 
 as a mere contrapuntal nexus of motives. 
 As such, indeed, it might have been turned, 
 twisted, and interpreted to mean any conceiv- 
 able thing — after the manner of lawyers and 
 politicians. No, the necessity for this downfall 
 
104 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 had to arise out of our own deepest convictions, 
 as it did with Wotan. And thus it was all- 
 important to justify this catastrophe to the feel- 
 ings of the spectator ; and it is so justified to 
 any one who follows the course of the whole 
 action with all its simple and natural motives. 
 When finally Wotan gives expression to this 
 sense of necessity, he only proclaims that which 
 we have all along felt must needs be. At the 
 end of " Rhine Gold " when Loge watches the 
 gods enter Walhalla and speaks these fateful 
 words: "They hasten towards their end who 
 imagine themselves so strong in their might," 
 he, in that moment, only gives utterance to our 
 own conviction ; for any one who has followed 
 the prelude sympathetically, and not in a hyper- 
 critical, cavilling spirit, but abandoning himself 
 to his impressions and feelings, will entirely 
 agree with Loge. 
 
 And now let me say something to you about 
 Brunhilde. You misunderstand her, too, when 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 105 
 
 you attribute her refusal to give the ring up to 
 Wotan to hardness and obstinacy. Can you 
 not see that it was for love's sake that Brun- 
 hilde sundered herself from Wotan and from 
 all the gods, because where Wotan clung to 
 schemes^ she could only — love ? Above all, from 
 the moment that Siegfried had awakened her 
 she has no other knowledge than the knowledge 
 of love. Now the symbol of this — after Sieg- 
 fried's departure — is the ring. When Wotan 
 claims it from her, one thing only is present to 
 her spirit — what it was that originally alienated 
 her from him, her having disobeyed for Love's 
 sake; and this alone she is still conscious of, 
 that for Love she has renounced her god- 
 head. She knows also that one thing alone is 
 god-like, and that is Love; therefore let the 
 splendour of Walhalla fall in ruins, she will not 
 give up the ring (her love). Just consider how 
 poor, avaricious and common she would have 
 stood revealed to us, if she had refused the ring 
 
106 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 because she had learned (possibly from Sieg- 
 fried) of its magic, and the power of gold. 
 Surely you did not seriously think such a thing 
 of so grand a woman ? But if you shudder 
 because, being the woman she is, she should 
 have preserved as a symbol of love just this 
 ring on which the curse lay, then you will have 
 penetrated my meaning, and will have under- 
 stood the curse of the Nibelungs in its most 
 terrible and tragic significance ; then you will 
 admit the necessity of the whole of the last 
 drama of " Siegfried's death." That had to be 
 compassed in order that the malign influence of 
 the gold should be fully revealed. How did it 
 ■come about that Brunhilde yielded so readily to 
 the disguised Siegfried ? Simply because he 
 had wrested the ring from her, in which her 
 whole strength lay. The terror, the fatality 
 (das Damonische) that underlie the whole of 
 that scene seem entirely to have escaped you. 
 Through the fire which it had been foreordained 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 107 
 
 that none but Siegfried should pass, which 
 actually none but he had passed, another has 
 made his way to her with but little difficulty. 
 
 Everything totters round Briinhilde, every- 
 thing is out of joint ; in a terrible conflict she is 
 overcome, she is "forsaken of God." And more- 
 over it is Siegfried in reality who orders her to 
 share his couch ; Siegfried whom she (uncon- 
 sciously and thus with the greater bewilderment) 
 almost recognises, by his gleaming eye, in spite 
 of his disguise. You must feel that something 
 is being enacted that is not to be expressed in 
 mere words — and it is wrong of you to challenge 
 me to explain it in words. 
 
 Well, I have certainly expanded pretty freely ; 
 the fear of doing so was really the cause of my 
 delay in writing. I was perturbed to find that 
 you had so completely misunderstood certain 
 features of my drama. This has made clear to 
 me, that only in its complete form and under 
 favourable circumstances would the work be safe 
 
108 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 from misapprehension, and as I was seized with 
 a violent longing to begin the musical composi- 
 tion, I gladly gave myself up to my desire, before 
 writing to you. The completion of the music of 
 " Rhine Gold," at once so difficult and so 
 important, has restored my sense of security, as 
 you perceive. I now realise myself how much 
 of the whole spirit and meaning of my poem is 
 only made clear by the music ; I cannot now 
 for my life even look at the words without the 
 musical accompaniment. In the course of time 
 I hope to send you the score. For the present, 
 all I need say is that it has worked up to a 
 perfect unity; there is scarcely a bar in the 
 orchestra which is not developed out of pre- 
 ceding motifs. But it is difficult to enter fully 
 upon this in a letter. 
 
 What you say as to the carrying out and per- 
 formance of the whole work meets with my full 
 approval ; on these points your judgment is 
 infallible. I shall certainly follow your advice. 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 109 
 
 How I am ever to bring about a complete repre- 
 sentation of the cycle is still a grave problem. 
 But when the time comes I shall attack it, for 
 otherwise I should be deprived of my one serious 
 aim in life. I believe there would be no difficulty 
 about the merely mechanical part of the under- 
 taking ; but how about my performers ? The 
 very thought makes me groan. Of course I 
 must look to young artists who have not been 
 already entirely ruined by our present Opera 
 system. I don't even in my dreams think of so- 
 called "stars." How I am to educate my young 
 company is the question. What I should like 
 would be to have my whole troupe together for 
 a year, without allowing them to perform once 
 in public. I should in that way have daily inter- 
 course with them, and train them both on their 
 human and their artistic side, thus allowing 
 them gradually to ripen for their task. So under 
 the most favourable conditions I could not count 
 on a first performance before the summer of 1858. 
 
no RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 But no matter how long it lasts, I feel some- 
 thing inspiring in such concentrated activity, 
 for the sake of an object that is entirely of my 
 own creation, which makes life worth living. 
 As for the rest, I must turn a deaf ear to all 
 your life-precepts and counsels ; over these things 
 one has no control — they come of themselves. 
 Believe me, I too was once possessed by the 
 idea of "the agricultural life." In order to 
 become a radically healthy human being, I went 
 two years ago to a Hydropathic Establishment ; 
 I was prepared to give up Art and everything if 
 I could once more become a child of Nature. 
 But, my good friend, I was obliged to laugh at 
 my own naivete when I found myself almost 
 going mad. None of us will reach the promised 
 land — we shall all die in the wilderness. Intellect 
 is, as someone has said, a sort of disease ; it 
 is incurable. In the present conditions of life, 
 Nature only admits of abnormities. At the best 
 we can only hope to be martyrs ; to refuse this 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. Ill 
 
 vocation is to put oneself in opposition to the 
 possibilities of life. For myself, I can no longer 
 exist except as an artist ; since I cannot com- 
 pass love and life, all else repels me, or only 
 interests me in so far as it has a bearing on Art. 
 The result is a life of torment, but it is the only 
 possible life. Moreover, some strange experiences 
 have come to me through my works. When I 
 think of the pain and discomfort which are now 
 my chronic condition, I cannot but feel that my 
 nerves are completely shattered : but marvellous 
 to relate, on occasion, and under a happy stimu- 
 lus, these nerves do wonders for me ; a clearness 
 of insight comes to me, and I experience a 
 receptive and creative activity such as I have 
 never known before. After this, can I say that 
 my nerves are shattered ? Certainly not. But 
 I must admit that the normal condition of my 
 temperament — as it has been developed through 
 circumstances — is a state of exaltation, whereas 
 calm and repose is its abnormal condition. The 
 
112 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 fact is, it is only when I am "beside myself" 
 that I become my real self, and feel well and 
 happy. If Goethe felt otherwise, I do not envy 
 him on that account ; as indeed I would not 
 change places with any one, — not even with 
 Humboldt, whom you look on as a genius, an 
 opinion I cannot share. No doubt you feel just 
 as I do, and are not prepared to change with 
 any one ; wherein you do wisely. I, at least, 
 admire you sincerely. 
 
