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 FROM THE 
 
 BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY 
 
 COLLECTED BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 
 1854-1919 
 
 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
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 the Cornell University Library. 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924017555511 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
Richard Wagner to 
 Mathilde Wesendonck 
 
 TRANSLATED, PREFACED, ETC. 
 
 By William Ashton Ellis 
 
 >- 
 
 oe. 
 < 
 
 New York : CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 153-157, Fifth Avenue 
 
 U 
 
 * 
 
 1905 
 
 KB 
 
 it; 
 
All rights reserved. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 ZURICH LETTERS 
 VENICE DIARY 
 VENICE LETTERS 
 LUCERNE LETTERS 
 PARIS LETTERS 
 AFTERMATH . 
 FROM HER TO HIM 
 VALEDICTORY . 
 INDEX . 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 vii 
 
 i 
 
 29 
 
 83 
 
 "5 
 171 
 
 295 
 333 
 367 
 3;6 
 
Dein Verhaltniss zu mir ist so heilig, sonderbar, dass 
 ich erst recht bei dieser Gelegenheit fiihlte : es kann nicht 
 mit Worten ausgedriickt werden, Menschen konnen's 
 nicht sehen. 
 
 Goethe to Charlotte von Stein. 
 
 Ich gehe viel mit Richard Wagner urn, welcher ein 
 genialer und auch gufer Mensch ist. 
 
 Gottfried Keller, Zurich, 1856. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 {To his sister, Clara Wolfram!) 
 
 "Geneva, 20th August 1858. 
 
 " My dear Klare, 
 
 " I promised you something more detailed about the 
 true causes of the serious step in which you now see me 
 engaged. I will tell you what is needful, that you may also 
 be able to refute any other gossip ; toward which, however, 
 I am most indifferent myself. 
 
 " What for six years past has supported, comforted, and 
 strengthened me withal to stay by Minna's side despite the 
 enormous differences of our character and disposition, is 
 the love of that young gentlewoman who at first and for 
 long approached me shyly, diffidently, hesitant and timid, 
 but thereafter more and more decidedly and surely. As 
 there never" could be talk between us of a union, our deep 
 attachment took that wistful character which holds all base 
 and vulgar thoughts aloof, and discerns its only source of 
 gladness in the welfare of each other. Since the very 
 commencement of our acquaintance she has felt the most 
 unflagging and refined solicitude for me, and obtained from 
 her husband in the most courageous fashion whatever might 
 alleviate my life. For his part, in view of his wife's out- 
 spokenness to him, it was only natural that he should fall 
 into increasing jealousy ; but her grandeur has consisted in 
 this, — that, always keeping her husband informed about her 
 
Vlil INTRODUCTORY 
 
 heart, she gradually attuned I him even to the fullest resigna- 
 tion toward her. With what sacrifices and combats this 
 could but be attended, may easily be judged : what made 
 its achievement possible to her, could only be the depth and 
 the sublimity of her attachment, remote from all self-seeking, 
 which gave her power to shew herself to her husband as 
 of such stature that, if she ended by threatening her own 
 death, he needs must abstain from her and prove his 
 unshakeable love even by upholding her in her solicitude 
 for me. In fine, it became a matter of retaining the mother 
 of his children, and for their sake — who severed our two 
 selves the most insuperably — he accepted his renunciant 
 position. Thus, whereas he was consumed with jealousy 
 himself, she was able so to interest him in me again, that — 
 as you are aware — he often-times assisted me ; and when it 
 became at last a question of procuring me a little house 
 with garden after my own wish, it was she who by 
 dint of the most unheard-of battles won him round to 
 buy for me the pretty premises beside his' own. The most 
 wonderful part of it, however, is that I absolutely never had 
 a notion of these conflicts she was going through for me : 
 for love of her, her husband had continually to shew himself 
 friendly and unconstrained towards me ; not a black look 
 was to enlighten me, not a hair of my head to be touched, — 
 serene and cloudless should the sky envault me, soft and 
 yielding be my every tread. This the unparalleled result of 
 this purest, noblest woman's splendid love. 
 
 "And this love, which had still remained unuttered by 
 a word between us, was finally to cast aside its veil when 
 I penned the poem of my Tristan just a year ago, and 
 gave it ,to her. Then for the first time did she lose her 
 self-control, and confess to me that she must die ! — Reflect, 
 dear sister, what this love must have meant to me, after a 
 life of toils and sufferings, of sacrifices and commotions, such 
 
INTRODUCTORY IX 
 
 as mine ! — Yet we recognised forthwith that any union 
 between us could not be so much as thought of, and were 
 accordingly resigned ; renouncing every selfish wish, we 
 suffered, endured, but — loved each other !— 
 
 "My wife seemed to understand with shrewd feminine 
 instinct what here was proceeding : certainly she often 
 shewed some jealousy, deriding and running down ; yet 
 she tolerated our companionship, — which on its side never 
 violated morals, but simply aimed at consciousness that we 
 were in each other's presence. Consequently I assumed 
 Minna to be sensible enough to comprehend that there was 
 strictly nothing here for her to fear, since an alliance was 
 not to be dreamt of between us, and therefore that for- 
 bearance was her best and most advisable resource. Well, 
 I have had to learn that I had probably deceived myself in 
 that respect; chatter reached my ears, and finally she so 
 far lost her senses as to intercept a letter from myself and — 
 break it open. That letter, if she had been in anything like 
 a position to understand it, might really have afforded her 
 the completest reassurance she could wish, for our resigna- 
 tion formed its theme as well ; but she went by nothing 
 save the endearing expressions, and lost her head. She 
 came up to me raving, and thus compelled me calmly to 
 explain to her precisely 'how things stood, that she had 
 brought misfortune on herself when she opened such a letter, 
 and that if she did not know how to contain herself, we 
 two must part. On the last point we were both agreed, I 
 tranquilly, she passionately. Next day, however, I felt sorry 
 for her ; I went to her and said, ' Minna, you are very ill ; 
 get well first, and let us have another talk then.' We 
 arranged the plan of a [medical] cure, and she seemed to 
 quiet down again. As the day of departure for the place 
 of cure drew near, she insisted upon speaking to the 
 Wesendonck first : I firmly forbade her to. Everything 
 
X INTRODUCTORY 
 
 depended on my making Minna gradually acquainted with 
 the character of my relations to that lady, and thus con- 
 vincing her that there was nothing at all to be feared for 
 the continuance of our wedded life, wherefore she simply 
 ought to behave wisely, sensibly and nobly, abjure all foolish 
 thoughts of vengeance and avoid any manner of fuss ; which 
 she promised me at last. She could not hold her peace, 
 however ; she went across, behind my back, and — doubtless 
 without realising it herself — affronted the gentle soul most 
 grossly. After she had told her, ' Were I an ordinary 
 woman, I should take this letter to your husband ! ' there 
 was nothing else for the Wesendonck — who was conscious 
 of having never kept a secret from her husband (which a 
 woman like Minna, of course, can't comprehend ! ) — but to 
 inform him at once of this scene and its cause. — Herewith, 
 then, had the delicacy and purity of our relations been 
 invaded in a coarse and vulgar way, and many a thing 
 must alter. Not for a long time could I succeed in making 
 it clear to my lady-friend that the very highness and un- 
 selfishness of such relations, as subsisted between us, made 
 them forever impossible of explanation to a nature like 
 my wife's ; for I was silenced by her grave reproach that 
 I had omitted this, whereas she had always had her husband 
 for her confidant. 
 
 " Whoever can estimate what I since have suffered (it was 
 the middle of April then), will also appreciate how I feel 
 in the end, now that I have to realise that the most 
 persistent efforts to preserve the relations disturbed have 
 absolutely borne no fruit. I saw to Minna's welfare at the 
 health-resort with every care ; to pacify her, at last I broke 
 off all association with our neighbours pending her absence ; 
 careful only for her health, I tried every possible means 
 of bringing her to reason and recognition of what be- 
 seemed her and her time of life: in vain! She abides 
 
INTRODUCTORY xi 
 
 by the absurdest fancies, declares herself injured, and, 
 scarcely tranquillised a little, the old fury soon bursts forth 
 afresh. Since a month ago, when Minna returned — while 
 we were having company — it had to come to a decision at 
 last. The two women so close together, was impossible 
 any longer ; for neither could the Wesendonck forget, that, 
 in reward for her supreme self-sacrifice and tenderest regards 
 for me, she had been met on my side, through my wife, 
 with such coarse and insulting treatment ; moreover, people 
 had begun to speak about it. Enough : the most unheard- 
 of scenes and tortures never ceased for me, and out of 
 consideration as well for the one as the other, I finally 
 had to make up my mind to vacate the fair asylum that 
 had been prepared for me with such tender affection. 
 
 " Now I require rest myself, and the completest seclusion : 
 for the grief I have to weary down is great. — 
 
 " Minna is incapable of comprehending what an unhappy 
 wedlock ours has ever been ; she paints the past as some- 
 thing other than it was, and if I have found relief, distraction 
 and oblivion, in my art, she has brought herself to think 
 I never needed them. Enough : I have come to an issue 
 on that head ; no longer can I tolerate this everlasting 
 bickering and whimsical distrust, if I'm to have any heart 
 left to fulfil my life-task. Whoever has observed me closely, 
 must have been surprised from of old at my patience, 
 kindness, ay, my weakness ; and if I am now condemned 
 by shallow judges, I have grown insensible to all that 
 sort of thing. Never had Minna a finer opportunity of 
 shewing herself more worthy to be wife of mine, than 
 now, when it involved the preservation to me of the highest 
 and dearest : it lay within her hand to prove if she truly 
 loved me ; but she does not even understand what such 
 true love is, and her rage transports her over all ! — 
 
 " Still, I exculpate her by her illness ; not but that even 
 
xii INTRODUCTORY 
 
 this might, perhaps have taken on another, milder character, 
 had she herself been otherwise and milder. Further, the 
 many adversities she has survived with me, and over which 
 T have been lightly borne by my inner genius (which 
 unfortunately I have never been able to communicate to 
 her !), make me considerate towards her ; I should like 
 to give her as little pain as possible, since; after all, I'm 
 truly sorry for her ! Only, I feel unequal to enduring by 
 her side henceforth ; neither could I help her in herself 
 by doing so : I should always be incomprehensible to her 
 and an object of suspicion. Therefore — divided ! But, 
 in kindliness and affection : I would not have her shamed ; 
 merely, I could wish her to perceive in time, herself, that 
 it is better for us not to see each other much again. 
 For the present I afford her a prospect of my returning 
 to her in Germany as soon as the amnesty arrives (which 
 also was the reason why she was to take all our furniture 
 and things with her) ; yet I mean to bind myself to nothing, 
 and let everything depend upon my future feeling. So 
 please adhere to it, yourself, that the present is merely 
 to be a passing separation ; whatever you can do to make 
 her calm and reasonable, I beg you not to leave undone f 
 For — as said — she really is unfortunate : she would have 
 been happier with a lesser man ; and so take pity on her, 
 with myself! I shall thank you from my heart for it, 
 dear sister ! — 
 
 " I shall bide here in Geneva awhile till I can go on 
 to Italy, where I think of passing the winter — presumably 
 in Venice ; already the solitude and the removal from all 
 torturing company are reviving me a little. It was a sheer 
 impossibility of late, to think of work ; so soon as I find 
 heart again to go on composing my Tristan, I shall regard 
 myself as saved. Indeed 'tis so that I must try to help 
 myself: I want nothing of the world except that it may 
 
INTRODUCTORY xiii 
 
 leave me rest for works that some day shall belong to it ; 
 therefore let it also judge me charitably ! — 
 
 " The substance of this letter, dear Klare, you need not 
 hesitate to use for explanations, wherever needful ; in general, 
 however, I naturally should not like much discussion of 
 what has happened. Only the very fewest will really 
 understand what is the case : for that one needs close 
 knowledge of the persons here concerned. 
 
 " Now farewell, dear sister, and hearty thanks once more 
 for your discreet enquiry, which I have answered, as you 
 see, in confidence ! Treat Minna leniently, but let her also 
 gradually come to know how she stands with me! 
 
 " Your brother 
 
 " Richard W." 
 
 {To Doctor Anton Pusinetti, Dresden)) 
 
 "Venice, ist November 1858. 
 " My dear faithful Friend* 
 " I approach you to-day on a deeply intimate subject. 
 — My wife will spend this winter in Dresden. In all 
 probability she has already arrived ; perhaps she has even 
 called on you by now. — I remember the kind cheering 
 opinion on her state of health you so touchingly sent me 
 
 * All these introductory letters, alike the two to the elder sister and 
 those to the two intimate male friends, employ the second person 
 singular where I have rendered " you " and " your." The present letter 
 comes from a group of close on forty (out of an existing collection of 
 eighty) addressed to Dr. Pusinelli, published in the Bayreuther Blatter 
 Spring 1902, i.e. four months before Mathilde Wesendonck's sudden 
 death, and therefore long prior to the publication of our main group. 
 The letters to Clara Wolfram were first published in the Berlin T&gliche 
 Rundschau within a month after that death, together with a few others 
 to which I shall subsequently refer ; whilst that to Sulzer made its first 
 appearance in Herr A. Steiner's Neujahrsblatt of the Zurich Allg. Musik- 
 Gesellschaft January 1903. — W. A. E. 
 
XIV INTRODUCTORY 
 
 last summer, after my description of her symptoms. Now 
 I entrust to you the patient herself ; be her physician, her 
 adviser, helper — if you can, alleviator if you cannot. The 
 profound conviction that a change of air and scene, also 
 a temporary removal from my undoubtedly somewhat 
 agitating presence, must serve to give the invalid at least 
 a chance, combined with other things to make me fix upon 
 a separation from her for a period. Dresden will certainly 
 be homelike to her on the whole, and woo her finally to 
 greater calm. She will occupy a little parterre flat in the 
 Rottdorf house, where we first dwelt at Dresden, but will 
 first alight at Tichatscheck's. — 
 
 "Recently she has been at her brother-in-law's, who is 
 a doctor himself. As I wanted ease of mind on her 
 condition, I addressed myself to him, and now enclose his 
 answer, which I received yesterday. You see how little 
 consolation there is in his report ; I am deeply affected ! * — 
 
 " She will be able to afford you but little clear informa- 
 tion as to the genesis of her condition. An organic ailment 
 (perhaps seated in the lymphatic system — for her mother 
 died of dropsy in the chest) has probably been developing 
 ever since and during our Dresden stay ; but the constantly 
 increasing havoc of her nerves dates chiefly from the many 
 severe and troublous episodes in our later life. In 1853 the 
 over-excitation of her nerves, with sleeplessness, was already 
 very strong ; a doctor treated her for gout, and employed 
 
 * The provincial brother-in-law fc must indeed have ' piled the agony ' 
 regardless of all consequences to the husband's own state of mind and 
 health ; for, on the one hand we find this report almost plunging Wagner 
 to the bottom of the Grand Canal (pp. 69-71 inf.), on the other we find 
 it much discounted by the expert metropolitan physician, since the very 
 next letter to Pusinelli (Nov. 18) exclaims : " I breathe again, at knowing 
 my wife to be under your treatment, in your guard. May Heaven bless 
 you, if you can continue to give me relief such as you have already been 
 able to indicate'. You can scarcely believe what good you do me, with 
 this care for the sufferer ! " — W. A. E. 
 
INTRODUCTORY XV 
 
 hot baths and douches, which drove her almost mad. Then 
 she acquired a taste for laudanum, which had incautiously 
 been ordered in small doses for her sleeplessness ; as she 
 could detect no result, she pushed the doses up to several 
 scores of drops, as she confessed to me later. With her 
 progressive irritability, moreover, frequent conflicts were not 
 to be avoided between us ; and for that reason — I admit it 
 to you openly— our life together had latterly become un- 
 bearable. — But you will soon discover all about her physical 
 condition for yourself. Be entirely candid with me, dear 
 Anton, so that I may arrange myself in every way to back 
 up your treatment as studiously as possible. My conduct 
 and future relations to her will be governed by no other 
 regard in the world, than the heartfelt wish to contribute 
 to her healing, her soothing and sparing ; whatsoever may 
 serve towards that end, I shall make my most urgent 
 concern. Should we succeed in preserving her life full long 
 to come, in utmost painlessness and comfort, my heartiest 
 wish will have been fulfilled ; and I am prepared for any 
 sacrifice, to attain that. — For the present I hear, to my relief, 
 that she has somewhat quieted already — as was to be 
 foreseen, — her appearance also is said to have improved. 
 Let the poor woman, who moves my soul to deepest pity, 
 be commended to your noble heart ; be to her as much 
 as ever you can, and count upon my fervid thanks ! 
 
 " Of myself, and my extremely retired life, you will hear 
 a little through my wife ; I also will tell you something of 
 it next time I write you ; for which, as I instantly hope, 
 you will very soon afford me and my gratitude occasion 
 through friendly tidings of my wife ! Goodbye, best Friend ! 
 Be saluted and blest by your 
 
 " Richard Wagner. 
 
 "Canale Grande, Palazzo Giustiniani, 
 "Campiello Squellini 3228." 
 
xvi INTRODUCTORY 
 
 [To Jakob Sulzer, former chief-magistrate of Zurich!) 
 
 "Venice, Dec. 3, 1858. 
 " My dear honoured Friend, 
 
 " Can you believe that I would run away from you 
 like that, without so much as looking back ? Whatever you 
 may think of me, surely you at least have thus much 
 good opinion of me, that I keep in inextinguishable fondness, 
 and hold in an imperishable esteem, a figure that has 
 left so deep and valuable a mark as yours upon my 
 life ? Of latter years our paths had lain much asunder. . . 
 
 [etc., etc., see Life of Richard Wagner iv, 133.] 
 
 " Whatever may have come to your ears as to the cause 
 of my seemingly so sudden departure from Zurich, I must 
 leave on one side ; yet [Alex.J Miiller was initiated to some 
 extent, I believe, and could have informed you ; though 
 it is to be doubted, in any case, whether he was intelligent 
 enough to inform you correctly. It was impossible for me 
 then to take a formal, ceremonial leave of Zurich ; I had to 
 put up with seeing my friends plunged* into uncertainty 
 about me for a time, whereas I myself must first gain time 
 and quiet to turn back to them at last with needful ex- 
 planations. You are the first to whom I now address myself 
 in this sense too, and — in all likelihood you will also remain 
 the only one ; for, taken strictly, my only care can be 
 for your opinion. 
 
 "Probably it had not escaped you from hints of mine 
 before, that the state into which my wife had fallen, 
 particularly through the worsening of her very painful heart- 
 trouble, was becoming so unsettling to myself as well, that 
 a radical change in our dwelling arrangements would have 
 to be thought of at last. Ill-luck ordained that, owing to — 
 what I can only call — a trivial misconception of certain of 
 my personal associations that were really far remote from 
 standing in any manner of relevancy to our conjugal 
 
INTRODUCTORY xvii 
 
 relations, she believed herself actually wronged in these 
 latter ; thereby, and particularly under the influence of her 
 physical affliction — which in such cases, as we know, reacts 
 so strongly on the mind, — she lost all her usual discretion 
 and forgot herself to the length of words in our immediate 
 neighbourhood ; which must necesarily lead to such un- 
 settlement and disturbance of those neighbourly bearings 
 themselves, that, in spite of my honestest endeavours to 
 stave it off, the resolve was bound at last to ripen in 
 myself— my very self— to give up our residence at Zurich. 
 What I suffered through it all, between unreasonableness 
 on the one hand and passionateness on the other, ought 
 to absolve me of any share of blame for which I may 
 have been answerable myself. When I formed my decision, 
 and resolutely carried it out in the teeth of unusual obstacles, 
 I had to give up much that had grown very dear to me ; 
 among which I will merely name the sweet country-place 
 I long had desired, with its equipment. — 
 
 " But enough ! it had to be ; and the result is already 
 proving that, just as I did the most straightforward thing, 
 I also did the best. Amongst the motives for the change, 
 was the necessity of effecting a temporary separation be- 
 tween my wife and me. In constant, close, immediate 
 contact, without a jot of external distraction, it was not 
 always possible for me to keep nothing but my regard 
 for her ailing condition of body and mind in view, under 
 every circumstance — with my own temper also inflammable : 
 to my most penitent regret, conflicts arose again and again, 
 and finally with daily aggravation ; conflicts in the vehemence 
 whereof I could not stay without a part myself. Even 
 for her health's sake I must have thought about an altera- 
 tion ; so I now rejoice in the result. At Dresden, well 
 tended, with pleasant old acquaintances and agreeable 
 distraction by fit artistic entertainments, my wife already 
 
 b 
 
XVlll INTRODUCTORY 
 
 feels much better ; which certainly is chiefly Contributed-to 
 by the fact that I can commune with her from a distance 
 quite differently and more beneficially than was possible — 
 with the best intentions — when close at hand. Now I 
 can pick time and mood for my communication, also for 
 correction of her passionate charges — still constantly re- 
 curring till a short time back — , and in this way I have 
 already brought matters so far that she has begun to grow 
 thoroughly calm. Particularly in view of her most ailing 
 state of health, which makes her quite irresponsible, I am 
 heartily concerned to ease her hard and painful life and 
 make it as endurable as possible. 
 
 "About myself and my probable future I will tell you 
 some other day ; moreover — and especially about my future 
 — there is next to nothing to be said at present. I am 
 working and striving to finish my Tristan, but unfortunately 
 have been repeatedly hindered by illness. A malady that 
 is keeping me tied to my chair for the second week, now, 
 is also to blame for my break in this letter, which you 
 
 Will remark by its date [a second date is not given ; cf. p. 76 in/.]. 
 
 "You must have been wondering why Venice, which 
 made such a disagreeable impression on yourself when passing 
 through it, should have seemed to me the very place to 
 meet my present needs. I sought a spot where I could 
 live entirely unnoticed, completely retired, and work without 
 the least disturbance. Uninteresting little places could 
 never afford that. Here, on the contrary, I have everything 
 I wish: a very quiet dwelling on the Grand Canal (of 
 course with no noise of street traffic), where I pass the 
 greater portion of my day ; then a promenade through the 
 incomparable parts of Venice, ever new of effect, from S. 
 Mark's square to the public garden, with an outlook across 
 the lagunes to the sea; an ever-lively populace, but 
 altogether foreign to me, always remaining objective, — 
 
INTRODUCTORY XIX 
 
 this suffices and suits me exactly, in my present state of 
 mind. A quite definite change in my situation must 
 naturally take place next summer ; how and in what 
 direction, however, I am unable as yet to say. 
 
 " Now I beg you to be satisfied with this morsel for to- 
 day, also to give my best regards and heartiest greetings 
 to your dear wife, the Herr son, and my friends Bohm and 
 Hagenbuch— to Miiller too— when you see them. Should 
 you be paying a call on the Wesendoncks, don't forget to 
 give them news of me and convey my kindest greetings. 
 If you care to write my wife for once — which certainly 
 would much delight her — address to 9 Marienstrasse, 
 Dresden . . . [purely business matters.] Preserve a kind remem- 
 brance of me, just as 1 shall ever hold yourself in grateful 
 friendship ! 
 
 "Goodbye and let me hear from you soon. 
 " Your 
 
 "Richard Wagner." 
 
 "(Canal Grande, Palazzo Giustiniani, Campiello Squilini, 
 3228.)" 
 
 " Lucerne, 7th April 59. 
 "Best thanks for your letter, dear Klare, and don't be 
 vexed if I write but little in reply. You would hardly 
 believe the bulk my correspondence has gradually increased 
 to, and how chary I often must be with words, not to be 
 obliged to desist from work entirely ... [3 sentences about a poor 
 
 relation.] 
 
 " May I hope you understood me well enough, not to take 
 offence at my begging you last autumn to avoid all agitating 
 subjects with Minna ? She had been writing me in greater 
 and greater heat and passion, so that I was bound to 
 assume there was too much talk about the sore point 
 
XX INTRODUCTORY 
 
 with her. Of course I might have told myself that it 
 would be difficult, in fact impossible to avoid it, and there 
 wasn't the smallest reproach in my plea to you ; yet I felt 
 I could not do enough, all round, to ensure a calming 
 influence on her. A heart like hers, that will not come 
 to rest at all, is a terrible affliction ; I was deeply sorry 
 for her, and as I had grown more and more keenly alive 
 to the impossibility of reasoning with her reason, I recognised 
 that there was only one choice left — between treating her 
 with considerate cajolery, always evading, simply tran- 
 quillising, ignoring all her ebullitions, or — undisguisedly 
 abandoning her to her misery. It stands to reason that 
 I chose the first course ; so far as anywise possible, in all 
 my letters I have treated her according to this principle, 
 now earnestly, now playfully, and the effect appears to be 
 proving of gradual benefit to her. For money, ample 
 money to live quite nicely on, I do not let her lack, and 
 have just provided her again with enough to lead a life 
 of really elegant comfort the summer through. Grant God 
 that all this, combined with the summer cure at Schandau, 
 may so materially improve her, as to make it possible for 
 me to commit my home to her again this autumn without 
 any fear of fresh relapses to her old condition, which would 
 deprive both me and her of any further hope ! — 
 
 "As for myself, this solitariness is doing me a power 
 of good. True, I have often been unwell, but it has never 
 oppressed my spirit : within me is the fairest, deepest calm. 
 What confers it on me, and makes its preservation possible, 
 is the noblest, most touching experience of all my life: 
 here everything is high, upraised above the common 
 plane; incredible sacrifice, but peace profound. I live 
 henceforward to complete my works, — for that alone ; and 
 for that— towards that, I am helped. — Intimation enough ! — 
 
 " I expect to write my third act here ; my mood is 
 
INTRODUCTORY xxi 
 
 excellent.— Farewell, dear Klare ; be thanked for your 
 sisterly love, and ever count on my reciprocation. 
 
 "Your brother 
 " (Schweizerhof) " Richard." 
 
 In the eyes of a select few readers of this book the above 
 will be sufficient preface, and they may prefer to pass direct to 
 the profoundly interesting collection of letters itself. The generality, 
 however, will probably demand additional enlightenment as to the 
 actors in this unique tragedy. Let me therefore begin with the 
 one whose principal scene may be said to occur in its first act : — 
 
 Minna Wagner — to give her full baptismal name, Christiane 
 Wilhelmine — was born at Oederan, a village between Freiberg and 
 Chemnitz, about half-way from Dresden to Zwickau. Her father, 
 Gotthelf Planer, is always described as a "mechanikus," or 
 mechanician — a term that covers various kinds of workmanship 
 of skilful fingers, rather than of sinewy arms or educated brain ; 
 a mechanical hand, then, perhaps a watchmaker's assistant. Of 
 him and his wife (Johanne Christiane Meyer) ,we know absolutely 
 nothing more, except that they had three daughters, lived in 
 Dresden most of their lives, and for many years (until their death ?) 
 were supported entirely by Richard Wagner. The last we hear 
 of them is on a visit to Zwickau in 1854 to meet Minna, evidently 
 at the house of a younger married daughter. The first we hear, 
 comes from that Oederan parish-register, where Minna's birth 
 stands entered as having occurred on the 5th of September 1809,* 
 i.e. nearly four years before that of her future husband. 
 
 It was at Magdeburg that Richard and Minna first met, he 
 aged 21 and just embarked on his first conductorship, she 25 and 
 engaged as actress at the same town-theatre. That she was 
 "pretty as a picture" then, and remained so for some years to 
 
 * It is only within the past two years that the exact date has been 
 definitely established (by Herr Tappert), since the actual place of birth 
 was theretofore unknown; in vol. i of the Life of Richard Wagner the 
 year is erroneously given as " 1814," owing to the marriage certificate 
 having been misleadingly filled up — after a manner not unusual with pur 
 own census papers. 
 
xxii INTRODUCTORY 
 
 come, we hear on every hand; the quality of her professional 
 talent, on the contrary, is difficult to ascertain, though Richard 
 describes her in a letter of this period as "erste Liebhaberin," 
 or leading lady. Within six months of their acquaintance, i.e. 
 early in 1835, they had begun to rank as an affianced couple 
 in the eyes of their associates; but it was not till the end of 
 that year that he made her a formal offer of marriage, as we 
 are told, in a letter vowing himself to the devil should she refuse 
 him. Minna, who appears to have left Magdeburg at the time in 
 search of a more enthusiastic audience, returns at once to complete 
 her professional, and commence her conjugal engagement ; and the 
 pair get married in November 1836. That ceremony took place 
 at Kbnigsberg, where Richard was then waiting for the shoes of 
 a conductor who betrayed no hurry to vacate them. Scarcely has 
 he donned those shoes, when a Konigsberg correspondent reports 
 to Schumann's Neue Zeitschrift that " Herr Muskdiirektor Wagner 
 has already left us, it is said for family reasons;" those discreetly- 
 veiled family reasons being, in fact — that his wife had left him, 
 and little more than six months after their wedding. 
 