 After all, I am not so much out of touch with 
 Nature as you seem to think, even though I am 
 no longer in a position to have scientific dealings 
 with her. In these matters I look to Herwegh, 
 who lives here, and has for long been a profound 
 student of natural science. From this dear 
 friend I have learnt many beautiful and inspiring 
 things about Nature, and they have influenced 
 me on many and vital points. But rather than 
 let Nature take the place to me of real life — 
 namely of love, — I would let her go by the board. 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 
 
 In this respect I am like Briinhilde with the ring. 
 Better to die, — to live without thought of joy, — 
 than renounce one's belief. You must not think 
 because I reply in this manner to your advice, 
 that I am ungrateful to you for it ; how could I 
 be ungrateful for the love that prompts you? 
 No ; indeed I rejoice in that love, and cannot 
 tell you how deeply I am touched by it. This 
 feeling of gratitude is only equalled by a sense 
 of admiration for the strength and at the same 
 time for the gentleness of your spirit. 
 
 One thing I wish, and that is a speedy per- 
 formance of the work which you tell me you 
 have written. Can the thing not be managed ? 
 Send me more details about it, in case I could 
 help you. Have you heard nothing from the 
 Publisher Avenarius at Leipzig ? Unfortunately 
 he is the only one with whom I have any 
 influence ; for with my own publishing firms I 
 have only had dealings through others, and 
 
 never satisfactorily to myself. As soon as I 
 8 
 
114 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 received your letter I wrote to him and begged 
 him to correspond directly with you about 
 terms, offers, etc. In spite of a second letter, I 
 have had no answer from him. 
 
 I don't know what to send you just now that 
 would be of interest to you. I myself have got 
 quite out of the habit of reading; but if I come 
 upon anything striking, I will pass it on to 
 you. 
 
 My " Tannhauser " is being performed almost, 
 everywhere in Germany ; especially has it been: 
 taken up by the small theatres. The large ones,, 
 from reasons which one quite understands, still 
 hold aloof. As regards the performances, I 
 hear that they are for the most part wretchedly 
 bad, so I do not quite know where the pleasure 
 comes in. As I do not see them, I have ceased 
 to be sensitive about this prostitution of my 
 works; though a recent first performance of 
 " Lohengrin " at Leipzig did make a very pain- 
 ful impression on me. I hear it was incredibly 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 1 15 
 
 bad. Amongst other things, not one word was 
 clearly declaimed throughout the evening, except 
 by the heralds. It has come to this, that 1 
 regret ever having given my works to the public. 
 In Boston they have got the length of having 
 Wagner nights, — concerts where nothing is given 
 but my compositions. They want me to go to 
 America ; if they could provide me there with 
 the necessary means, who knows but that I 
 should do so ? But to tour about as a giver of 
 concerts, even for large sums of money, is what 
 no one need expect of me. 
 
 And now, my dearest friend, I must stop. If 
 necessary I could fill a folio of paper; there 
 would be no lack of matter ; but we must keep 
 it for some other occasion. It is to be hoped — 
 and see that you do it — that you will not keep 
 me waiting so long for your letter as I kept you 
 for this answer. Tell me much about your 
 writings. If I have forgotten anything, I can 
 
 retrieve it in my next letter. Now good-bye, 
 
 8 * 
 
Ii6 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 dear old friend. Hope, — for even I am not 
 without hope. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
 Zurich, 26th Jan., 1854. 
 
 To August Roeckel, 
 Schloss Waldheim, 
 Saxony. 
 
LETTER V. 
 
 Dear Friend, 
 
 I have this minute received your letter, and 
 have put my work aside in order to reply to 
 you at once and thus carry out an intention I 
 have postponed for a year. A letter to you has 
 burdened my conscience for long, and I can 
 hardly understand why it has been so long 
 unwritten; most probably the mood of the 
 moment never set in the direction of writing, 
 for on my lonely walks I have often written to 
 you in my thoughts. But I have developed into 
 a thorough-going pedant, and I am a prey to a 
 sort of brooding, which makes all expansion 
 impossible, and from which I seek refuge in 
 work. But I won't waste time on excuses of 
 this nature. 
 
 I have been comforted lately by news of my 
 
 117 
 
Il8 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 wife's visit to you, and by the accounts she 
 sends me of you. From her report it seems to 
 me that any anxiety on your account was 
 indeed uncalled for. Don't take me up wrongly. 
 Your father, too, who came to see me here, put 
 me in quite good spirits about you. In his 
 clear, sensible, definite way, he gave such a 
 quaintly reassuring account of you, that, I 
 confess, we several times laughed heartily over 
 it. The consequence of which is, that there is 
 not much left to me to write to you about but 
 myself, and in dealing with this subject there 
 are various hindrances. 
 
 But to come to the point — and in the first 
 instance as regards outward circumstances, — 
 I continue to lead a life of the utmost seclusion, 
 absolutely and entirely given up to my great 
 work, the composition of my Nibelung dramas. 
 In Germany my operas are steadily making 
 their way ; but it is still a slow business. 
 "Tannhauser" is given more or less every- 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 119 
 
 -where except in Berlin, Brunswick, Vienna, 
 Munich, Stuttgart, and the smaller theatres of 
 Bavaria and Austria ; in Prague and Gratz, how- 
 -ever, it is given. " Lohengrin " follows suit, and 
 is in high favour in the Rhine provinces and in 
 Breslau; and in certain places the "Flying 
 Dutchman " is being given. As regards the 
 performances, I am quite convinced that they 
 are poor, and that they would only distress me 
 if I were to be present at them. I am 
 particularly concerned about " Lohengrin," 
 performed as it is without my having been able 
 to show what I meant, by first putting it on the 
 stage myself. The report that reached you 
 as to its being given in Paris was certainly a 
 canard. I have heard nothing of it, and even 
 were it on the cards I should most probably 
 forbid it. On the other hand, something quite 
 new has turned up. The old Philharmonic 
 Society in London has asked me to conduct 
 their concerts this season. When their invitation 
 
120 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 reached me, I felt as if I had dropped from the 
 clouds. I had never troubled myself the least 
 in the world about London, and had calmly 
 accepted the fact last year that at these very 
 concerts my "Tannhauser" overture was not 
 only massacred, but actually hissed. As I 
 hesitated about accepting their invitation, they 
 went so far as to send one of their directors to- 
 Zurich to secure me. At length I consented, 
 as I felt that it was a case of repudiating, once 
 and for all, any further connection with the Art 
 public, or of accepting the hand they stretched 
 out to me. The pay is not large, and as I do 
 not contemplate any private speculation, I am 
 merely going out of curiosity, in order to see 
 what the people in London are about. If I 
 had any ulterior design, it would be to get 
 together, at some future date in London, a first- 
 rate company in order to give all my operas, 
 and more especially "Lohengrin." Well, the 
 event will prove ! 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 121 
 
 I start at the end of this month. The first 
 concert is on the 12th of March, the last on the 
 35th of June. I expect to be back in the 
 beginning of July on the Seelisberg, by 
 the Lake of Lucerne, my favourite spot in 
 Switzerland. There I shall recover from the 
 worries of London, and hope to compose my 
 " Young Siegfried." I have finished the composi- 
 tion of the " Walkure," amid much anguish of 
 spirit, of which no one knows anything, least of 
 all my excellent wife. Peace to the subject ! I 
 will complete the instrumentation in London ; 
 up to now I have only commenced it. 
 
 I only finished the fair copy of " Rheingold " 
 last autumn. I at once sent the score to Dresden 
 to have it copied by my old copyist there. 
 Liszt, however, urged me so strongly and per- 
 sistently to allow him to see the original, that I 
 was obliged to interrupt the copying in order to 
 let him do so. Liszt has only now returned 
 the score to Dresden ; as soon as the copy is 
 
122 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 ready, either it or the original shall be sent to 
 you provisionally. The upshot of all will no 
 doubt be that you will improve (?) the whole 
 thing out of existence. So much the better. 
 I shall be delighted to see some specimens of 
 your music. Possibly you will succeed better 
 than I have done. 
 
 But now to deeper subjects. I do not mean 
 to philosophize with you to-day, but shall let 
 another do so in my stead. I have just sent an 
 order to Leipzig to forward you a copy of 
 Arthur Schopenhauer's book, The World as 
 Will and Idea. 
 