 It was a bad beginning, whatever the cause ; but that cause 
 has never been authenticated, since the master himself in later 
 years was naturally loth to approach the subject. German 
 marriage-laws inclining rather to the American, than the English 
 code, we must not jump to the conclusion that Minna had done 
 anything more serious than abandoning her husband, when we find 
 him appealing to those laws for a divorce in June 1837 ; yet for 
 his happiness during the next quarter of a century, and even for 
 her own — to go by her remarks on her silver-wedding* — we can 
 but regret that he withdrew his legal plea and welcomed back 
 the penitent in the following autumn, so that the first anniversary 
 of their wedding was spent together at Riga, after all, where he 
 had meanwhile entered his third appointment as conductor. Not 
 that Minna ever ran away again, or acted in any other fashion 
 than that of a ' dutiful,' perhaps even an affectionate wife ; but, 
 as we have just heard her husband say, decidedly "she would 
 
 * " The 24th ult. was the day of our so-called silver-wedding, which 
 I passed very dismally (solo). If I could cross these 25 years out of 
 my life, perhaps I might be merry again" (to a lady-friend in Berlin, 
 Dec. 15, 1 86 1 ; see Die Gegenwartoi Oct. 21, 1899). 
 
INTRODUCTORY XXlii 
 
 have been happier with a lesser man." Whether the " lesser man " 
 would have been happy, is quite another matter : for my own part 
 I strongly doubt it, unless he had been an infinitely lesser, since 
 the few letters that have been brandished by Minna's none too 
 wise defenders positively set one's teeth on edge. I will reproduce 
 one in an instant, as it is only fair that the poor sufferer should 
 be given a hearing in person; we must first take a bird's-eye 
 glance, however, at the course of the Wagners' married life down 
 to the time of the great Zurich catastrophe. 
 
 From the first that life was her-relations-ridden, as his had 
 always looked askance on what they deemed a mesalliance, — and 
 rightly deemed ; for, albeit several of his brothers and sisters began 
 their life on the stage, the whole Wagner family, with its antecedents 
 for two-hundred years, distinctly belonged to the class of 'in- 
 tellectuals.' Consequently Richard was virtually cut off from his 
 own flesh and blood for long to come, and tied to a stock with 
 scant sympathy for higher aspirations ; consequences far worse 
 for his wife's mental development, than for his own. Even on 
 her return from the escapade of 1837, Minna brought with her 
 her sister Amalie, to fill a gap in the ranks of the Riga opera- 
 troupe, and Amalie dwelt with the Wagner couple till they left 
 that place some two years later (when she is said to have married 
 a lieutenant of the Guards,* and we lose sight of her). 
 
 In Paris — whither the Wagners next removed, and where they 
 remained for two years and a half, 1839-42 — there was no ac- 
 commodation for a sister-in-law, as Richard found it more than 
 difficult to procure sufficient maintenance for his wife and self. 
 Is it no more than a coincidence, that those were the years to 
 which he always looked back with tender memory, despite the 
 hardships they had jointly endured? However that be, in this 
 early Paris period Minna behaved as a loving wife should ; nor 
 did she shrink from menial house-work to keep the home afoot. 
 Yet her energies must have been confined to inside management, 
 the washtub and kitchen ; for even 20 years later she confesses 
 that she " can make no headway with French," whilst her husband 
 himself has to conduct every detail of a removal for the same 
 
 * This is the tradition ; but I should not like to swear that this is 
 not the same sister whose husband in 1858 was a doctor at Zwickau 
 (p. xiv sup.). 
 
xxiv INTRODUCTORY 
 
 specified cause. How was all the marketing and bargaining in- 
 separable from a Paris manage to be carried on, then, if not by 
 his unaided self? Even a lady's-maid, when taken abroad, will 
 generally have the wit to pick up enough of what she elegantly 
 calls the ' lingo ' to make herself intelligible for all useful purposes ; 
 wherefore we have here another reason for not ranking Minna's 
 intellectual capacity as quite up to the average. Nevertheless in 
 this Planer-less period the pretty little hand-toiling wife does seem 
 to have been a comfort to her over-worked, half-starving husband. 
 
 With the acceptance of Rienzi for Dresden, its brilliant success 
 there in October 1842, and Wagner's appointment as royal 
 Kapellmeister a couple of months after, his wife was thrown once 
 more among her old belongings, exposed to their banal influence ; 
 and certainly in the last year or two of the 6| they stayed there, 
 if not long before, we find another sister-in-law enthroned in the 
 house, namely Natalie, the youngest of the old Planers' three 
 daughters. Whether cause and effect may be linked here or 
 no, the latter part of the Dresden period was embittered by 
 perpetually recurrent domestic strife, goading Wagner on one 
 occasion to the remark in presence of a young male friend, " Other 
 people are lucky enough to have their enemies outside their house, 
 but my bitterest foe I have at table" {Life ii, 373). This not- 
 withstanding, he appears to have undertaken the entire support 
 of Natalie, as well as of his wife and her parents, and immediately 
 after his flight from Dresden (for a vague and trifling share in 
 the insurrection of May 1849), behold him seeking to found a 
 home for "my poor wife and her family" — so Planer-manacled 
 is he! 
 
 For how long after Wagner's settlement in Zurich this extra 
 mouth and tongue at table were imposed on him, I cannot 
 definitely ascertain ; manifestly, the sister-in-law was viewed so 
 much in the light of a standing dish or dispensation, that one 
 hardly catches a glimpse of her in his correspondence — in itself 
 no flattering sign. By three direct but colourless references in 
 his letters to Uhlig, however, we can trace her as clinging like 
 a limpet to his bare walls from September '49 to November '51 
 at least, though she must have relaxed her hold by October of 
 the following year (whether finally or not, I cannot say), since 
 Wagner writes Uhlig November i, '52, "Please see that my wife's 
 
INTRODUCTORY xxv 
 
 family receives three tickets for the third circle, next Tannhauser 
 performance; yours must go to the amphitheatre"; and the nice 
 distinction tells its tale. At any rate Minna must have soon after 
 been robbed of her ally for good, if it was Natalie who married 
 the doctor mentioned in the second of the letters printed above, 
 and to whose new home at Zwickau Minna paid her visit 
 in 1854.* 
 
 With his freeing from the Planer incubus Wagner had by no 
 means been rescued from invasions of his domestic quiet. For 
 Minna, entirely weaned from sympathy with her husband's inner 
 self by now, not unnaturally felt lonely, and began going out 
 to the Zurich theatre and an occasional ball or two ; with the 
 result that she picks up a little set of her own in the early part 
 of 1852, and has to do some entertaining in return, — "tiresome 
 visitors," her husband complains, " new acquaintances have forced 
 themselves upon me," and " company that tortures me, and before 
 which I withdraw to torture myself" (letters to Liszt and Uhlig). 
 While the ' poor neglected wife ' thus was gadding about in her 
 mild philistine way, leaving her husband "sitting lone on the 
 couch, staring at the lamp'' (letter to Liszt Feb. '53), Providence 
 brought him into the society of a lady with truer instinct for 
 the needs of a genius' heart and mind, though, as we have seen 
 in the first of the letters above, it was years before this pair of 
 souls became consciously united. Nothing grosser than a union 
 of souls did it ever come to, — that is plain on all the following 
 pages ; whereas Minna, never a mother, had long ceased to be a 
 wife in anything but name, since she and her husband now met 
 at little more than meal-times, so deeply had the Planer wedge 
 been driven. 
 
 For the moment I will skip those intervening years, undoubtedly 
 of physical pain for Minna, and call herself to the footlights in 
 the interlude that succeeds the stormy ending of act i. After 
 " raising halloo '' — to quote that choice expression which is all 
 her Gegenwart champion finds fit to cite from any of her early 
 letters to the Berlin lady — she evidently went to stay awhile, 
 
 * Here again we are in the dark, as the unsystematic von Hornstein, 
 who did not make Wagner's acquaintance till 1853 {vid. inf.\ has this 
 to say : " How small was his household ! Himself, his wife and her 
 unmarried sister — a simple, unassuming person — the parrot and a dog." 
 
xxvi INTRODUCTORY 
 
 first with Richard's sister Clara Wolfram at Chemnitz (vid. sup. & 
 p. 33 inf.), then with her own married sister at Zwickau, and 
 thence to Dresden — heralded by her husband's letters, not only 
 to his old medical adviser and benefactor Dr. Pusinelli, but also 
 to other of his own staunch friends who, he knew, would stand 
 by and assist her. From Dresden she writes the unnamed Berlin 
 lady (Alwine Frommann ?) as follows : — 
 
 "Dresden, the 29th December 1858. 
 
 '" It is impossible for me to close this fatal year without 
 sending you first my heartiest greetings. Please, do write 
 me soon, whether things are going well with you. 
 
 " Unfortunately I cannot tell you that about myself ; I 
 have been made wretched and ill by two abominations,* 
 and shall recover very slowly, perhaps never at all. My 
 poor heart still is thumping violently. I look so wretched 
 that my acquaintances do not recognise me. 
 
 * At first one might suppose the "zwei Abscheulichkeiten " to be 
 intended for Richard and Mathilde ; but I do not hold Minna capable of 
 describing her husband thus to a correspondent whom, to judge by 
 other passages, he clearly knew quite well himself. The first " abomina- 
 tion" — especially, in view of that date "1853" in Richard's letter to 
 Pusinelli, i.e. the year of removal to the new flat — is far more likely 
 to be Emilie Heim, the singer mentioned in my footnote to p. 7 inf., 
 wife of that " Papa Heim '' whose name crops up from time to time 
 in the main collection of letters. It is one of the Zurich traditions, 
 that Minna was furiously jealous of Frau Heim before she transferred 
 that feeling to Frau Wesendonck ; also that the earlier jealousy was 
 one of the causes of Wagner's wish to quit his Zeltweg flat (p. 13 inf.), 
 since its back windows looked straight on those of the Heims', and thus 
 the two women were constantly brought face to angry face. The 
 groundlessness of such jealousy is palpable, as Ignaz Heim himself 
 became Wagner's generous financer at the very time when Minna's 
 conduct had made it impossible for him to accept anything from Herr 
 Otto, and we shall find the master writing him from Venice (p. 72 inf,) ; 
 whilst Herr Steiner, an inhabitant of Zurich who himself has carefully 
 perused the documents, declares that in all the correspondence between 
 Heim and Wagner (unpublished), extending over twenty years, there 
 is " nowhere a shadow of ruffling '' (Neujahrsblatt 1902). — Tr. 
 
INTRODUCTORY xxvii 
 
 "I believe I wrote you that I had rented a small 
 parterre here ; I only wanted to have the necessary of our 
 effects sent from Zurich, which, however, I luckily did not 
 afterwards need, because good faithful Frau Tichatschek 
 had so nicely fitted up my little lodging, consisting of two 
 tiny rooms, with her own superfluity, that nothing lacked ; 
 she had even stocked the little kitchen and store-room ; 
 wood, coals, potatoes, eggs, flour, bread, butter etc., none 
 are wanting. This act of friendship was extremely welcome 
 to me in various respects, as my brother-in-law [of Zwickau] 
 had not been able to advance me the needful money 
 after all. I am living very sparingly, and yet left dry. 
 My good man seems to run through very much himself at 
 Venice, as always is the case when he lives alone, so that 
 nothing remains over for me. New Year I was to have 
 had money sent me by him ; yesterday, however, he writes 
 me that he will want it himself. A very nice thing, that; 
 yet I submit, and shall not exactly die of hunger so long 
 as I have a roof and a warm room. Richard is often ill 
 in Italy ; first he was threatened by a horrid nervous fever, 
 which kept him twelve days in bed. Since nearly five 
 weeks he has a large open wound on his leg, which has 
 been discharging continually, so that he has felt acute pain 
 with it. Walking is out of the question ; he is carried into 
 and out of bed, and naturally cannot think of work. 
 
 " That fateful Tristan, which I cannot bear for its origin, 
 only seems able to be called into life with great interruptions 
 and exertions. Let's see what happens between this and 
 then. It seems to me as if with works like that there 
 can be no luck. Perhaps I am mistaken ; so we will see 
 what the end brings, and whether this opera pleases people. 
 I wish it from my heart ! Yet for various reasons I cannot 
 bring myself to attend a first performance. 
 
 "The [your?] communication of the little Guido's death 
 
xxviii INTRODUCTORY 
 
 gave me quite a fright. May God hold every blow of Fate 
 afar from this cold woman spoilt by happiness, but I believe 
 that there is a Providence. I was always thinking, if only 
 our Lord God would suddenly check such sauciness through 
 the illness of a child — and now see! O it gives me a 
 shudder ! 
 
 " Of course I cannot keep a maid. I may not go to big 
 parties, only to small family-gatherings ; on the other 
 hand, by my doctor's advice I am to attend the theatre 
 often, where I have no need to speak, which tires me very 
 much. It would not have been quite easy for me to carry 
 out the theatre part if his Excellency Herr von Luttichau, 
 on whom I had to pay a call for politeness' sake, had not 
 sent me a ticket next day for every performance, without 
 my having had to waste a word on it. That was very 
 obliging of him, and an exception but seldom made in 
 anybody's favour. Altogether, people here are taking me 
 up very cordially and kindly, and as I am bound to believe, 
 purely for my own sake this time. Yet as said, I must 
 keep quiet, not to agitate myself, which brings on my old 
 sleeplessness again. 
 
 " My cure here will last a long time still, consequently 
 I shall never see my husband again, or at least not for a very 
 long while. I require peace and quietness. . . . [Please read 
 footnote.*— TrJ Sweet Christmastide is at the door. People 
 are buying an immense deal, in spite of the shocking high 
 prices here. Only I shall pass the festival quite silently 
 and without any presents, as also the New Year. 
 