 I hope you will be allowed to read this book, 
 as there is nothing in it that has any objection- 
 able bearing on your position. As you will get 
 to know the book for yourself, I need tell you 
 nothing about it, but I will give you some 
 account of its author. Schopenhauer is at 
 present 62 years old ; he lives and has been for 
 some time past in complete retirement at 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 123 
 
 Frankfort. Briefly, this has been his career. 
 His chief work appeared as early as 1819 ; and 
 in 1844 he published a fuller edition of it, with 
 an extra volume. He took up his position as 
 the direct heir of Kant, and this simultaneously 
 with Hegel's appearance on the scene. Schopen- 
 hauer's philosophy, which completely demolishes 
 the nonsense and charlatanism of the Fichte- 
 Schelling-Hegel view, was absolutely ignored 
 for forty years by the professors of philosophy, 
 and this of purpose and intention. No one 
 knew anything of him. At long last he was 
 discovered by an English critic, and introduced 
 to the world in a long article in the Westminster 
 Review. This writer expresses his astonishment 
 that a mind of Schopenhauer's eminence should 
 have remained unnoticed for nearly half a 
 century, though, naturally enough, he recognises 
 that the philosophy was of a kind which forced 
 these professors to seal up Schopenhauer 
 hermetically, and shut him off from the world 
 
124 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 at large, unless they meant to cut away the 
 ground from under their own feet. The said 
 article was translated into a Berlin paper, since 
 when it has been impossible to ignore Schopen- 
 hauer, and now the miserable impotence of 
 German philosophy since Kant has been laid 
 bare and openly declared. The importance of 
 the book is incalculable, but in a sense that will 
 be far from satisfactory to many. For myself, 
 I confess my experience of life had brought 
 me to a point when only Schopenhauer's 
 philosophy could wholly satisfy me and exercise 
 a decisive influence on my whole life. 
 
 In accepting unreservedly the profound truths 
 of his teaching I was able to follow my own 
 inner bent, and although he has given my line 
 of thought a direction somewhat different 
 from its previous one, yet only ' this direction 
 harmonized with the profoundly sorrowful con- 
 ception I had already formed of the world. 
 
 I am sure that the book will have a great and 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 125 
 
 decisive influence on you ; it may even be that 
 you will find in it, should you require it, the 
 unique consolation of which strong spirits more 
 than others stand in need. I will say nothing 
 further to you on the subject, but I feel that 
 from henceforth we have a new and sublime 
 interest in common on which we may exchange 
 our ideas. In reading Schopenhauer I thought 
 of you constantly, and it is with a feeling at 
 once deep and solemn that I send you this 
 work, which at a critical moment of my own 
 inner life gave me courage to endure and 
 strength to renounce. Do read it ; I can confer 
 no greater benefit on you. When you have 
 finished it, write to me, and we can then 
 discuss it. Address your letter to London, care 
 of Ferdinand Praeger, 31 Milton St., Dorset 
 Square. Your father, who has been most kind 
 to me, recommended me to Praeger : I shall 
 lodge with him on arrival. I shall anxiously 
 await your next letter. For to-day you must 
 
126 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 be satisfied with these few pages. As regards 
 outward events I have nothing to tell, and for 
 the things of the spirit I send you Schopen- 
 hauer. From London I shall write often and 
 fully. 
 
 Farewell, dearest friend. Trust ever in me 
 and in my affection. Kindest regards from my 
 wife. 
 
 Your 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
LETTER VI. 
 
 22 Portland Terrace, 
 
 Regent's Park, 
 
 London. 
 
 Dear Friend, 
 
 I have just read your letter, and feel prompted 
 to answer it at once, or rather to send in 
 exchange for it some of the ideas which came 
 into my mind while reading it; for I cannot 
 attempt to answer it in detail ; to do so would 
 lead me astray into too much hair-splitting. I I 
 perceive that you continue to be an obstinate 
 optimist; and that, like unto your friend the 
 Apostle Paul, Judaism in particular is still 
 deeply rooted in your nature. 
 
 As regards myself, for long past it has been 
 only with the greatest difficulty, and by per- 
 
 127 
 
128 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 sistent rejection of the teaching of experience, 
 that I had succeeded in maintaining an opti- 
 mistic attitude towards life. It was thus a 
 mere remnant of Hebrew superstition that had 
 still to be cast out when I encountered the 
 prodigious force of friend Schopenhauer's genius. 
 Only with much travail was this superstition 
 finally exorcised, but in the end there was 
 comfort and that peace which comes to a man 
 who has once for all done with self-deception 
 and has attained the full measure of freedom 
 that is possible to mankind. The deepest truth 
 of Schopenhauer's doctrine, the truth that only 
 the greatest minds have been able to grasp, 
 rests on Kant's important discovery of the 
 subjective character of all phenomena. We, 
 too, must have fully grasped this truth before 
 we can take one step further towards the com- 
 prehension of the "thing in itself" (Das Ding 
 an sich) ; held, as you know, by Kant to lie 
 outside the sphere of our knowledge, but 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 1 29 
 
 designated with convincing force by Schopen- 
 hauer as Will. I cannot pretend that I am at all 
 times able to follow the process of the solution 
 of this mighty problem, still less to expound it 
 clearly. The clear realisation of the subjective 
 character of time, space, and causality, as mere 
 forms of perception, argues a mental process of 
 so sublime a nature that, as Schopenhauer 
 proves beyond dispute, it can only be possible 
 to an abnormally organised brain, and under 
 conditions of peculiar excitement. But no 
 sooner have we comprehended this truth than 
 all the illusions which have hitherto darkened 
 our judgment vanish as if by magic, and of a 
 sudden even words fail us to make our position 
 plain ; for our words hitherto have been adapted 
 to the service of a far different knowledge than 
 that to which we have now attained. The 
 difficulty now is to communicate our ideas 
 through this confused medium of word-symbols, 
 without every moment giving occasion for mis- 
 
 9 
 
130 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 understanding. It is therefore wisest to start 
 from the simplest phenomena, namely, from, 
 those that lie nearest to our common experience. 
 To have achieved this kind of clearness is 
 Schopenhauer's extraordinary merit. But it is 
 only to those who are capable of following him 
 through those first and most important stages- 
 of his reasoning process that his meaning- 
 presents no stumbling-block; and it is just in 
 that initial step that the difficulty lies. The 
 following point, however, must be perfectly 
 intelligible to any mind of a superior order, for 
 it has been unanswerably demonstrated, and in 
 fact serves as the point of departure of our 
 modern natural sciences. 
 
 In normal man, all his senses, and more 
 especially his organ of perception, namely, his 
 brain, is entirely in the service of his Will. The 
 emancipation of this faculty of perception from 
 the service of the Will is thus an abnormal 
 act, and can only take place with abnormal 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 1 3 1 
 
 organisations (having in a sense the stamp of 
 monstrosity). In this exceptional condition 
 which we recognise in its highest development 
 as genius, the faculty of perception becomes 
 conscious in the first instance of its normal 
 condition, and, being thus liberated from the 
 service of the Will, recognises the state of 
 bondage to which it has been hitherto subjected, 
 and asks itself : How does this dominating all- 
 controlling Will manifest itself up to this point, 
 when in an abnormal condition of liberated 
 perception it ceases to assert itself ? In answer 
 to this question we have to admit, with a deep 
 sense of shame, that this Will has sought nothing 
 but to live, namely, to nourish itself by the 
 extermination of others, and to reproduce itself 
 by propagation. We can discover nothing in 
 Will beyond this blind instinct. 
 
 Now in the abnormal condition in which this 
 truth has become clear to us, we are forced to 
 
 ask ourselves whether there is not some risk in 
 n * 
 
132 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 subjecting ourselves to the service of a Will so 
 constituted, and we seek to penetrate further 
 into the meaning of this phenomenon. We 
 then recognise that this Will is identical in all 
 perceptible manifestations, and that conse- 
 quently all isolated phenomena are nothing but 
 individuations of the same Will, recognisable as 
 such by our faculty of perception, according to 
 its fundamental forms of cognition — individual 
 manifestations, that is to say, of an entity that 
 is continually engaged in self-consumption and 
 self-reproduction. This entity thus appears as 
 something that is perpetually at variance with 
 itself, something that subsists in a discord, of 
 which the only fruit visible to us is pain and 
 suffering. 
 
 The question then arises : To what height can 
 this Will attain under the most favourable 
 circumstances? Just to that point which we 
 have reached when we recognise the possibility 
 of the emancipation (that is to say in an 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 133 
 
 abnormal case) of one of its organs, namely, of 
 the faculty of perception, from the service of the 
 Will, and thus to a recognition of its essential 
 character. And in acknowledging this, what do 
 we gain? Clearly we gain the knowledge of 
 the essential, the awful nature of this Will, and 
 at length through this knowledge we attain 
 to sympathy — i.e., compassion with suffering 
 (Mitleiden), for it is characteristic that we have 
 no word to express sympathy with joy. At 
 this point perception gains a moral import 
 which hitherto had been ignored. Under the 
 highest and most favourable conditions we 
 attain to a sympathy with all things living, and 
 by reason of their life, in unconscious bondage 
 to the service of the Will. In this perfect 
 unison with all that has been kept apart from 
 us by the illusion of individuation lies the root 
 of all virtue, the true secret of redemption. 
 This has at all times been the point of departure 
 of religion. But what deliverance is there from 
 
134 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 the infinite pain of such a sympathy ? Is it to 
 be sought in an endeavour to make things 
 easier, to mitigate to a certain extent by humane 
 means this eternal conflict of the Will with itself, 
 this terrible and increasing instinct towards 
 self-consumption and self-reproduction ? The 
 man who could believe this and desire it has 
 completely missed the perfect knowledge of 
 which we have spoken ; his perception would 
 still be in complete bondage to the Will, as to 
 whose true nature — thanks to the illusory effect of 
 individuation — our enslaved faculties are still 
 deceived. True insight (and it is this that is so 
 difficult to grasp) has only come to us when — 
 in an abnormal condition — we have renounced 
 our individual Will, and thereby repudiated and 
 denied the service of the Will. And there 
 follows as the highest product of this knowledge 
 the recognition that for him who has attained 
 universal sympathy, redemption is to be found 
 only in the deliberate negation of the Will — that 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 135 
 
 is, in realisation of its corrupt nature, and of the 
 necessity of release from participation in its 
 service. And in the first place the only con- 
 ceivable and practicable way towards this 
 liberation that is open to us lies in the renun- 
 ciation through sympathy of our individual Will. 
 And that amounts to nothing short of the com- 
 plete negation, in fact to the annihilation, of the 
 Will. Well, I must confess that this philosophy 
 appeals profoundly to my heart and head — I 
 can conceive of no loftier or truer teaching. 
 All misapprehensions of the apparent disagree- 
 ment between the individual Will and the Will 
 of all things living outside myself, result from 
 the defective understanding of the subjective 
 character of our perceptions, in so far as they 
 are conditioned by the fundamental forms of 
 our cognition (Time, Space, and Causality). The 
 man who has mastered this profoundest of all 
 problems, to whom Time, Space, and Causality 
 are no longer realities, has also grasped the 
 
I3 6 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 truth that his individuality based on these forms 
 of perception is no reality, and he sees that not 
 in the creation of these notions of Time, Space, 
 and Causality, but in self-renunciation is to be 
 sought the highest act of the Will. It does not 
 occur to Schopenhauer to draw utilitarian and 
 practical conclusions from the truth, or to 
 formulate theories ; for he knows that it is not 
 the business of philosophy to conjure up new 
 spirits, but that its mission is, on the contrary, 
 to destroy as far as may be — seeing that our 
 perception is still in bondage — the old phantoms, 
 of our enslaved perception. He is in no wise 
 concerned to interfere with the peace of a man 
 who, in order to enjoy life quand mime, busies 
 himself with the creation of fresh illusions ; he 
 only addresses those who truly desire to know. 
 It follows that Philosophy, the sum total of all 
 the sciences, can only end in negation, whereas 
 all other speculation being in the service of the: 
 Will seeks truth in affirmation. This affirmation. 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 137 
 
 carried out to its logical conclusion at all costs 
 is nothing more nor less than Judaism, grown 
 so powerful again at the present time, and 
 embodying, as it does, the most miserably 
 narrow-minded conception of the world that 
 has ever been imagined. 
 
 From all time the minds that have attained, 
 thanks to their abnormal organisation, to a 
 clear perception have turned to the minds of the 
 multitude still in bondage to the Will, and, 
 having compassion on them, have sought a 
 means of communication with them. Foremost 
 among these enlightened spirits have been the 
 founders of religions, and it has been their 
 tragic destiny that they were forced to make 
 use of such a language and of such symbols as 
 are alone intelligible to ordinary unenlightened 
 minds. 
 
 Certainly the Indian Prince Buddha spoke 
 the language which most nearly gives expression 
 to that lofty enlightenment. Thanks to recent 
 
I38 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 oriental studies, the scales have fallen from our 
 eyes, and we can form an independent judgment 
 of this wonderful personality, no longer seen 
 through the distorting medium of the Hindoo 
 religion of the present day. If we are to speak 
 in terms understanded of the people of this 
 highest perception, it can only be done under 
 the form of pure and primitive Buddhist 
 teaching. Especially important is the doctrine 
 of the transmigration of souls as the basis of a 
 truly human life — a life whose sympathy extends 
 even to the inconscient animal and vegetable 
 world. Surely this doctrine is the happiest 
 inspiration of a sublimely sympathetic spirit.* 
 
 The latest scientific inquiries have estab- 
 lished beyond dispute that the idea underlying 
 Christianity has its origin in India. The 
 enormous difficulty, nay, the absolute impossi- 
 
 * It is barely necessary to remind the reader that Wagner 
 was mistaken in attributing the ancient Indian doctrine of 
 the transmigration of souls to Buddha, as if it were an 
 invention of his. 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 139 
 
 bility of grafting on to the barren stock of 
 Judaism this sublime truth, which has as its 
 central thought contempt of the world and 
 negation of the will to live, has alone been the 
 cause of all those contradictions which hitherto 
 have so sadly distorted Christianity that its 
 pure image can scarcely be recognised. For 
 the quintessence of Judaism is that heartless 
 unreasoning optimism, to which all things are 
 right so long as purse and stomach are well- 
 filled ; and for this there is no lack of opportunity, 
 provided one sets about it in the right way, 
 accepting the world as it is, and twisting all 
 things to one's own advantage. In contrast to 
 this, how divine is the recognition of the vanity 
 and nothingness of this world manifest in the 
 faith of primitive Christianity, and how sublime 
 is Buddha's doctrine, which makes us one 
 through sympathy with all things living! 
 
 In judging other details of Schopenhauer's 
 philosophy — for instance, his treatment of the 
 
140 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 penal code, — you must remember, as I have 
 already said, this philosopher never makes 
 postulates, nor does he express approval or 
 disapproval, but he rests satisfied with establish- 
 ing the essential character of all phenomena. 
 For instance, he demonstrates what the State 
 is, what justice is, and so on ; but not what they 
 ought to be. Far from it, and if you are not 
 satisfied with things as he shows them to be, by 
 so much the more are you at one with Schopen- 
 •hauer, who turns his back on the whole business, 
 saying, as it were : " See, so much is within 
 your reach, these are the makeshifts which allow 
 you to continue affirming your will to live. It 
 is on sophistries of this nature that are founded 
 what you are pleased to call humane methods 
 for the difficult task of preserving the human 
 race, though you are quite well aware how much 
 'justice ' is in them ; but don't imagine that you 
 impose upon me, and, above all, don't prate to 
 me, forsooth, of a State philosophy and similar 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 141 
 
 nonsense." From all which it follows that if 
 
 we would fain allay the divine thirst for sympathy 
 
 aroused in us by the clearer insight that has come 
 
 to us, we must seek satisfaction elsewhere than 
 
 in any conceivable social and civil institutions. 
 
 By-and-by I will send you Schopenhauer's 
 
 minor writings, among which there is a very 
 
 exhaustive treatise on Somnambulism, etc. 
 
 From this you will see with what rare and 
 
 profound insight this philosopher has dealt with 
 
 this problem, and how from a phenomenon, 
 
 in which we are aware of an activity implying 
 
 a second intuitive faculty, he deduces convincing 
 
 proof of the subjective character of our ordinary 
 
 methods of cognition,* of the unity of the Will 
 
 in all things that have life, and of the illusive- 
 
 ness of the sense of individuality, so that the 
 
 problem of the denial of the Will at once 
 
 becomes intelligible. 
 
 * i.e. that we are deluded in thinking we have any direct 
 knowledge of the external world. Each of us knows only a 
 reflex inside his own head. 
 
142 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 But enough of this. The object of my 
 demonstration was not so much to teach you 
 (for- certainly you will do this best yourself), as 
 to clear the whole subject up once more for 
 myself, for I must tell you that this profound 
 philosophy colours my mental processes from 
 day to day, and that I now contemplate the 
 world from a point of view which allows me to 
 recognise facts of deep and irresistible signifi- 
 cance — facts in relation to which I used formerly 
 to practise systematic self-deception, in the vain 
 endeavour to remain true to optimistic delusion. 
 