 " Richard writes to me much and heartily ; I too, to 
 
 * The anonymous author of the strangely wry-brained article in Die 
 Gegenwart, whence the above is derived, here obviously tacks on a. 
 fragment from a letter of a full week earlier ; it is so illuminating, however, 
 particularly when this inference is borne in mind, that I have translated 
 it as it stands. — W. A. E. 
 
INTRODUCTORY xxix 
 
 him ; nevertheless I wish my being with him long deferred. 
 I keep swallowing the thought, but down it will not 
 stay. 
 
 " Apropos, in your next letter do tell me once more the 
 name of that gentleman you met, and who said : What 
 a pity the Wagner is going back to her husband ; she 
 might have come to me, as I'm a widower, and so on. 
 You know that I should neither go to him nor to anyone 
 else, — I might have had that before if I liked ; yet it 
 interests me to know who it was that said that. Do satisfy 
 
 my Curiosity." [Here ends the reproduction of this letter, or combination of 
 two letters, without winding-up or signature. — Tr.] 
 
 Writing to Lotte and Caroline, Schiller once speaks of his 
 profound interest on finding, through study of the old Greek 
 tragedians, that " human beings are so alike in every age, the 
 same passions, same collisions of passions, same language of 
 passion ; with all this infinite variety, yet this resemblance, this 
 oneness of the same human form " ; and Caroline answers him, 
 "As life goes on, it has become to me a second nature to feel 
 my soul at home with whatever things are beautiful and excellent, 
 and to leave the common common, without deeming it bad, as 
 may so easily happen to a heart that seeks for beauty." — After 
 reading the effusion above, it is well to sip some such corrective, 
 to Remember that the voice of passion thrills to much the same 
 chord whether high or low, and that " the common " is not 
 necessarily "the bad." For commonness is stamped on all this 
 document, and one now may better realise what Wagner meant 
 when he told Pusinelli (Nov. 18, 58) that "the great intellectual 
 divergence" between himself and his wife had been the source 
 of their many painful differences. She has not even the sagacity 
 to see that all the kindness showered upon her now in Dresden 
 is by no means " purely for her own sake this time," but a very 
 patent result of her husband's frequent messages to Ms good friends 
 to do their best to make her happy. " My doctor " is the doctor 
 we have just seen Richard begging to assist her in every way ; 
 he prescribes her the theatre as an agreeable diversion of her 
 
XXX INTRODUCTORY 
 
 thoughts, and between him and Wagner's other old friend, the 
 great tenor Tichatschek, the "exception but seldom made in 
 anybody's favour" is granted without her even having to ask for 
 it. Tichatschek had been Wagner's own guest at the Asyl on the 
 very eve of the disruption ; Wagner writes him at the end of 
 September (as also to old Chorus-master Fischer a fortnight later) 
 announcing his wife's arrival, and the Tichatscheks kindly offer 
 her provisional shelter. Presumably it is they, who secure her a 
 flat in the house of gentler memories, and behold! — when she 
 arrives to take possession, it stands already furnished by a fairy 
 hand. Her own relations, so long recipients of her husband's 
 charity, cannot advance her the money they had promised to ; yet 
 she is so dense, or so vain at 49, as to imagine that his ancient 
 Dresden friends are keeping the wolf from her door 'for the 
 sake of her beautiful eyes,' as the French say ! Moreover she 
 must have completely drifted from their good atmosphere not 
 long hereafter, and returned to what her husband ten years since 
 had called "the dregs of Dresden vulgarity" {Life iii, 9); for, 
 in justification of his wish to draw her to himself in Paris, he 
 tells Pusinelli next October (1859) : " Your reports about my wife 
 do not take me unawares ; from her letters and her own confessions 
 it is manifest to me, how difficult a job it is with the poor soul. 
 I also perceive, though, how much the success of your medical 
 efforts is hindered by my wife's continuance in company that can 
 but be injurious in its effect upon her. That my wife has found 
 yourself as doctor, was a great good-fortune for her ; the misfortune 
 was, that this must be in Dresden. At any other place she would 
 have been less exposed to all the influences I have hinted in 
 brief." Poor Minna, incorrigible, I fear; but weak and silly, not 
 morally "bad." 
 
 How about the wicked husband, though, who "wanted all 
 the money for himself"? — In the first place, he was ill himself, 
 in a foreign land without a single friend ; no one there to provide 
 him with coals and potatoes, or medical advice and physic gratis ; 
 no one to cheer him up with a free pass for entertainments. He 
 was occupying a vast room in a palace, no doubt, but probably 
 at very little more rent, as times then went in Italy, than she 
 was charged for her small flat ; and he had lately had to — pawn 
 his watch. For, where was the money to come from? Minna 
 
INTRODUCTORY xxxi 
 
 herself had killed the goose with the golden eggs, and very little 
 profit trickled from the theatres; since most of them had paid 
 a miserably small lump sum down, some time before, for the 
 performing-rights of all his marketable wares. In the second 
 place, as I suspect to have been usual with her, Minna was only 
 telling half the truth when she cited her husband's letter of 
 " yesterday " ; and as this really is an enlightening instance, I 
 will furnish detailed proofs of my assertion :— 
 
 That "yesterday" gives her whole case away since 1903, when 
 the records of the Hanover court-theatre, down to forty years 
 ago, were published by Dr. Georg Fischer. On the 22nd of 
 December 1858 Wagner writes a long business letter to the 
 Director of this theatre, to the effect that, as they have already 
 procured the score of Riemi for performance, he expects the 
 "fee of 50 Friedrichsd'or " to be paid at once, and begs that 
 the treasurer be instructed "to address 20 Friedrichsd'or [.£17] 
 of the sum destined for me to my wife, Madame Minna Wagner, 
 No. 9, Marienstrasse, Dresden; the rest, however, to myself at 
 Venice"; whilst a fortnight later he is made acquainted by an 
 official telegram with the money's despatch. Now, we happen to 
 have a very close idea how long it then took letters to travel 
 from "Venice to the middle of Germany, since Wagner acknow- 
 ledges on the 7th of January 1859 the "receipt to-day" of a 
 letter Liszt had posted at Weimar on the 1st, and on the 22nd 
 of February a letter Liszt had posted on the 17th; therefore five 
 to six days was the length to Weimar, and it would be much 
 the same with Dresden. Consequently the letter Minna received 
 "yesterday," i.e. the 28th of December 1858, would be posted 
 by her husband on the 22nd or 23rd — the day of, or day after, 
 his letter to the Hanover director — and must indisputably have 
 conveyed the intimation that he had ordered the said 20 
 Friedrichsd'or to be despatched to her direct. Even if she had 
 small faith in its coming, she had no right to suppress the fact 
 of its promise when complaining that some other amount — perhaps 
 a contribution from his former benefactress, elderly Frau Ritter 
 of Dresden — could not be set aside for her. And now we will 
 turn to Wagner's letter of Jan. 19, 59, to Mathilde (pp. 101-2) : 
 "Karl Ritter returned on New Year's day, and now comes to 
 see me at 8 every evening again. He has reported to me that 
 
xxxil INTRODUCTORY 
 
 he found my wife looking somewhat better. She seems to be doing 
 tolerably, on '• the whole, and I take care that nothing lacks to 
 her ease." So Karl — and he was always generous — had visited 
 Minna on her husband's behalf only a few days before that letter 
 of sour complaint ! 
 
 Nor — to shake off this sordid business once for all — do we 
 find the peevish wife "left dry" in the interval between January 
 and next April, when we heard Wagner tell his sister that he 
 had just sent Minna "enough to lead a life of really elegant 
 comfort the summer through." For that interval we now have 
 data in Dr. Wilhelm Altmann's most valuable synopsis, Rirfiard 
 Wagner's Briefe nach Zeitfolge und Inhalt, published only this 
 year (1905). Here, among other things, Messrs. Breitkopf and 
 Hartel supply particulars of never-printed letters from the master 
 to their firm, extending over many years. Under date Jan. 31, 
 '59, he asks them to send a Mannheim theatre-fee to his wife 
 direct, on March 17th to make her an advance on others (her 
 receipt whereof he afterwards acknowledges). That fully disposes 
 of every innuendo that she was left to shift for herself, even when 
 he was so hard put to it to find the wherewithal. Neither did 
 he omit to send her whatever else conceivably might interest 
 her : during the same period the Hartels' archives demonstrate 
 that he ordered them to forward her in November '58 the vocal 
 score of his revision of Gluck's Iphigenia in Aulis, and ten days 
 later the poem of his Tristan, — his only publications that winter. 
 He ministered to her in every possible way, and a woman who, 
 despite all that, could send off such a letter to a friend (of 
 his ?), must long before have grown most difficult to live with. 
 
 I have deferred the question of jealousy, as in the present 
 instance that was pardonable to some extent, though with a 
 different kind of wife there might never have been occasion for 
 its cause. But if confirmation were needed for the dictum that 
 the jealous person is the selfish person, this letter would furnish 
 it down to the ground. Year after year had Richard treated Minna 
 to every conceivable ' cure ' for her disease — far oftener and 
 more sedulously than he had troubled to attend to his own ill- 
 health — and coldbloodedly she can now recite her husband's 
 bodily sufferings without a word of pity ! Surely he is right 
 when he informs his sister that Minna "does not even under- 
 
INTRODUCTORY xxxiii 
 
 stand what true love is." A woman who had ever owned a spark 
 of love would at least have hinted sorrow that this painful wound 
 of his was left to alien hands to dress. Contrast her expressions 
 with his to Pusinelli, and say which member of this ill-matched 
 pair not only had the finer brain, but far the better heart. 
 Physically, indeed, there wasn't much to choose between the hearts ; 
 as we shall see later on (p. 190), even nine years back he had 
 been warned against the danger to his, and it nearly carried him 
 off ten months from this (p. 183). But Minna had learnt to 
 make capital of hers, and it is the best capital in the world to 
 trade on if you want your own way. Listen to what dear old 
 Fischer hears this autumn (Oct. 58) : " It's all very well for you, 
 to exhort me to come to rest at last. Lord, how I love rest, 
 in other people ! Seriously though, my poor wife is a great 
 sufferer; she has a complaint of the heart, and one must have 
 experienced what that means ! No rest to be thought of there, 
 either, for the invalid or anyone around." The story of years 
 is condensed in that one phrase, yet we soon shall see that Wagner 
 manfully made up his mind— and clearly through the Wesendoncks' 
 persuasion — to shoulder his cross once again. After another 
 year of it, he falls seriously ill himself; and alike by Minna's 
 bulletin to her Berlin friend (p. 254^), and Mathilde's courageous 
 offer to come and tend him (p. 257), we may judge how utterly 
 unsympathetic a nurse Frau Minna made. Only by prodding it 
 into our memory that she really was an invalid herself, can we 
 divest our mind of the conclusion that " the common " in this 
 case came perilously nigh being "the bad." 
 
 Another excuse must also be remembered. Wagner has 
 already called her unzurechnungsfahig — " not accountable for her 
 actions " ; four years after the Zurich catastrophe he writes sister 
 Clara again (June '62) "Arrived home, I found a letter from 
 Minna, which made me most terribly concerned about her; for 
 this letter really gave me the impression as if it had come from 
 a maniac. She must be terribly excited again." Of course the 
 heart alone would not do that, for its physical distress would 
 prevent any wielding of the pen till the attack was over and 
 reaction had set in : it musibe the effect of a 'stimulant' of some 
 kind. And there we have every symptom of what nowadays 
 is morphinomania, but then was induced by the far more harmful 
 
XXXIV INTRODUCTORY 
 
 parent-drug, crude laudanum, — in which the effect of its solvent 
 proof-spirit should not be forgotten.* Dr. Pusinelli was cautioned 
 about it November '58, whilst Liszt had been told in the previous 
 July, " My anxiety about my wife has been terrible ; for two whole 
 months I actually had to be prepared every day for the news 
 of her death. Her condition has become so much worse chiefly 
 through the insensate use of opium— allegedly for sleeplessness ! " 
 That vermeintlich (allegedly) tells us all; the drug habit had 
 become a virtual intoxication, with all its shocking consequences : 
 consideration for truth is discarded, the wildest fancies spring 
 unbidden to the victim's brain, any innate vulgarity grows rampant, 
 a molehill is converted to a mountain. Thus must it have been 
 for some time past at Zurich, and thus it certainly goes on in 
 Paris. Early in 1861 — when he seems no longer to have had a 
 private sitting-room, poor man — Wagner writes Mathilde : " The 
 odds are so against my profiting by any better-cultivated intercourse, 
 that I willingly resign on every hand, and just accept whatever 
 whim or hazard brings into the house " (p. 262 inf.). Immediately 
 preceding this obvious allusion to Minna's mistrust comes a refer- 
 ence to Mme Ollivier, Liszt's elder daughter, "... I'm thinking, 
 how it is that we so seldom see each other," and the reasons 
 for the dots in that passage we are bound to respect; but on 
 the one hand we find the most odious insinuations anent the 
 selfsame lady in Minna's letter of March i860 to her Berlin friend 
 (see Die Gegenwart), on the) other, Liszt writes Princess Witt- 
 genstein in May 1861, "Pour revenir a Wagner, je vous dirai qu' 
 Ollivier a ecrit une lettre fort severe a. Mme Wagner, qui, a ce qu'il 
 parait, a fait des cancans tres deplaisants sur Blandine. II est 
 difficile que les relations se renouent apres cela.t Pour ma part, 
 je ne m'en m&erai point, l'expenence m'ayant trop enseigne sur 
 l'inutilite' des replatrages ! " At times the poor drug-victim must 
 have behaved as a she-devil in the house, then ; outside it too. 
 
 * It may be needful to inform the layman that even drops of lavender- 
 water, or eau-de-cologne on lumps of sugar, have been taken by the 
 weaker sex with dire effect ; whilst in one of the worst cases I have 
 seen of feminine addiction to stimulants, when every other was cut off, 
 recourse was had to sal volatile. 
 
 t Together with his wife, Emile Ollivier, future premier of France, 
 accompanies Wagner on a journey two months later, — after Minna's 
 departure; see p. 278 infra. 
 