 Especially am I deeply moved by contempla- 
 tion of the position of animals, so shamefully 
 ill-used and ill-treated by mankind, and I am 
 glad to be able to give way without shame to 
 the strong sense of pity which I have always 
 felt, and no longer to have to seek about for 
 sophistries to whitewash the wickedness of men 
 in this respect. 
 
 As for the rest, if anything could increase my 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 145 
 
 contempt of the world, it would have been my 
 expedition to London. Suffice it to say briefly, 
 that I have bitterly atoned for my own folly 
 in allowing myself, in spite of experience, and 
 through mere foolish curiosity, to be beguiled 
 into accepting the present engagement. What 
 more can I say ? At the best, I have nothing 
 to hope for here, and my presence as conductor 
 of these concerts can only lead to fresh mis- 
 understandings. I have not even had the 
 satisfaction of giving really beautiful perform- 
 ances of Beethoven's works, for each time it 
 has only been possible to have one rehearsal; 
 and even had the orchestra been better, that is 
 not enough to establish a thorough under- 
 standing with the players. That the Jewish 
 press here should cut me up is a matter of 
 profound indifference to me ; I am all the more 
 glad that other journalists, and particularly my 
 own audiences, do not let themselves be led 
 astray, and do justice to me, in so far as they 
 
144 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 are able. But I recognise that it is not now 
 possible for them to do so fully, and consequently 
 I heartily repent having come here. Now, I must 
 hold out till the end of June. It is useless to 
 think of having a German opera here (that is, 
 a good one); and even if it were possible, I 
 should not wish for a performance of my own 
 operas. It would not be possible — and what 
 would be the good ? It is only the work itself 
 that can interest me now, not its success. 
 Besides, I am always depressed here, and my 
 work gets on very slowly. I see a great deal of 
 Praeger here — a good, crazy fellow. Lately 
 Edward * was here on a visit. I am going to 
 him at Bath for a few days' holiday. Did we, 
 or did we not, speak much of you ? For the 
 rest, I avoid new acquaintances, but I mean 
 to look up N. S. Tulk. Thanks for the sugges- 
 tion. "Tannhauser" is actually going to be 
 given at Berlin, but without Liszt, as I was not 
 * Edward Roeckel, brother of August. 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 145 
 
 in a position to insist upon it, and could no 
 longer do without the fees. That I intended to 
 conduct it myself was a mere canard; I have 
 heard nothing to that effect, and in all probability 
 shall hear nothing. In summer I return — via, 
 Paris — to my beloved Switzerland, which I do 
 not mean ever to leave again. Retirement, 
 beautiful scenery, and work — these constitute 
 the element in which alone I can live and move 
 .and have my being, and from which I will never 
 again be dragged away. Excuse more to-day ; 
 perhaps I shall soon write again, as there may 
 be something to add on various points. Fare- 
 -well, and be as ever of good courage. 
 
 Your 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
 10 
 
LETTER VII. 
 
 Zurich, 
 
 August 23rd, 1856. 
 
 Your letter, my dearest friend, far from 
 rousing a combative spirit in me, has only 
 confirmed me in the belief that in this world 
 nothing is gained by discussion. , That in us, 
 which is essentially and fundamentally our own,, 
 is not our conceptions (Begriff) but our intuitions 
 (Anschauung). These, however, are so inalien- 
 able a part of our being, that we can never 
 wholly express them, never adequately com- 
 municate them ; for even the most complete 
 attempt in this direction — the achievement of 
 the artist, the work of Art — is apprehended by 
 others purely in accordance with their own 
 intuitions. How can an artist expect that what 
 
 146 
 
RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 147 
 
 he has felt intuitively should be perfectly realized 
 
 by others, seeing that he himself feels in the 
 
 presence of his work, if it is true Art, that he is 
 
 confronted by a riddle, about' which he too 
 
 might have illusions, just as another might? 
 
 Now, would you suppose it possible for an artist 
 
 to be helped to a clear understanding of his 
 
 own work by an intelligence other than his 
 
 own ? As to this, I am in a position to speak, 
 
 as on this very point I have had the strangest 
 
 experiences. Seldom has there taken place in 
 
 the soul of one and the same man so profound 
 
 a division and estrangement between the 
 
 intuitive or impulsive part of his nature and his 
 
 consciously or reasonably formed ideas. For 
 
 I must confess to having arrived at a clear 
 
 understanding of my own works of Art through 
 
 the help of another, who has provided me with 
 
 the reasoned conceptions corresponding to 
 
 my intuitive principles. 
 
 The period during which I have worked in 
 10 * 
 
148 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 obedience to my intuitions dates from "The 
 Flying Dutchman." " Tannhauser " and 
 " Lohengrin " followed, and if there is any 
 expression of an underlying poetic motive in 
 these works, it is to be sought in the sublime 
 tragedy of renunciation, the negation of the will, 
 which here appears as necessary and inevitable, 
 and alone capable of working redemption. It 
 was this deep underlying idea that gave to my 
 poetry and my music that peculiar consecration, 
 without which they would not have had that 
 power to move profoundly which they have. 
 Now, the strange thing is, that in all my in- 
 tellectual ideas on life, and in all the conceptions 
 at which I had arrived in the course of my 
 struggles to understand the world with my 
 conscious reason, I was working in direct 
 opposition to the intuitive ideas expressed in 
 these works. While, as an artist, I felt with 
 such convincing certainty that all my creations 
 took their colouring from my feelings, as a 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 149 
 
 philosopher I sought to discover a totally 
 opposed interpretation of the world ; and this 
 interpretation once discovered, I obstinately 
 held to it, though, to my own surprise, I found 
 that it had invariably to go to the wall when 
 confronted by my spontaneous and purely 
 objective artistic intuitions. I made my most 
 remarkable discovery in this respect with my 
 Nibelung drama. It had taken form at a 
 time when, with my ideas, I had built up 
 an optimistic world, on Hellenic principles; 
 believing that in order to realize such a world, 
 it was only necessary for man to wish it. I 
 ingeniously set aside the problem, why they 
 did not wish it. I remember that it was with 
 this definite creative purpose that I conceived 
 the personality of Siegfried, with the intention 
 of representing an existence free from pain. 
 But I meant in the presentment of the whole 
 Nibelung myth to express my meaning even 
 more clearly, by showing how from the first 
 
15° RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 wrong-doing a whole world of evil arose, and 
 consequently fell to pieces in order to teach us 
 the lesson, that we must recognise evil and tear 
 it up by the roots, and raise in its stead a 
 righteous world. I was scarcely aware that in 
 the working out, nay, in the first elaboration of 
 my scheme, I was being unconsciously guided 
 by a wholly different, infinitely more profound 
 intuition, and that instead of conceiving a 
 phase in the development of the world, I had 
 grasped the very essence and meaning of the 
 world itself in all its possible phases, and had 
 realized its nothingness ; the consequence of 
 which was, that as I was true to my living 
 intuitions and not to my abstract ideas in my 
 completed work, something quite different saw 
 the light from what I had originally intended. 
 But I remember that once, towards the end, I 
 decided to bring out my original purpose, cost 
 what it might, namely, in Briinhilde's final 
 somewhat artificially coloured invocation to those 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 151 
 
 around her, in which, having pointed out the 
 ^vils of possession, she declares that in love 
 alone is blessedness to be found, without 
 {unfortunately) making quite clear what the 
 nature of that Love is, which in the develop- 
 ment of the myth we find playing the part of 
 -destructive genius. 
 
 To this extent was I led astray in this one 
 passage by the interposition of my intellectual 
 intention. Strangely enough, I was always in 
 despair over this said passage, and it required 
 the complete subversion of my intellectual 
 -conceptions, brought about by Schopenhauer, 
 to discover to me the reason of my dissatis- 
 faction, and to supply me with the only adequate 
 Jkey-stone to my poem* in keeping with the 
 whole idea of the drama, which consists in a 
 simple and sincere recognition of the true 
 
 * This new version of the final verses of Goetterdaemmerung, 
 to which Wagner here refers, was later on cancelled as the 
 first had been ; the poem was allowed to finish without any 
 irace of moral reflection and doctrine. 
 
152 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 relations of things and complete abstinence 
 from the attempt to preach any particular 
 doctrine. 
 
 My reason for imparting to you this mental 
 process, which cannot be considered devoid of 
 interest, is to make my own position clear to 
 you. Once this problem of the difference 
 between intellectual conceptions (Begriff) and 
 intuitions (Anschauung) had been solved for 
 me by Schopenhauer's profound and inspired 
 penetration, I ceased to think of it as a mere 
 abstract idea, for I realised it as a truth, which 
 was borne in on me with such convincing force 
 that, having fully recognized its nature, I was 
 satisfied to accept it for myself, without com- 
 mitting myself to the presumptuous mistake of 
 attempting to force it on others by means of 
 dialectic. I am profoundly conscious myself 
 that I should never have been convinced by 
 such means, unless my own deepest intuitions 
 had been satisfied ; and therefore I see that if 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 153 
 
 the truth of which I have spoken is to be 
 brought home to any one, he must have felt 
 it intuitively before he can grasp it intellec- 
 tually. 
 
 We can form no abstract conception of a 
 thing unless we have previously grasped it as a 
 living intuition ; if a man realizes that clearly, 
 especially if he feels himself as little of a 
 philosopher as I do, he will not have much 
 inclination to pose as a dialectician. My only 
 language is Art. Nevertheless, I ask you, in 
 order to sum up the whole matter, can you 
 conceive of a moral action of which the 
 root idea is not renunciation ? And what 
 is the most ideal holiness, namely, full 
 and perfect redemption, if it is not the 
 recognition of this truth, as the basis of all 
 our action ? 
 
 But even with these simple questions I go 
 too far, and become more abstract than is 
 advantageous to myself. Therefore let me tell 
 
154 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 you a few more things about my concrete 
 personality. 
 
 I am an Artist, nothing else, and that is at 
 once my blessing and my curse; otherwise I 
 should have wished to have been a saint and to 
 have ordered my life in the simplest way. As 
 it is, fool that I am, I strive and struggle to 
 achieve rest, by which I mean the completed 
 rest of an undisturbed, tolerably comfortable 
 life, in order that I may have nothing to do but 
 to work and to be an artist. 
 
 To attain this is so difficult, that in my 
 constant pursuit of rest I am often obliged to 
 laugh at myself. Since last I wrote to you I 
 have been pretty wretched. The London 
 expedition was a foolish inconsistency on my 
 part, for which I have patiently submitted to 
 punishment, even to the extent of remaining to 
 the end of my engagement. While there, all 
 power of work left me. I had meant to finish 
 the score of "The Walkiire," but my memory 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 155 
 
 of what I had meant it to be vanished. I 
 returned to Zurich ill, and in the course of the 
 winter, during repeated attacks of erysipelas, 
 completed the "Walkiire" with difficulty (but, 
 between ourselves, it is well done). In the 
 beginning of summer I went to the neighbour- 
 hood of Geneva, where, under the direction of 
 a first-rate doctor, I underwent a most beneficial 
 course of hydropathy, which I have just 
 completed, and have returned here, where I 
 found your letter awaiting me. It was too soon 
 to think of commencing the composition of 
 " Young Siegfried." Liszt is going to visit me 
 at the end of September: I shall go through my 
 two finished scores with him ; and then I hope 
 to start on " Siegfried " refreshed and inspired, 
 and to present it finished to the world by the 
 end of next year. 
 
 That is all I have to tell you of myself. 
 With sore difficulty I got, while in London last 
 year, a finished copy of " Rhine Gold " from 
 
156 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 Dresden. I left it behind with a young friend 
 and gifted musician, Klindworth, in order that 
 he might make a good pianoforte arrangement 
 of it. He had the misfortune to be ill himself 
 for a long time, and has only recently returned 
 me the full score and the completed arrange- 
 ment for the pianoforte ; a fair copy of the 
 latter must be taken here, and for this purpose 
 the copyist must have the score on account of 
 the annotations. When the copy is finished I 
 can do what I like with the score, and I 
 promise that you shall have it after Liszt's 
 visit. As yet no copy has been made of the 
 "Walkiire," as I have only one good copyist 
 here, and he has not much time. I am so 
 unwilling to let my original scores out of my 
 hands that I shall not send the " Walkiire " to 
 Dresden to be copied ; not so much for fear of 
 its loss, though that would be serious enough, 
 as because I need to have it at hand in order to 
 go on with the work. So you must kindly 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 157 
 
 excuse delay in the receipt of my works, and 
 attribute it to above-mentioned circumstances. 
 I will get you Schopenhauer's minor works. 
 There is so much that is new and important in 
 them, that I can promise you pleasure from 
 them, in spite of the undeniable asperities and 
 prejudices of a pronounced misanthrope which 
 may occasionally repel you. At the same time 
 I will send you the score of my " Faust " 
 overture, which, owing to an unexpected 
 suggestion, I retouched. In its present form it 
 seems to me not unworthy of myself. But the 
 books must be sent from Leipzig. As regards 
 the external events of my life, the German 
 theatres continue giving my operas very badly, 
 and none the less with a persistent success 
 that fills me with humorous amazement. 
 Efforts are being made to procure permission 
 for me to return to Germany, especially on the 
 part of the Grand Duke of Weimar, who has 
 interested himself actively in the matter, but 
 
:58 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 without, so far, a favourable result. For my 
 part, what I chiefly desire for myself is health 
 to carry out all the schemes of which I am full ; 
 unfortunately, more full than need be, for, 
 besides the Nibelung dramas, I have got a 
 "Tristan and Isolde" (in which Love is treated 
 as a power of anguish) in my head, and also a 
 wholly new subject, " The Conquerors " (a 
 Buddhist legend concerning final Redemption). 
 I am so possessed by both of them that it 
 requires some steadfastness of purpose to force 
 them into the background in favour of the 
 "Nibelungs." 
 
 Now, dearest August, you see in black and 
 white what I, who am still in need of rest, 
 could do at one bound. Keep up your cheerful 
 spirits and your clear-headedness, and suit your 
 philosophy to your needs. At the best we can 
 only know what we desire to know; for you 
 must allow that, in spite of our knowledge, we 
 are nothing more or less than embodiments of 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 159 
 
 will, and as such the most powerful, if not the 
 wisest, of things created. Farewell, and believe 
 me, 
 
 Your 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
LETTER VIII. 
 
 To Mr. August Roeckel, 
 Weimar. 
 
 Biebrich, March 6th, 1862. 
 
 You will easily believe, dear friend, by how 
 many and what varied feelings I am moved 
 each time I think of the Past we had in common, 
 of your imprisonment, and now at last of your 
 liberation. Accept my sympathy on this last 
 turn of events, and above all let me congratulate 
 you, if you are able truly to enjoy your liberty. It 
 is not easy to make clear what I mean by this. 
 Anyhow, you are at present in an enviable 
 position. It is as if you were awakened from a 
 long winter's sleep ; thanks to your incredibly 
 vigorous nature, your powers are strengthened, 
 and at the same time have kept their freshness. 
 
 1 60 
 
RICHARD WAGNER' S LETTERS. l6r 
 
 You have suffered much, but your sufferings 
 
 now may pass for dreams : they have not 
 
 changed you in any way ; for, as I can see from 
 
 your printed report, not only have you remained 
 
 the same in all respects, but your desire to take 
 
 things up exactly where you left them has 
 
 strengthened. It is nothing short of a miracle, 
 
 and it does not occur to me to pity you, for I 
 
 should not know where my condolences would 
 
 come in. As you have chosen open political 
 
 agitation for the field of your future activity, it 
 
 follows that you are full of hopes for the future 
 
 of events. With so wide a field of vision 
 
 before you, cares for your home and family 
 
 must seem to you secondary considerations. 
 