INTRODUCTORY Xxxv 
 
 Not for a moment would I deny that Minna had amiable 
 qualities, once displayed to her husband, now chiefly to her 
 company ; though when Challemel-Lacour terms her " la meilleure 
 des femmes d'artiste " (quoted by Herr Tappert), either he must 
 have had a lordly contempt for "artists," or those of his acquaint- 
 ance must have been singularly unfortunate in wedlock — as Berlioz 
 was indeed, his second time. Of notable acts to her credit, we 
 do know of her attempt in 1854 to gain her husband's amnesty 
 by personal intervention at the Saxon Court, and her visit to his 
 friend Roeckel in prison; of her renewed efforts in 1859 and 1862, 
 the latter whereof proved successful * ; also of an open letter, 
 written at her husband's request Jan. 9, 1866, in which she gave 
 the lie to " Munich and Vienna rumours " by declaring that " until 
 now I have received a sustentation from my absent husband 
 Richard Wagner, which secures me an existence free from care." 
 That disavowal was published in the newspapers only just in time, 
 for she died a fortnight later (Jan. 25) — alone in the night with 
 an open window, as if she had been gasping for breath, after the 
 excitement of a tea-party she had given at her rooms that afternoon. 
 Poor soul, one cannot but feel deeply sorry for her; but it is an 
 act of gross injustice to her husband's memory, to represent her 
 as a martyr to anything but her own constitutional unfitness, and 
 I am convinced that her loudest-mouthed champions would never 
 have endured a whole week by her side in the last half of her 
 life, to say nothing of her husband's score of years. His own 
 epitaph upon her is still the best; writing to Clara a year after, 
 he says : " Your [year-old] account of Minna's death has quite 
 moved me to horror afresh ; there was a calamity about the 
 unhappy one, and nothing of it could be changed. In her fate 
 lies something so disconsolate, that in my eyes it throws a shadow 
 over all existence." 
 
 It is because that shadow looms so threatening in the back- 
 
 * August Roeckel's wife obtained her husband's release from his 
 13-year imprisonment at about the same time, not by any personal 
 influence, but simply since the Saxon Ministry insisted on a personal 
 apology, and were driven at last to accept it by proxy. The more 
 important half of Wagner's amnesty, viz. permission to enter any part 
 of Germany except his native land, was procured for him in i860 by 
 the Princess of Prussia, subsequently Kaiserin Augusta. 
 
xxxvi INTRODUCTORY 
 
 ground of the present group of letters, though her name occurs 
 so seldom in them, that I have devoted to unhappy Minna a 
 disproportionate share of this attempt at introduction, and shall 
 even have to bring her in again. Without knowing something 
 very definite of the poor earthen pot that cracked itself against 
 the nobler vessels with which it swam awhile adown the stream, 
 one cannot understand the nature of the dents it left on them. 
 And nobler the other three were, far nobler, two of silver, one 
 of gold. 
 
 Of Otto Wesendonck, the first of the two silver vessels, we 
 know little more than is conveyed by these letters themselves 
 and those others addressed by the vessel of gold to him. He 
 was a Rhinelander, we are told, born March 16, 1815, therefore 
 close on two years younger than his friend, and nearly fourteen 
 older than his gentle wife — not a great discrepancy in age when 
 the man is the senior. Partner in a large New York firm connected 
 with the silk-trade, his knowledge of the world would naturally be 
 extensive ; but, until thrown into Wagner's society, he does not 
 appear to have devoted much thought to art, saving as applied 
 to luxury. For good pictures to hang in his house, a fine house 
 wherein to hang them, his taste was pronounced; to judge by 
 page 287 of the present book, however, he had not cultivated 
 any great relish for reading, apart from the newspapers ; whereas 
 his conversation seems to have betrayed a marked tendency to 
 argument, on 'politics' or other trifling matters (pp. 131, 135-6, 
 319). But it is as a knightly figure that he will ever abide in 
 the memory of all who met him (he died November 1896), and 
 surely truer knightliness than he displayed in a singularly difficult 
 conjuncture can nowhere have been found, outside King Arthur's 
 court. Undoubtedly 'twas he who was the greatest sufferer for 
 several years, — by no means Minna, — years of perpetual heart- 
 burning bravely borne. Not a line of his do we possess or are 
 likely to, though Wagner once thanks him (1855) for a " long 
 letter which I have accepted as the outpouring of the heart of 
 a friend"; but in the autumn of 1856, a year before the time of 
 greatest trial, Wagner says to him, " If ever I am to play a role 
 in the history of art, truly you should likewise occupy no scanty 
 place therein," — and those words stand true to-day. 
 
INTRODUCTORY xxxvii 
 
 The precise nature of those "conflicts" on Otto's private 
 hearth, to which Wagner alludes in the first long paragraph of 
 his narration to his sister, we shall never know ; it would be unjust 
 to all concerned, however, to imagine that they passed beyond 
 the bounds of dignity ; also we must make due allowance alike 
 for the certainty that Wagner speaks of them at secondhand, and 
 for his intense agitation at the moment of writing. Whatever form 
 they took, and however long they had endured, their issue is 
 sufficient warranty that Otto knew that his trust in his friend was 
 not abused j and even though some coolness between the two 
 men would be very natural after the repeated "scenes" which 
 Minna's turbulence had caused, we find Otto writing Richard on 
 a subject nearest to a father's heart, the death of a beloved child, 
 barely two months after the Asyl was closed (see Letters to Otto, 
 and p. 109 inf.). That in itself is ample refutation of the avid 
 slanderers who not long since painted Wagner's voluntary forsaking 
 of his haven as a humiliation inflicted by a wrathful husband. 
 But the refutation is strengthened by the frequent interchange of 
 visits in the following spring and summer ; still more by Wagner's 
 expression of October '59: "Children, that we are three, is my 
 and your greatest triumph!" (p. 194). Here a triple renuncia- 
 tion, of a kind too sacred for the vulgar mind to grasp, was still 
 in force ; a renunciation which alone can explain those cryptic 
 
 words on page 69, " Nay, he will not betray thee, , not — 
 
 he ! " — the application whereof to Otto is so manifest when we 
 remember that Wagner had but just received his tender tidings 
 of bereavement. 
 
 One more point, before we pass to the other vessel of silver. 
 Down to the time when Wagner knew at last the secret of Mathilde's 
 heart, he may have guessed that her friendly interest in him was 
 part-occasion of her husband's largesses, but the wildest imagination 
 could never have dreamt that Otto's generosity was not dictated 
 by his own free will * ; for Jakob Sulzer also, no wife to influence 
 him, had long ago combined with Wesendonck for the artist's 
 assistance. From the moment that his eyes were opened, though, 
 
 * In a " Gedenkblatt," or " Souvenir " contributed to the Allg. Musih- 
 Zeitung of Feb. 14, 1896 (nine months before her husband's death), 
 Frau Wesendonck pointedly observes that " money-matters were never 
 discussed '' between herself and Wagner, 
 
XXXV1U INTRODUCTORY 
 
 Wagner seeks help in every other quarter ; and even a year there- 
 after, when the ideal trefoil spreads its leaves in peace, it needs 
 some pressure on Herr Otto's part, to induce his friend to accept 
 of his munificence again (p. 167^). One may wish that no 
 further acceptance had been necessary, but the eternal money- 
 trouble was the Achilles-heel in Wagner's lot, and for that his 
 laggard fellow-countrymen must be mainly held responsible ; neither 
 has a golden vessel ever yet been known without its portion of 
 alloy. 
 
 Mathilde, the chief vessel of silver, was born at Elberfeld the 
 23rd of December 1828, her parents Karl Luckemeyer and Johanna 
 his wife (nee Stein). We hear of a brother and a younger sister, 
 but know nothing more about her family, except that her father 
 was a man of civic standing — a Kgl. Kommerzienrath, or member 
 of the royal Board of Commerce — and that they soon removed 
 to Diisseldorf, a very important commercial city on the lower 
 Rhine. Mathilde at first received her education there, thereafter 
 at Dunkirk; but as she tells us herself, she was a "blank page" 
 when she first met Wagner (1852). On the 19th of May 1848, she 
 married Otto, and their first son Paul was born at Diisseldorf 
 November 1849 (died four months old). They spent the following 
 year in " America," presumably New York, and by the middle of 
 1851 we find them settled in grand style in the Hotel Baur au Lac 
 at Zurich, where Myrrha, whose name will often recur, was born 
 the 7 th of that August. This hotel became their head-quarters 
 for another six years, and here were also born their sons Guido, 
 Sept. 13, 1855, and Karl on the 18th of April 1857; — they had 
 no further issue until June 16, 1862, their last child, Hans (died 
 1882). Probably when they first arrived at Zurich, a great silk 
 centre, they had no intention of making it a permanent home ; 
 certainly they spent a good portion of each year away, and almost 
 a whole twelvemonth in Paris from early 1856 to early 1857 save 
 for a brief flight back and forth again. Not till 1855 did they 
 begin to build their stately villa in the rural suburb Enge, the 
 famous " Green Hill," which they occupied from August 22, 1857, 
 down to 1872 ; when they removed first to Dresden, and in 1882 
 to Berlin, with a country-seat " Traunblick " on the shores of the 
 Traunsee, Salzkammergut (1878 onward). It was at Traunblick 
 
INTRODUCTORY xxxix 
 
 that Mathilde Wesendonck died, the 31st of August 1902, after 
 but eight hours' illness ; apparently, therefore, from a seizure of 
 the heart, as Minna and Richard Wagner before her. 
 
 A fair idea of Frau Wesendonck's mental capacity is scarcely 
 to be gathered either from her " Gedenkblatt " on Wagner in the 
 Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung* written when age was creeping on, or 
 from the fourteen letters that terminate the present book ; for which 
 reason I have prefaced those letters by two little so-called children's- 
 tales from a collection lately re-issued, these bearing too close a 
 relation to the life-romance not to be doubly welcome in the 
 absence of any of the former of earlier date than June 1861. 
 The curious will find at the British Museum, as I am informed 
 by a friend, her five-act drama " Gudrun," Zurich 1868, a volume 
 of her " Gedichte, Volksweisen, Legenden und Sagen," Leipzig 
 1874, and her dramatic poem " Odysseus," Dresden 1878. Beyond 
 these, I can speak of a five-act tragedy " Edith oder die Schlacht 
 bei Hastings," Stuttgart 1872, a " Baldur-Mythos " after the younger 
 Edda, 1875, "Kalypso, ein Vorspiel" (without date), and a 
 four-act "Alkestis, nach dem Griechischen frei bearbeitet," 1898, — 
 for possession of all which I have to thank her heirs. Dr. Golther 
 (editor of the German originals of these letters) further mentions 
 " Natur-Mythen," Zurich 1865, and a drama "Friedrich der Grosse," 
 Berlin 1871. Quite a respectable list, and of works of no mean 
 merit ; the main point for us, however, is that not one of them 
 was written before Frau Wesendonck's attachment to Wagner — 
 whose phraseology may be detected here and there — or published 
 till correspondence with him had practically ceased. These works 
 have little prospect of survival, but those which sprang from the 
 depth of her heart, the Fiinf Gedichte (pp. 16-17 inf.) and the 
 poems sent to him with one of her later letters (pp. 351-54), are 
 bound to live as long as his own name. — 
 
 Her personality ? No one admitted to the honour of Frau 
 Wesendonck's society during the last twenty years of her life — 
 and here I can speak from personal experience, however slight — 
 could for a moment believe her to have ever been the heroine 
 
 * Of Feb. 14, 1896, already referred to. As most of the facts in 
 that article have already been used in my vol. iv of the Life, I do not 
 think its reproduction needful here, more particularly as the chronology 
 is rather faulty at times. 
 
xl INTRODUCTORY 
 
 of what the baser sort imply when they speak of a ' Tristan-and- 
 Isolde romance.' This placid, sweet Madonna, the perfect emblem 
 of a pearl, not opal, her eyes still dreaming of Nirvana, — no ! 
 emphatically no ! she could not have once been swayed by carnal 
 passion. And these letters, in bulk and in detail, most flatly con- 
 tradict that implication : nay, more, — they prove the justice of 
 my old contention, not mine alone, that the 2nd act of Wagner's 
 drama excludes all possibility of his Tristan, his Isolde being victims 
 to a coarse desire. In these letters all is pure and spiritual, a 
 Dante and a Beatrice ; so must it have been in their intercourse. 
 For my own impression of their recipient — whom I first met in 
 that sad year at Bayreuth when the master was no more — it was 
 that of the silver moon reflecting a sun that has set long since. 
 Not a word ever fell from her lips on such a love as is revealed 
 here ; but every accent of her voice, the gathering moisture in 
 her eye, spelt worship, and from her it was, I earliest learnt a 
 truth which added years have simply verified : that in Richard 
 Wagner we have more than a great, — a profoundly good man. 
 
 Richard Wagner : — 
 
 " The message from X greatly moved and affected me * 
 and in more than one respect. My art has ever fared quite 
 well with women's hearts ; and that apparently arises from 
 the fact that, amid all the prevailing vulgarity, it still is 
 much more difficult for women to let their souls turn utterly 
 to leather, than it has proved for our civilised men-folk 
 with such ample success. Women indeed are the music 
 of life ; they take up everything with opener mind and 
 less reserve, to beautify it through their fellow-feeling " (To 
 Uhlig, Dec. 1849). 
 
 " What set your letter in its ugliest light, was its coming 
 as enclosure to a letter of E.'s, which I happened to read 
 
 * From other sources we learn that this " X " in the authorised edition 
 of the Letters to Uhlig stands for Mme Laussot, the " Bordeaux lady " 
 of page xlviii, a relative of Wagner's benefactors the Ritter family. The 
 " E." in the next extract was a daughter of Frau Ritter'Sj and Wagner 
 -seems to have met none but the sous as yet. — Tr. 
 
INTRODUCTORY xll 
 
 first of the two. Ask E. what I mean by that, and in 
 two words she'll make it plain to you ; for — believe me — 
 this girl is miles ahead of you,— and why? By birth, 
 because she is a female. She was born a human being, — 
 you, and all men nowadays, are born philistines ; but pain- 
 fully and slowly do we wretched creatures reach at last 
 to turning human. Only the ladies, those who have stayed 
 entirely what they are at birth, can teach us ; and were it 
 not for them, we men should go irreclaimably to ground 
 with our paper pellets. Do you suppose that the passage 
 in my letter, where — since you took it so for granted — I 
 answered that Paris was doing me a world of good, I was 
 perfectly delighted with it, and so on, — do you suppose 
 that E. would have taken that at its face value? I can 
 hardly believe it, and presume she would have understood 
 the irony a little better than the Royal Chamber-musician 
 did " (To Uhlig, from Bordeaux, March 1850). 
 