 Your nature demands a sphere of activity which 
 
 shall bring you into touch with men and 
 
 things, and you will have no difficulty in 
 
 gratifying your desire. In short, everything 
 
 that has become a burden to me, and all that I 
 
 avoid on principle, appears desirable to you and 
 ii 
 
162 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 attracts you, and the freshness which you have 
 kept, thanks to your long privation, will save 
 you from a too speedy disillusionment and 
 disgust. As for me, I shall watch you with 
 great interest, and shall rejoice that a man of 
 such parts and so good a fellow as yourself 
 should have been preserved in full vigour for a 
 work which I recognise as necessary, though 
 personally feeling no vocation for it. When I 
 tell you further that I ask nothing of the world 
 but that it should leave me unmolested, granting 
 me only what is necessary to my happiness — 
 namely, leisure and peace of mind for my work ; 
 when I add that, with a willing servant and a, 
 dog, I have all that I want, and can get on 
 perfectly well ; and that, with the exception of a 
 really clever friend (whom I entertain as an 
 angel), I can exist without seeking intercourse 
 with anyone, you will understand with what 
 peculiar feelings I shall contemplate you attaching 
 yourself once more actively to a party and 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEE. 163 
 
 cheerfully associating yourself with blockheads 
 and riffraff of all sorts. But that is your affair. 
 To give you fuller particulars about myself, 
 I must tell you that I have with infinite difficulty 
 established myself here in great privacy and 
 retirement, in order to produce a new work. 
 My wife, to my surprise, came from Dresden to 
 belp me. She remained here ten days, and it 
 was during the early part of her visit that your 
 letter arrived. As regards the Art World and the 
 Theatre, I mean in the future to have as little as 
 possible to do with either of them ; in this way, 
 I shall perhaps succeed, as you succeeded in 
 prison, in thinking better of the world than it 
 deserves (though a single visit to the Weimar 
 Theatre promptly dispelled all your illusions). 
 Therefore I am striving to shut myself up in a 
 similar prison, if possible, in solitary confine- 
 ment. Believe me, my imprisonment is not 
 less involuntary than yours was. There is not 
 
 much difference in the matter of constraint ; in 
 11 * 
 
164 RICliARD WAGNERS LETTERS 
 
 fact, brutal constraint such as you were subjected 
 to may agree better with an energetic nature 
 than does the fate which forces me into seclusion. 
 But I will not deny that I should most probably 
 have submitted just as little as you did to 
 the constraint imposed on you. Sometimes, 
 indeed, I used to wish that you might freei 
 yourself at whatever cost, and I used to urge: 
 your people to go through with all the neces- 
 sary forms. I now see that you could not 
 have done it, and I feel the utmost admiration : 
 for your behaviour towards your tormentors^ 
 Clearly your conscience must be your only 
 reward. But if you mean to pursue politics, I 
 am curious to know how you will begin. In my 
 opinion, it would be wisest if you were to seek' 
 office in some Liberal service, for I am almost 
 convinced that nothing can be achieved in- 
 politics save in a practical way, and armed with 
 power. And this is, after all, the one essential 
 thing in a sphere where obviously you can do 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 1 65 
 
 no more than deal with the urgent necessities 
 of the moment, undertaking from time to time 
 necessary repairs, without which there would 
 be confusion and an absolute block. According 
 to my experience, to be political means always 
 to have nothing else in view but what is possible 
 in an immediate future, for then only can you 
 hope for results ; and political activity, without 
 results, is sheer nonsense. Ideas belong to the 
 domain of Philosophy, but have no meaning to 
 the majority of mankind, with whom any higher 
 form of thought at once becomes superstition 
 or folly. 
 
 Well, I hope we may meet before long ; a 
 trip eastwards is not an altogether impracticable 
 idea to me, and most gladly in that case would 
 I stop at Weimar. You will, I hope, find me 
 quite unchanged; indeed, more accessible as 
 regards hopefulness and belief in progress than 
 I could wish, which only means that one will 
 always be an ass. I am glad just now to be 
 
166 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 engaged on a work which gives me pleasure.* 
 Would to God I had got well into it. Once 
 more, thanks for your letter, and do not mis- 
 understand me in any respect. I am a suffering 
 mortal — nothing more. Farewell ! Be heartily 
 welcome amongst free -ranging bipeds, and 
 believe with what genuine envy I look on you. 
 Best remembrances to your people. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
 * Wagner was just finishing the poem of the Meistersingw 
 when he wrote these lines. 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 To Mr. August Roeckel, 
 Weimar. 
 
 Biebrich-on-the-Rhine, 
 April 5th, 1862. 
 
 Dearest Friend, 
 
 I have a friend here, a most gifted young 
 
 musician from whom I look for great things, 
 
 and who is attached to me with a most touching 
 
 devotion; he would feel happy for the rest of 
 
 his life if he could secure a really fine poem for 
 
 an opera. I have spoken to him about 
 
 "Wieland."* Now, great politician, tell me, 
 
 * A detailed sketch of a lyrical drama, which Wagner 
 wrote in 1849, but never attempted to carry out ; he offered 
 it to Liszt, Berlioz, and Roeckel. It will be found in the 
 3rd volume of his writings. 
 
 167 
 
168 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 do you ever mean to compose opera again ? 
 Frankly, I don't believe it. You have not said 
 anything to me about the scheme of the 
 libretto. I doubt your doing it ; probably you 
 have some reason against it. Anyhow, it 
 would amply satisfy my young friend if he 
 could try his skill as a musician and develop his 
 talents on a really poetical subject. So if you can 
 swear to me with your hand on your heart that 
 you do not believe you will ever use "Wieland," 
 I will frankly ask you to return the manuscript 
 to me here. Assuming that this is so, I should 
 be very glad. Therefore, think over it, ponder 
 it well, and decide. 
 
 I have a feeling that you may have taken my 
 last letter amiss. If so, you did wrong. It so 
 happened that I was in an evil mood just then. 
 Now things begin to look brighter. I am 
 suffering from an old complaint, which uses up 
 half my vital energy to no purpose. 
 
 But enough. My wife has obtained for me a 
 
TO AUGUST EOECKEL. 169 
 
 complete pardon and permission to enter Saxony 
 freely. But I shall remain here unmoved, where 
 I am quite comfortably established, and where 
 I have had — up till now — perfect peace for work. 
 For the present this work rules my life des- 
 potically; in every respect, both from within 
 and without, it is the one thing necessary for 
 my self-preservation. I absolutely do not know 
 where to lay hands on a Thaler, unless next 
 winter I have something new to launch "for 
 the theatre." Therefore, for the present, judge 
 me according to this my necessity. Write to 
 me, or, better still, come to the Rhine. This 
 summer I shall not budge from this place. I 
 must not. 
 
 Farewell. Best regards to all your people, 
 and send me soon good accounts of yourself. 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 R. Wagner. 
 
LETTER X. 
 
 To August Roeckel, 
 
 Weimar. 
 
 Biebrich, 
 
 April 23rd, 1862. 
 
 Dear Friend, 
 
 Your letter has brought vividly to mind the 
 old days. There was a peculiar " something " 
 about that time when we were together. I, too, 
 long to be with you once again. Tell me, 
 could not we tryst your brother here on the 
 Rhine when he has his holidays, and all be 
 merry together like boys for a week ? Here 
 we should be perfectly undisturbed, which, so 
 far as I am concerned at least, would not be so 
 easy elsewhere. I hope, towards the end of 
 
 170 
 
RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 171 
 
 May, to pass through Weimar, and to spend a 
 day with you. When the time approaches let 
 me know where you will be. But if you feel 
 inclined to visit me first for a couple of days, do 
 come ; it so happens that I am in a position at 
 present to pay your travelling expenses. 
 
 In summer (June and July) the Billows are 
 coming here. 
 
 Such things are the only joy in life, and I 
 would give all the world to be able always to 
 have a friend staying with me. If one lives 
 near each other all one's life in a large place, it 
 does not come to the same thing: one can 
 never thoroughly enjoy one's friends by seeing 
 them in snatches. Therefore, decide quickly. 
 I had rather not come to Weimar to see you. 
 
 Farewell. Be wise, and come. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 W. 
 
LETTER XI. 
 
 To Mr. August Roeckel, 
 
 Weimar. 
 Biebrich, June 17th, 1862. 
 
 Dearest Friend, 
 
 I was delighted to hear from you again. Be 
 sure you make out the visit. I remain here the 
 whole summer. If it suited you, I should prefer 
 that you came to me early in July. About that 
 date the Biilows are coming here for some 
 time. I shall have forthwith to read them 
 "The Meistersingers," and I should like to 
 read it to you as well, but as I have several 
 times had to do so already, I have lost 
 some of the freshness for such undertakings, 
 and it always takes it out of me ; therefore 
 172 
 
RICHARD WAGNERS LETTERS. 173 
 
 I should be very glad if you would com- 
 municate with the Biilows (Hans von Biilow, 
 12 Schoneberger Strasse, Berlin), and, if 
 possible, fix the same date for your arrival at 
 Biebrich. Billow might then inform Schnorr 
 {in Dresden) of the date, for he proposes to 
 pay a visit about that time to submit to the 
 same ordeal. 
 