 "Just one thing more, — it used to crop up in our old 
 debates : — never shall we be what we might and should be, 
 till — Woman is woken. — Ah, see what songs I'm singing 
 you, poor fellow ! Believe me, I am not blithe myself, that 
 I can merely sing" (To August Roeckel, political prisoner, 
 Aug. 1851). 
 
 " Exactly as Ahasueriis, the Hollander yearns for death 
 as end of all his sorrows ; but the Hollander may gain 
 this redemption — denied to the eternal Jew — through a 
 woman who shall sacrifice herself for love of him. Thus 
 it is the yearning for death that spurs him on to seek 
 this woman ; but this woman no longer is Odysseus' 
 housekeeping Penelope, wooed in days of old : no, she is 
 the archetype of womanhood, though non-extant as yet, 
 the longed for, dreamt of, infinitely womanly woman, — let 
 me out with it in one word : the Woman of the Future " 
 (Communication, autumn 1851). 
 
xlii INTRODUCTORY 
 
 These passages, and many, many like them, have lain open 
 to the world for years, alike in German and in English ; it is 
 amazing that their sense should have been grasped so seldom, 
 and the coarsest imputations cast on Wagner's moral character by 
 all sorts and conditions of writers, down to the last bumptious 
 tyro who fancies he can wield a pen. Somewhere, of course, 
 there must reside an explanation : it resides in this, that fifty 
 years ago the " Woman of the Future " was considered a fantastic 
 myth, at any rate in Germany; whereas she has become to-day 
 the Woman of the Present, whilst the Woman of the Past is so 
 extinct that her very history runs risk of being clean forgotten. 
 Unfortunately Wagner, whose whole mission it was to " make 
 revolution wherever I go," lived far in advance of his age — which 
 was mentally and morally incapable of understanding him in almost 
 anything — and still he has to pay the penalty. " Out of themselves 
 they blow them across to me, those clouds ; how much longer 
 must I scatter them, to shew them that I'm, after all, a good pure 
 man?" (p. 106 inf.). Those clouds are still blown, and I cannot 
 too emphatically insist that, upon all reliable evidence, Wagner 
 was a clean-living, clean-thinking man ; in fact, it is the very 
 cleanness of his thoughts that has baffled so many a plumber, 
 — where he speaks of " the senses," for instance, " they " only 
 think of one. 
 
 Writing of the Paris 'sixties (when Minna scented vice in every 
 petticoat), Malwida von Meysenbug, a pure-minded spinster who 
 shared her friend Wagner's belief in the future of Woman, has 
 placed this on record : " In face of practical life he had that 
 awkwardness of genius which is so touching, since it coincides 
 with a profound naivety of ideas about the relations of ordinary 
 life which can be misunderstood alone by mediocrity and malice " 
 {Memoiren einer Idealistin III. 267). In his first edition of the 
 Communication he was naive enough, indeed, to include the 
 following passage concerning his Liebesverbot period, i.e. the year 
 or so before he fell in love with Minna : " Woman had begun 
 to dawn on my horizon. The shy reserve towards the female sex 
 inculcated on us all — that ground of all the vices of the modern 
 male generation, and no less of the stunting of the female — my 
 temperament had only been able to break it through by fits and 
 starts, in isolated utterances of a pert impetuosity : a hasty con- 
 
INTRODUCTORY xliii 
 
 science-stinging snatch had had to serve as most unsatisfying 
 substitute for the instinctively desired bliss. That desire, which 
 nowhere could still itself in life, found an ideal food in the 
 reading of Heinse's Ardinghello, as also the works of Heine and 
 other members of the ' Young-German ' school of literature. The 
 effect of these impressions shewed itself on my outward life in 
 the only way in which Nature can utter herself under the pressure 
 of the moral bigotry of our Society, namely as— what folk call, 
 unfortunately to-be-tolerated— vice " {Prose Works I. 294 & 396). 
 The next edition, issued twenty years later (1872), expunged for 
 good the last clause and the second sentence; for which reason, 
 when translating the work in 1892, I relegated them to an appendix; 
 whence— oddly enough— they have not yet been unearthed by 
 "mediocrity and malice." But is it not plain, on, the face of 
 them, that these are the words of a man disgusted with the wild 
 oats which he, like myriads of others, had sown for a brief period 
 of his early life ? And does not their expunging connote that his 
 traducers were a force to be reckoned with, people who even in 
 1872 would fail to comprehend his protest against that "shy 
 reserve towards the female sex" which still prevailed in Germany 
 and turned that sex into domestic animals or puppets ? The 
 Woman of the Future was only just beginning to be born, and 
 rational liberty of comradeship was not yet tolerated.* — 
 
 To get back, or on — I almost forget which — to the time 
 when Wagner first met the two Wesen'doncks, namely February 
 1852 :— 
 
 With a wholly unsympathetic wife by his side — a wife con- 
 stitutionally disqualified to understand her husband's wish for more 
 inspiring company, — Richard Wagner has arrived at a climacteric 
 in his artist-life. His operas Rienzi, the Hollander, Tannhauser 
 and Lohengrin already are on the boards, though the last-named 
 he has never heard himself; he has just rounded off his most 
 important theoretic period, Opera and Drama and the Communica- 
 
 * To obviate any misconstruction of this deprecation of "Die uns 
 Allen anerzogene schiichterne Zuruckhaltung gegen das weibliche 
 Geschlecht," I adduce von Hornstein (see p. xlv) : " Once he happened 
 to make a risque joke in the presence of his wife and sister-in-law, 
 and immediately blushed like a girl. That blush became him well." 
 How many men past forty have retained the faculty of blushing? 
 
icliv INTRODUCTORY 
 
 turn to my Friends appearing together this selfsame winter ; the 
 full plan of Der Ring des Nibelungen has ripened in his brain, 
 whilst its last two members lie versified on paper (subject to 
 revision). Now he is simply waiting for the Spring, his favourite 
 creative season, to attack the Walkure and Rheingold poems in 
 earnest ; but his health has ebbed to a wretched state — undoubtedly 
 due to the eye-strain of so much literary work — and a fallow season 
 is essential. To tide the interregnum over, he conducts subscrip- 
 tion-concerts at Zurich (his place of refuge) with an inadequate 
 orchestra and a tiny fee : at a rehearsal of his Tannhauser overture, 
 for one of these, he delights Mathilde Wesendonck, to whom 
 and her husband he has been introduced at the house of a 
 friend some few nights previously. His remarks to Uhlig (a 
 young Dresden friend) in a letter of a day or two afterwards are 
 eloquent of an instantaneous impression : " The feminine element 
 remains the only one that can help me to illusions, off and on ; 
 for I can form no more about the males " ; and a month later, 
 four days after the concert-performance itself: "Don't call me 
 vain if I confess to you that the extraordinary effects, which I 
 am spreading around me, restore me now and then to a pleasur- 
 able sense of existence ; ever and again it is the ' eternal womanly ' 
 that fills me with sweet illusions and warm thrills of joy-in-life. 
 The glistening moisture of a woman's eye often saturates me with 
 fresh hope again" (see Life iii, 272 et seq.). 
 
 I have just said that the mutual impression seems to have 
 been instantaneous, but hasten to add that for a long time, a 
 very long time, it was quite subconscious on both sides. In 
 certain precipitate quarters — evidently acquainted with nothing but 
 French extracts which lately appeared in a Paris review — capital 
 has already been made of Wagner's Diary entry of August 21, 1858 : 
 " Yesterday I wrote to my sister Klare. ... I indicated to her what 
 thou hast been and art to me these six years since " (p. 33 inf.) ; 
 but my readers have only to turn back to the said letter itself, — 
 "at first, and for long, shy, diffident, hesitant and timid." A 
 profound effect had been produced on Mathilde's mind by her first 
 personal experience of that rarity on earth, a genius, and no doubt 
 the effect was strengthened by a woman's quick grasp of the 
 situation in Wagner's cheerless home: admiration and commisera- 
 tion would thus go hand in hand, with the result that Otto was 
 
INTRODUCTORY xlv 
 
 at once persuaded to exercise the duty of the rich and take upon 
 himself, in some degree, the role of a kind Providence. That 
 Otto did so from the very first, is proved by Wagner's earliest 
 published letter to him, namely of July 1852, and still more 
 strongly by a much later one, of February 1857: "You know 
 how I told you 5 years ago of this greatest wish of mine,* and 
 defined it as the longing for a cosy, quiet country-house with 
 garden. It seemed a thing that ought to be attainable, and you 
 offered me a hand thereto yourself." And so we shall find that, 
 until a little later than the letter of 1857 just-cited, alike those 
 to Otto and the tiny billets to his wife betray no feeling, 
 certainly no consciously reciprocated feeling, other than that of 
 a friendship which has ripened into camaraderie: brothers and 
 sisters might address each other thus. Yet, in his passion for 
 proselytising, Wagner soon undertook to form the beautiful young 
 matron's untrained mind. There lay the unsuspected danger; 
 with centuries of chains behind it, the feminine mind had not yet 
 learnt to loose itself from the emotional heart ; the " wakening of 
 Woman" might prove to be a thought too soon. 
 
 From Frau Wesendonck's brief reminiscences, above referred 
 to, there is really very little to be gleaned as regards this process ; 
 from her (later ?) friend Frau Wille's absolutely nothing. The 
 gossip gathered half a century thereafter from toothless survivors 
 of their entourage, at second to fifth hand, is not worth the paper 
 wasted on its printing. For this nebulous period we are therefore 
 restricted to Wagner's private letters to contemporaries, and the 
 testimony of the only one of his male associates whose recollec- 
 tions have as yet been made public, to wit, von Hornstein.f 
 
 * Namely, " untroubled rest to carry out my artistic drafts '' ; yet unless 
 the above refers to a conversation, the "five" should be reduced to 
 less than four if we may judge by that fragment of a second letter in 
 the Otto collection dated "June II, 1853," which seems to be an answer 
 to Herr Otto's inquiry as to Wagner's needs. 
 
 f " Erinnerungen an Richard Wagner: Auszuge aus dem unge- 
 druckten Nachlasse des Komponisten Robert Freiherrn von Hornstein," 
 feuilleton of the Neue freie Presse Sept. 23-24, 1904. An editorial 
 footnote tells us that Baron Hornstein was born 1833, and died 1890 
 (long before modern gossip on these relations had started), also that a 
 collection of his songs has now reached its twelfth edition; whilst 
 allusion is made to his "interesting reminiscences of Schopenhauer" 
 
xlvi INTRODUCTORY 
 
 From these, combined, I will endeavour to 'reconstitute' the 
 puzzling past : — 
 
 1852. — Jan. 30 : " With her natural strong need of love, a 
 woman must love something " (to Liszt, just before this acquaint- 
 ance). Then — 
 
 March 25 : " Yesterday I received a letter from Hamburg, from 
 
 a lady Of aristocratic birth [Malwida von Meysenbug, a total stranger] who 
 
 thanks me for my essays, saying they have been her salvation; 
 she declares herself a thorough revolutionary. —Thus it is ever 
 the ladies that have their hearts in the right place in my regard, 
 whereas I am almost compelled to give men up as lost already" 
 (to Uhlig). — May 3: "The Hollander's impression on my public 
 was most unusual, deep and earnest. Naturally, the ladies were 
 to the fore again " (to U.) ; 29th, " With all the ladies I have 
 won a mighty feather in my cap" (to L.); and 31st, "Julie 
 
 [nfe Ritter] is in the country with US here ; K[ummer, her husband] is 
 
 at the baths. — Julie seems to have taken a great fancy to me ; at 
 any rate she implicitly follows my word " (to U.). — July 15, "There 
 are splendid women here in the Oberland, but only to the eye ; 
 they're eaten up with raging vulgarity" (to U.) — Sept. 12: "My 
 personal affairs are shaping fairly pleasantly \Tannh. fees coming in], but 
 alas ! I'm much alone ; I lack all satisfying company " (to Roeckel) ; 
 27th, "If I could only come to an agreeable rest: yesterday a 
 young woman [perhaps a fortune-teller?] told me what would cure 
 me ; she was very bold, and was right ! Good Lord, what a 
 silly fool I am, to be such a squeamish beast ! But that's the 
 way I'm built ! " (to U.). — Nov. 9, " I am living an inexpressibly 
 good-for-nothing life ! Of actual enjoyment of life I know sheer 
 nothing : for me the ' taste of life, of love ' is simply a matter of 
 the imagination, not of experience. ... If I could visit you at 
 Weimar, perhaps I might hope to recover, . . . perhaps a word 
 of love might sound from here or there- — but here ? ? Here I 
 must perish in the very briefest space, and everything will come 
 
 published by the same journal in 1883. Making allowance for an obvious 
 inaccuracy here and there, v. Hornstein's vindication of Wagner is the 
 more valuable as it was written in 1884 and he confesses to having 
 ceased to be on friendly terms about twenty years previously. Unfor- 
 tunately the "Auszuge," or excerpts, give no dates, though these are 
 easy to furnish on other internal evidence. 
 