 As a rule I live in such solitude and retirement 
 that I greatly look forward to this combined 
 outburst. It will do me a world of good. 
 Another reason for choosing this time is, that I 
 shall be then in a position to let you hear my 
 new things to some advantage. Hans will play, 
 and Schnorr, who is a very good musician, will 
 help with the singing, of which I nowadays can 
 make but little. Of course Edward will be 
 heartily welcome. 
 
 I am very anxious and curious to see you 
 again. It seems strange to me that I should 
 go on living, when I have outlived so much in 
 
174 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS 
 
 myself and my surroundings, and on the whole, 
 alas ! to feel so unchanged, that I often appear 
 to myself like a ghost. Heaven knows, when 
 thinking of you, I often quite forget the 
 incredibly long episode of your imprisonment, 
 and go back in thought to the time of our 
 Dresden walks. And yet your appearance 
 must have changed considerably. The en- 
 closed will show you what I looked like two 
 years ago. 
 
 Well, we shall see ! 
 
 Yesterday I caught myself once again in a 
 burst of political rage. I felt strongly moved 
 to write to the Swiss advising them not to 
 come to the Frankfort Rifle Meeting : those 
 asses having behaved in such a compromising 
 way to the Italians. It would have been an 
 excellent lesson to them and well-deserved. 
 Perhaps you will write. However, you 
 have a political position and must keep up 
 appearances — it stands to reason one has 
 
TO AUGUST ROECKEL. 175 
 
 sometimes to be prudent. The Devil take 
 you politicians ! 
 
 However, au revoir. Make all the necessary 
 arrangements. 
 
 Heartily yours, 
 
 R.W. 
 
LETTER XII. 
 
 To Mr. August Roeckel, 
 
 Editor of the Frankfort Reform, 
 Frankfort-on-the-Main. 
 
 My dear Old Friend, 
 
 Your book * is terrible ! 
 
 It is all written with such modesty, such 
 restraint, such unwavering love of humanity, 
 and at the same time it excites one to the pitch 
 of madness. 
 
 You certainly are one of the most extraordinary 
 of men, and God knows what you may yet do. 
 With your faith you might remove mountains — 
 there can be no doubt of that. 
 
 It would be hard to quarrel x with you ; I have 
 not the least intention of doing so. 
 
 I simply devoured your book. 
 
 * The Revolution in Saxony, and my Imprisonment in Waldheim. 
 176 
 
RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 177 
 
 I feel much as you did in prison. How am I 
 to escape? I need rest and concentration to 
 fulfil my mission, which no other man can do 
 for me. But — how to get rest ? When lo ! of 
 a sudden, a young man appears, as if from 
 heaven, destined for me by the stars.* He 
 knows me, and understands me as if by in- 
 spiration, as no one else has done. He thanks 
 Fate that has called him so young to the 
 throne, in order that he may befriend me, and 
 realise my ideal. This is his one aim and 
 object. There ! And now, on the other hand, 
 just conjure up before your fancy Bavaria ! — 
 Munich ! — and you will be able to imagine the 
 rest. What I long for above all is, rest — for I 
 can bear it no longer, and a general sense of 
 disgust overwhelms me ! 
 
 But what am I to do ? I long to get away to 
 some beautiful corner of Italy, to live as a 
 stranger — a lazzarone — and to rest my shattered 
 * Reference to Louis II. of Bavaria. 
 
178 RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS. 
 
 nerves. But how can I desert this young King, 
 who clings to me with his whole heart, and 
 leave him to his disgraceful surroundings ? 
 That is my position. What will become of me ? 
 What can I do? That is what I ask myself, 
 and no answer comes— no human being can tell 
 me — I am too tired ! 
 
 As to you, I have no fears. You have your 
 vocation, and you will fulfil it. You have even 
 sufficient sense of humour to stick to the 
 Frankfort newspaper. 
 
 Accept my best thanks. You have once more 
 done excellently, and your book is worth fully 
 as much as your imprisonment. 
 
 Farewell; and keep your affection for me, as I 
 shall ever be heartily true and attached to you. 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 
 Munich, March 7th, 1865. 
 
 ■■/''% 
 
 PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLIS 
 
 ;hee.. 
 
Rwomsmittis 3/6 Series. 
 
 Crown Svo, cloth. 
 
 Vol. I. THREE MEN IN A BOAT ... 
 
 (To Say Nothing of the Dog) 
 
 II. THE END OF A LIFE 
 
 III. DIARY OF A PILGRIMAGE ... 
 
 IV. RECALLED TO LIFE 
 
 Y. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA 
 
 YI. THE SUPERNATURAL?. 
 
 YII. 
 
 Yffl. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 Jerome K. Jerome. 
 
 Eden Phillpotts. 
 Jerome K. Jerome. 
 Grant Allen. 
 Max O'Rell. 
 ■ L. A. Weatherly 
 
 (h. A. 
 
 "I J. N. Maskelyne. 
 
 THE WHITE HAT Finch Mason. 
 
 FIFTY POUNDS FOR A WIFE A. L. Glyn. 
 
 A TIGER'S CUB Eden Phillpotts. 
 
 WHEN I LIYED IN BOHEMIA Fergus Hume. 
 
 I George Grossmith 
 THE DIARY OF A NOBODY 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. FLYING VISITS 
 
 XIII. "LIFE IN HIM YET" 
 
 XIY. DR. PAULL'S THEORY 
 
 XY. CLAUD BRENNAN 
 
 •tot /THE GREAT SHADOW and) 
 
 ivl, \ BEYOND THE CITY J 
 
 XYII. THREE BRACE OF LOYERS 
 
 XYIII. THE PRISONER OF ZENDA... 
 
 XIX. NEIGHBOURS OF OURS 
 
 XX. STATION STORIES 
 
 XXI. PETER STEELE, THE 
 CRICKETER 
 
 XXII. DEAD MAN'S COURT 
 XXIII. "NOT EXACTLY" ... 
 XXIY. MINOR DIALOGUES 
 
 XXY. GREENROOM 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS 
 XXYI. DARTMOOR 
 
 AND 
 
 [ Weedon Grossmith. 
 
 Harry Furniss. 
 /Henry St. John 
 \ Raikes. 
 
 Mrs. A. M. Diehl. 
 . John Ferrars. 
 
 Conan Doyle. 
 
 Harold Yallings. 
 . Anthony Hope. 
 . Henry W. Nevinson 
 . Murray Cator. 
 
 } Horace G. Hutchin- 
 son. 
 . Maurice H. Hervey. 
 . E. M. Stooke. 
 . W. Pett Ridge. 
 Arthur Wm. 
 A'Beckett. 
 Maurice H. Hervey. 
 
 Bristol: J. W. Abbowsmith, 11 Quay Street. 
 Lmdon: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. Limited. 
 
Price Si* Shillings each. 
 
 AMYAS EGERTON. By Maurice H. Hervey. With 
 Eight Illustrations by J. Skelton. Crown 8vo, 428 pp., gilt 
 top. 
 
 ZISKA : The Problem of a Wicked Soul. By Marie 
 
 Corelli. Crown 8vo, 368 pp., gilt top. 
 PLATFORM, PRESS, POLITICS AND PLAY. By 
 
 T. H. S. Escott, M.A. Crown 8vo, 396 pp., with Photo- 
 gravure of the Author. 
 
 MY OWN FAIRY BOOK. By Andrew Lang. Illus- 
 trated. Crown 8vo., cloth, gilt edges. 
 
 LESLIE'S FATE, AND HILDA; OR, THE GHOST 
 
 OF ERMINSTEIN. By Captain Andrew Haggard, D.S.O. 
 With Twenty Illustrations by Evelyn Stuart Hardy. 
 Eoap. 4to, handsomely bound. 
 
 CRICKET. By W. G-. Grace. With 45 Illustrations. 
 Demy 8vo, 490 pp., cloth. 
 
 A ROGUE'S DAUGHTER. By Adeline Sergeant. 
 Crown '8vo, 422 pp., cloth. 
 
 SECRETS OF THE COURTS OF EUROPE. By 
 
 Allen Upward. Crown 8vo, 388 pp. 
 
 Bristol: J. W. Arrowsmith, 11 Quay Street. 
 London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. Limited. 
 
Cornell University Library 
 ML 410.W1A36 1897 
 
 Richard Wagner's letters to August Roeck 
 
 3 1924 017 141 684