INTRODUCTORY xlvii 
 
 too late— too late. 'Tis so ! " (to Liszt).— N.B., Theodor Uhlig, 
 Wagner's favourite disciple, died in Dresden this Christmas.— 
 1853 : the year the two families first became more intimate : — 
 May 30 (re the famous three Zurich concerts, consisting of 
 extracts from the Hollander, Tannhauser and Lohengrin) : " Indeed 
 it was a festival for the little world around me; the ladies were 
 all in my favour " (to Liszt).— June 8 : " I might say I am living 
 fairly pleasantly now [in the new flat] if — I were anybody else ! It 
 is not only that I am bound to feel the dishonourableness of the 
 world in general more acutely than many another does ; but even 
 as regards my own personal life I'm bound to admit to myself 
 more candidly each day that it is only in the last few years 
 [cf. Jan. 1854] I've grown aware — too late ! — that I strictly have not 
 lived at all yet ! . . . My art is becoming more and more the 
 lay of the blinded yearning nightingale, and this art would 
 suddenly lose all its reason if I could but clasp the actuality of 
 life. Ay, just where Life stops, there does Art begin ; from 
 youth up we stumble into art sans knowing how, and only when 
 we have forged through art to its very end, do we discover to our 
 lamentation that 'tis just this life we lack. . . . O yes, there's one 
 thing might console me: — not only am I wondered at, but also 
 loved ; where criticism ceases, love steps in, and a number of 
 hearts has it drawn near me. Yet that sort of love cannot but still 
 remain far off me ; it enters my life most indirectly, and — the way 
 this life of mine has shaped — it is only as into dimmest distance 
 I can look into that realm of love. Could I become a proper 
 egoist, things would be easier; but as it is, it can't be helped, 
 and — like yourself — only through resignation can I at least main- 
 tain myself in the truth of my nature " (to Roeckel in prison). — 
 Dec. 29 : " When composing [Jiheingold] I generally undertake 
 too much, and drive my wife to justifiable wrath by keeping 
 dinner waiting; so that it is in the sweetest of humours I enter 
 the second half of the day, with which I don't at all know what 
 to do : solitary walks in the mist; sundry evenings at Wesendonck's. 
 It is there I still obtain my only stimulation ; the graceful lady 
 stays loyal and attached to me, though there also remains much 
 in this society that can but torture me" (to elderly Frau Ritter 
 of Dresden). — One might place the commencement of the reading- 
 lessons somewhere about here, with a good deal of pianoforte 
 
xlviii INTRODUCTORY 
 
 demonstration, as we know, including fragments from the growing 
 Rheingold. 
 
 1854. — Jan. 25-26 (the famous homily to Roeckel) : " Whatever 
 a man cannot love, stays beyond him, and he beyond it; here 
 the philosopher may flatter himself he comprehends, but not the 
 truthful human being. Well, in its fullest reality, love is only 
 possible between the sexes : only as man and woman can we human 
 beings love most really, whereas all other kinds of love are but derived 
 from this . . . [and so on, for pages] . . . ' I ' and the world, means 
 nothing more than ' I ' alone ; to ' me ' the world becomes a full 
 reality but when it has become a ' thou ' ; and it becomes that only 
 in the apparition of the loved individual. . . . Enough ! I venture 
 to send you these confessions of faith without fear of rousing 
 trouble for you, in your solitude, through a sharing of my views. 
 Not only you, but I myself — as all of us — live at present in con- 
 ditions and relations which point to none but surrogates or 
 makeshifts ; for you, no less than for myself, truest, realest life can 
 only be a thing of thought, of wish. I had become 36 years old 
 ere I guessed the actual drift of my artistic impulse * ; so long 
 
 * Wagner became "36" on the 22nd of May 1849, so that — unless 
 the "6" be a misprinted 9 — the said epoch would fall within his first 
 year of exile; which confronts us with the never yet unriddled " Bordeaux 
 episode " of March 1850. Ferdinand Praeger, who invariably embroiders 
 what he does not invent, tells the story thus : " Feeling naught 
 congenial to him in Paris, he left again for Zurich, via Bordeaux and 
 Geneva [such a short cut]. At Bordeaux an episode occurred similar [?] 
 to one which happened later at Zurich, about which the press of the 
 day [?!] made a good deal of unnecessary commotion and ungenerous 
 comment. I mention the incident to show the man as he was. The 
 Opposition have not spared his failings, and over the Zurich incident 
 were hypercritically censorious [it was not so much as known to any but a private 
 circle before this wretched book of P.'s]. The Bordeaux story I am alluding 
 
 to, is, that the wife of a friend, Mrs. H , having followed Wagner 
 
 to the south, called on him at his hotel, and throwing herself at his 
 feet, passionately told of her affection. Wagner's action in the matter 
 was to telegraph to the husband to come and take his wife home. 
 On telling me the story, Wagner jocosely remarked that poor Beethoven, 
 so full of love, never had his affection returned, and lived and died, 
 so it is said, a hermit" (Wagner as I knew him pp. 196-7). And that 
 was published by a respectable London and New York firm during the 
 lifetime of both the ladies mentioned, a few months after its author's 
 
INTRODUCTORY xlix 
 
 had Art found credence with me as the end, and Life the means. 
 But the discovery, it is true, had come too late, and none but 
 tragical experiences could respond to my new instinct of life. 
 Moreover, a wider glance into the world shews Love itself impossible 
 now. . . . Not one of us will see the Promised Land ; we all shall 
 perish in the wilderness ... in the happiest event we must be- 
 come martyrs. . . Now I can do nothing else than go on existing 
 as artist : all the rest — since I can embrace Life, Love, no more 
 — either disgusts me, or interests me solely insofar as it bears upon 
 Art. 'Tis an agonising life, to be sure; still, 'tis the only life 
 possible." — What does that reveal to us,* but a man distraught 
 
 own decease ! Seeing that Frau Wesendonck was openly named ioo 
 pages after, in course of further insolences regarding "the Zurich 
 incident " ; seeing also that a German edition was promised for speedy 
 appearance (also a French, but the German publisher's withdrawal 
 knocked that on the head) — the reader will not be astonished at my 
 warning that lady at once about the slander. That there was something 
 in the "Bordeaux story," quite unconnected with herself, is proved by 
 her reply (see facsimile), but Praeger's version is so little to be credited 
 that he does not even believe it himself : the " English " edition says 
 " At Bordeaux an episode occurred " etc., implying that " the husband " 
 was telegraphed-for from there; the German edition, professedly "trans- 
 lated " by himself, says in the usual Praeger fashion, " At Bordeaux 
 he visited a married couple .... and when he resumed his journey, she 
 followed him and found him at a hotel en route. . . . but Wagner 
 telegraphed to the husband to come and fetch his wife back." After 
 that, one cannot trust a single word of the details ; but the very possession 
 of the story, in any shape, points either to a still graver breach of 
 confidence than is self-admitted (namely to garbled divulgence of Wagner's 
 closely guarded Memoirs), or to something far more likely in this instance, 
 an unbosoming by the " solitary, heroic Minna " — with whom the scandal- 
 monger made great friends during his fortnight at the Asyl in summer 
 1857 (of course he persistently dates it " 1856"). The latter supposition, 
 coupled with P.'s soup-brewing tendencies, would account for the im- 
 possible suggestion (Engl, ed.) that the Bordeaux lady was Emilie Heim, 
 — who with her husband first came to Zurich in 1852. Whatever the 
 right or the wrong of the story may some day prove to be, there is 
 not the smallest probability of Richard Wagner's having demeaned 
 himself to impart it to a town-crier, and never in this world "jocosely," — 
 see " tragical experiences " above. 
 
 * There is no directer personal allusion in the letter. Incidentally 
 it should be remarked that, apart from all despondence caused by 
 a Leipzig Lohengrin fiasco, the acuteness of the present psychologic. 
 
 d 
 
1 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 with love, driven almost to despair by its apparent hopelessness? 
 Resignation has yet to come, though only just below the offing, 
 as we shall descry in an instant ; consciousness of being loved in 
 return is many, many a league away. 
 
 April 9, '54 : " Ah dearest, dearest, onlyest Franz ! Give me 
 a heart, a mind, a feminine soul, in which I might wholly merge 
 myself, that would embrace the whole of me, — how little should 
 I ask of this world ! . . . But I'm wool-gathering again ! Send 
 me to the right-about, as I deserve; — nobody will ever make 
 anything of me but a fantastic idiot ! " (to Liszt). — June : " Seek 
 me no copyist; Mad. Wesendonck has presented me with a gold 
 pen — of indestructible writing-power [cf. page 152 inf.] — which is 
 turning me into a caligraphic pedant again. These scores will be 
 my most consummate masterpiece of penmanship : one can't 
 escape one's destiny " (to L.) ; his saving gift of humour, so often 
 coming to the rescue, has stood him in good stead once more. 
 But that gift will not forever stay his tears, as is shewn by the 
 following reminiscence of von Hornstein's, who first met him at 
 the zenith of the Zurich festival in '53, and now runs over from 
 Lausanne for a wild-goose concert chase at Sion {Life iv, 365-70) 
 and its sequel at Karl Ritter's bridal home near Chillon : " Several 
 times was Wagner overcome by yearning for the talented and 
 beautiful Frau Wesendonck, for whom he had conceived a 
 passionate regard; the refined lady accepted the artist's homage 
 without compromising herself in the smallest degree. Once we 
 surprised him, sitting in the garden, with tears in his eyes. Apart 
 from such attacks of weakness, he was cheerful, amiable, full of 
 intellectual talk.'' Later in July, Wagner invites Liszt to Zurich, 
 "Come, if you can, in the second half of August; the Wesen- 
 doncks will be back by then, I think" (as Liszt was unable to 
 come, he cannot have met them till autumn '56). 
 
 Then the Walkure music is taken seriously in hand, some of 
 it under the eyes of von Hornstein, who has come to Zurich for 
 a while and tells us, evidently of September : " In the presence 
 of Ritter, Wesendoncks, Heim and myself, he sang and played 
 the whole first act. Frau Heim, a capital singer, supported him ; 
 
 crisis itself accounts for the strangely inconsequential 'explanation* of 
 the Ring-poem contained in this, the favourite epistle of the modern 
 axe-grinder: Wagner himself is hardly to be recognised here. 
 
INTRODUCTORY ll 
 
 it was a rare premiere. — For himself, he did not sing at all badly ; 
 with little voice he managed much ; just an ordinary sort of voice, 
 but the higher notes rang better. His piano-playing was about 
 the same ; without being a proficient, he could bring out every- 
 thing. — That evening he was very happy." — On the sketch of the 
 prelude to that first act of Die Walkure Wagner's pencil traced 
 
 " G s . . M ," deciphered later by Frau Wesendonck 
 
 as " Gesegnet sei Mathilde " — " Blessed be Mathilde ! " Even 
 though the initials may date from this period, however, it is 
 impossible for the sketch itself to have been made away till long 
 thereafter ; at first he needed it until completion of the full score, 
 and then he left it in London for Klindworth to make the pfte 
 version (1855 onward, see no. 213 of W.-L. Corr.). 
 
 Meantime this same month of September 1854 brought his 
 first acquaintance with the works of Schopenhauer, without which 
 he might have been unable to endure the strain of so hopeless 
 a passion ; for his thoughts had often been attuned to suicide of 
 late. Schopenhauer taught him very soon a nobler way — of 
 resigned renunciation ; and it is in that mood that his Tristan 
 dawns on him before " this mournful year " goes out. Mid- 
 December to Liszt : "As I never in my life have quaffed the 
 actual delight of love, I mean some day to raise a monument 
 to this most beauteous of all dreams, wherein that love shall glut 
 itself right royally for once. In my head I've planned a Tristan 
 and Isolde, the simplest but fullest-blooded musical conception ; 
 with the black flag that floats at its end I then shall shroud myself 
 — to die.'' Certainly Tristan is deferred for nearly three years, 
 three years of ripening and refining, as the Ring des Nibelungen 
 blocks the way; but, the Walkure composition-draft completed 
 (Dec. 27), for a fortnight he suddenly takes up and finishes a 
 subject just as symptomatic of his present state, — he revises his 
 Faust overture of fifteen years ago, " the solitary Faust." 
 
 1855. — It would seem to have been Mathilde's expressed desire 
 to hear this work, that prompted the Faust revision ; for she in- 
 forms us that he had wished to dedicate its publication to her, 
 but recoiled with horror at the thought of its gloomy motto 
 (after Goethe) : " Impossible — he cried — to pin that fearful motto 
 to your breast ! " Whether those were his actual words or not, 
 he simply presented her with "the score" (rough draft?), pre- 
 
Hi INTRODUCTORY 
 
 sumably without the motto, and wrote upon it, " R. W. Zurich 
 17 Jan. 1855 zum Andenken S. 1. F.," i.e. "In remembrance of 
 his dear Friend." * 
 
 The next piece of evidence we have in this year is a letter to 
 Roeckel of February the 5th : " With my own life-experiences 
 I had arrived at the exact point where it needed nothing but 
 Schopenhauer's philosophy, to determine my whole course. Through 
 ability to accept his very, very serious truths without reservation 
 I most positively conformed to my innermost bent, and albeit he 
 has set me on a somewhat different tack from before, yet this 
 veering was the only one to answer to my deeply suffering sense 
 of the world's essence. . . . With a truly reverential feeling, then, 
 do I send you this work that has strengthened me to endurance, 
 and given me power of renunciation, at a very decisive catastrophe 
 of my inner life *' ; whilst the meaning of that " catastrophe " — i.e. 
 crisis, and an inner one, mark you — is distinctly outlined in a 
 previous passage of this letter : " At last I have finished composi- 
 tion of the Walkiire — amid great inner sufferings whereof no one 
 knows anything, and least of all my good wife " (she had visited 
 the prisoner some three months back). — Then from London, to 
 Roeckel again, next April or May : " Long had I found it hard 
 to keep an optimistic footing, in face of the perpetual evidence 
 of my own eyes, and friend Sch. simply helped by his enormous 
 impetus to rid me of the last Judaic heresy, and, with great grief 
 indeed, but the consolation of having cast off the last wilful 
 illusion, to make myself as free as ever man can be. . . . In 
 summer I shall return to my dear Switzerland, which I think of 
 never quitting more. Retirement, beautiful Nature and — work : 
 'tis the only element for me to live in, and I shall not let myself 
 be torn from it again." That is the reverse of the reflection of a 
 declared, still more of an accepted lover. — In September, and on 
 
 * Dr. Golther — evidently going by Frau Wesendonck's GedenkbhM, 
 where she had cited the inscription as " Der lieben Frau " — interprets 
 the initials as " Seiner lieben Frau " ; but that possessive pronoun makes 
 a vast difference, and I therefore believe that the "F" should be read 
 as " Freundin," i.e. " Lady-friend." In Lotte's letters to Schiller we 
 constantly find this abbreviation "l.f." or "1. Fr.," standing for a male 
 " dear Friend," — The revised Faust overture was first performed Jan. 23, 
 1855, at Zurich. 
 
INTRODUCTORY liii 
 
 the day of Guido's birth, it is followed by an invitation to Liszt 
 to bring Princess Wittgenstein and her daughter to Zurich at 
 Christmas : " One can pass the winter very spaciously and com- 
 fortably, for very little, at the Hdtel Baur au lac where you stayed 
 before [1853]. . . . The Wesendoncks are living there, and you 
 might set up quite a famous — half joint — household ; which would 
 much divert me." 
 
 Richard and Minna had passed a few weeks at Seelisberg on 
 the lake of Lucerne just previously ; von Hornstein went to stay 
 there too, and this is what he tells us: — "He [they?] occupied 
 two small rooms, in which one could not have placed even an 
 upright piano, even had there been one to procure. There was 
 a grand in the public conversation-room ; but that was never 
 empty, and Wagner never set his foot inside. . . . On our walk, 
 as we came to a part dropping sheer to the lake, he begged me to 
 let him go first, as he had what is called sympathetic dizziness and 
 felt nervous for the man in front [cf. p. 167 in/.]. On our return 
 it was exactly time to go to supper. Then for the first time I 
 saw his wife, who gave me the impression of a very kind, good- 
 natured woman ; we soon became great friends. She always had 
 a high opinion of me * ; moreover, Ritter [?] and I always took 
 her part, — which could not be said of everyone in Zurich. The 
 three of us sat down to the general table-d'hote : Frau Wagner, 
 who sat opposite her husband and myself, stood [!] very well 
 with all the company, and chatted briskly with her female neigh- 
 bours; Wagner held aloof from the whole company, which was 
 taken very ill of him. They were mostly ladies from Zurich 
 and Basle, few gentlemen; a fairly home-baked gathering. 
 — Immediately after table, Wagner retired with us to his 
 room ; his wife brewed him a grog, which he used to drink 
 every evening then. He would often change his diet. . . 
 We parted rather late that night, against his usual custom.— At 
 Seelisberg he rose early, and worked till dinner at a desk-stand 
 near the balcony, from which one looked down on the lake, with 
 
 * To judge by Hornstein's literary style, one can quite believe it ; to 
 make any coherent sense of his six-word gasps, I have been compelled 
 to reduce the rank of their full-stops, from time to time. Needless 
 to say, his paragraphs are equally jerky ; they are represented by the 
 dashes introduced above. 
 
liv INTRODUCTORY 
 
 the Mythensteine opposite. — I posted myself on this balcony to 
 study Schopenhauer, and in those few weeks at Seelisberg I got 
 the principles of Schopenhauer's philosophy by heart [would that it 
 had also been his style !]. As I took a daily walk of several hours 
 with Wagner, and passed the evenings with him, my penetration 
 into that philosophy was much assisted by the fact that Schopen- 
 hauer formed our chief topic of conversation. — Wagner had a 
 pencil-sketch of the ' Rheingold ' in front of him [it was Walkure act ii], 
 and was fair-copying the score. For this he used a platinum pen 
 which a Russian lady had presented to him [poor Frau Wesendonck], 
 He wrote most distinctly, almost beautifully. When I asked if 
 the copying did not weary him, he replied : It was no mere 
 transcribing, but thus he went over the work again and altered 
 in detail. — At the dinner-table things passed exactly as the night 
 before ; the Swiss had a kind of awe of Wagner, and got out of 
 his way. Directly after table Wagner withdrew to his room, to 
 read and rest; Frau Wagner and I remained with the company, 
 and entertained ourselves quite well with the excellent philistines, 
 who were very nice to us and appreciated our affability ; Frau 
 Wagner, in particular, did all she could to furnish a corrective of 
 her husband. Later, I retired to my room in the side building, 
 which looked upon the Uri-Rothstock. Towards evening I fetched 
 Wagner for a walk. — Thus our life repeated itself with great 
 regularity; it was fine weather almost all the time, so that this 
 day's plan was little altered.— I learned to love and admire 
 Wagner. At Seelisberg he did not turn one of his disagreeable 
 sides outward. He was full of wit, and often enchantingly adorable. 
 Even with his wife he had not the smallest rencontre, which fre- 
 quently occurred at Zurich later." — Had Minna but encouraged 
 her husband to go his harmless way, as he let her go hers, no 
 "rencontre" need there ever have been, — clearly he was steering 
 away from the rocks toward which her non-company temper 
 lashed him back ; and of this " later " we have von Hornstein's 
 testimony again, though he specifies no definite period: "He 
 was charming when he went for walks with Ritter and myself 
 alone. Clever apergus flew through the air ; he lavished upon us 
 his rich store of experiences. Many a golden saying leapt to ear, 
 original views of men, relations, art and politics, to light; his 
 whole goodness of heart, of which he possessed a large dose, 
 
Introductory lv 
 
 mounted to the surface. His love of animals had something 
 touching. When his pity was aroused, he found himself disarmed. 
 He long had ceased to love his wife, and was consumed with 
 passion for another; yet he would turn sulky, hasty, perverse, 
 never coarse. With one little word he might have thrust a 
 poniard in the woman [cf. p. xxii] : he never breathed it." — 
 
 1856. — In January of this year the Wesendoncks were still 
 at Zurich (cf. a letter of Gottfried Keller's), but they must have 
 left for Paris, or possibly the Riviera, quite early in the year ; nor 
 did they return, save for a brief spell or two in autumn, till about 
 commencement of the following Spring, — practically a twelvemonth's 
 absence. 
 
 In the meantime Wagner has finished scoring Die Walkure, 
 middle of March, and repeated attacks of illness have com- 
 pelled him to take a long rest at a place of so-called ' cure.' 
 In May he sketches that scenario for Die Sieger to be found in 
 vol. VIII. of the Prose Works, with Ananda and Prakriti (alias 
 Sawitri) as hero and heroine (pp. 54-56 inf.). This is highly 
 significant, especially as it appears from his letter to Roeckel of 
 August 23rd that the Buddhesque variant of Brynhild's farewell 
 words in Gotterdammerung has been drafted soon thereafter, 
 whilst "The chief thing I desire is health, to be able to execute 
 all the sketches of which I am full. Unfortunately I'm fuller than 
 I need ; for, beyond the Nibelungen pieces, I have still a Tristan 
 und Isolde in my head (Love as fearful agony), and a latest 
 subject of all, 'die Sieger' (supreme Redemption — a Buddhist 
 legend), which so compass me about that only with great 
 pertinacity can I drive them back in favour of the Nibelungen." 
 Love as "furchtbare Qual," — that is his own experience, like 
 Tristan's in act iii, and he has just described it on another page 
 of this letter as the " devastating " element in his Ring, — so at 
 variance with the earlier termination ! Further : " Can you con- 
 ceive a moral action otherwise than as an act of renunciation ? 
 And what else is highest holiness, i.e. fullest redemption, than 
 the conversion of this principle into the basis of our every deed ? — 
 But even with these simple questions I'm faring too far afield, 
 no doubt, and becoming more abstract than is good for me ; 
 wherefore I will merely add something about my concrete per- 
 sonality. — I am nothing but Artist, — and that's my blessing and 
 
lvi INTRODUCTORY 
 
 my curse ; otherwise I would fain become an anchorite, and have 
 my life mapped out for me in the simplest of modes. As it is, 
 fool that I am, I run about in search of rest, i.e. that complex 
 rest to be supplied by an untroubled life of ease sufficient to 
 enable me to — do nothing but work, be nothing but artist." 
 
 We shall find that paradox running as a thread of scarlet 
 through this volume, the cause of all its hero's seeming incon- 
 sistencies. But the interesting point at present, is that Otto's 
 sympathy had also been claimed a fortnight previously alike for 
 the Tristan and Die Sieger projects, whilst we can plainly detect 
 a week hence that Mathilde has taken such alarm at the Grand 
 Duke's offer of a Weimar sanctuary as to induce her husband to 
 forestall it {Letters to Otto). Wagner himself had wisely endeavoured 
 to secure a rural house, whose whereabouts we must leave the 
 Zurichers to trace, but which clearly was not near the Wesendoncks' 
 then half-built villa (p. 10 inf.) : Mathilde, listening to the dictates 
 of her heart, not her reason, holds out to the renunciant that 
 fateful apple of the Asyl. Of that there can be no doubt, since 
 Wagner's letter to Otto of September 10 bears all the marks of 
 a response to a spontaneous offer : " To be sure of enjoying 
 total quiet and retirement in the immediate neighbourhood of 
 a family so kind and dear to me as yours, of always finding 
 harbourage and sympathy for joy and sorrow in these most intimate 
 relations, would be a happiness no other could replace ! " Nothing 
 could be more positive proof, that on September the 4th Otto 
 himself had written : If I can succeed in buying it, will you 
 oblige me by accepting tenancy of the little property adjoining 
 mine? And Wagner follows up our last quotation with a serious 
 monition : " But can I cast this whole burden of my existence 
 upon you, and after repeated experiences of the great difficulty of 
 my position, ought I not to recognise that the load would grow 
 too heavy for you ? " Here we can see that the temptation to 
 accept relief is becoming too strong to be resisted, but it is mani- 
 fest that Wagner believes himself strong enough to resist any other 
 temptation which may flow from that acceptance. Another thing 
 manifest, is that neither Richard nor Minna can as yet have had 
 the least suspicion of Mathilde's secret love of him. 
 
 In that letter of Sept. 10 to Otto one passage, given us merely 
 in oblique narration, refers to Wagner's "anxious waiting for 
 
INTRODUCTORY lvii 
 
 Wesendonck's return." Soon thereafter the friends must have met 
 once more, followed by the little dispute between the two wives 
 anent the merits of Rienzi (p. 12 inf.); a mere passing tin", how- 
 ever, for it is the present owner of the future Asyl who frustrates 
 the "harbourage" proposal, by declining to be bought out. — In 
 mid-October Liszt with Princess Carolyne and her daughter arrive, 
 for about six weeks at the Hotel Baur, and it is clear from 
 messages sent to and fro immediately hereafter that they make the 
 Wesendoncks' acquaintance. More than that, — Wagner at last 
 makes his bosom-friend a confidant and counsellor, for we read 
 in a letter of November '57 : "Now take my hand, and take my 
 kiss ; a kiss such as you gave me a year ago, when you accom- 
 panied me home one night — you remember, after I had told my 
 doleful tale to both of you. However much may lose its impression 
 on me, — what you were to me that night, the wondrous sympathy 
 that lay in what you told me as we walked, — this heavenliness in 
 your nature will follow with me, as my most splendid memory, to 
 each future existence " (note in jedes Dasein hin ; the English edition 
 fogs it into " everywhere " !). — 
 
 To wind up his visit, Liszt makes a little concert expedition 
 with Wagner alone, and the latter, on his return to Zurich, writes 
 friend Otto (back in Paris with his wife by now) Nov. 30 : " Last 
 Thursday I returned to my domestic quiet (?) " — the note of 
 interrogation being explicable by the letter's close — "The great 
 kind-heartedness of the princess has attuned me to a greater 
 gentleness and control of my so very irritable temper ; so that I 
 am returning to my solitude as from a school, with the feeling of 
 having learnt something. And how much should I not have to 
 learn yet, to conform a little to the claims I make upon myself, 
 and shew myself worthy to myself of what I hold for good and 
 noble in this life of woe and weakness ? Never has it become 
 clearer to me than now, what lenience the very best of us requires, 
 and how, above all others, he must exercise the greatest goodness, 
 not to become the greatest wretch!" If it was not a good man 
 who wrote these lines, there never was one; and as they seem to 
 point to ' rencontres ' with Minna whereof Otto himself had been 
 witness, it is fairly plain that jealousy of Otto's wife cannot have 
 been the exciting cause as yet. 
 
 1857. — February the 8th Liszt is informed of Otto's purchase 
 
lviii INTRODUCTORY 
 
 of the little property on the grass-clad moraine ridge * that runs' 
 up to a commanding prospect, Kilchberg (p. ioo) between the 
 Sihl valley and the lake of Zurich, and of his offer of a tenancy 
 thereof for life. Here it should be remarked that in the very 
 next breath Wagner speaks of the necessity of " securing my 
 livelihood in an independent fashion," namely by a sale to Hartels 
 of the Ring; composition of the third member whereof, the Siegfried, 
 he had commenced last September. His ambition for independence 
 was not to be wholly fulfilled, since Hartels would not come to 
 terms; but its sincerity is past all cavil, whilst nothing could 
 be more beautiful than the expression of his thanks to Otto, ending 
 with the words : " Could I depict to you the wonderful deep calm 
 that fills my soul to-day ! " {Letters to O.) — 
 
 April 1 8, as we have seen, Karl Wesendonck is born, and 
 Hornstein shall be called into our witness-box for the last time : 
 " At the christening of a child of Frau Wesendonck's I stood at 
 Wagner's side ; we were in the background. He was very moody ; 
 all at once he muttered to himself, ' It is like attending one's 
 own execution.' That utterance did not suggest an intimate 
 relation ; moreover we were all convinced that the connection 
 never broke through certain bounds." Vulgarly as it is put, this 
 corroborative evidence is vital, and it is confirmed by the entire 
 absence in all contemporary correspondence of any belief in such 
 "relations" — whatever the prurient know-alls of half a century 
 later may fable to the contrary. — 
 
 At the end of April the Wagners move into the Asyl, on which 
 Wesendonck's own architect has meanwhile been hard at work. 
 May 8 Wagner writes Liszt: "I have a trying time behind me, 
 but it now seems clearing to quite an agreeable state. Ten days 
 ago we moved into the little country-seat you know of, beside the 
 Wesendoncks' villa, which I owe to the truly great sympathy of 
 this friendly family. I had to go through many a trouble first, 
 though : the fitting of the little house, which certainly has turned 
 out very neat and to my mind, required much time ; so that we 
 were compelled to move out before there was any possibility of 
 moving in. Then my wife fell ill, to boot, so that I had to 
 
 * Herr Steiner tells us that the ridge (not the little house) is locally 
 called the "Gabler." After the Wesendoncks left the Green Hill, the 
 next proprietors were goths enough to pull the "Asyl" down. 
 
INTRODUCTORY lix 
 
 shoulder the whole removal out myself, and alone. We went to 
 the hotel for ten days, and finally moved-in in terrible weather and 
 cold ; so that really nothing but the thought of a definitive migration 
 could have kept my spirits up. But it's all got over now, all set 
 and stowed for permanence just as we want it, everything in its 
 proper place. My workroom is furnished with the pedantry and 
 elegant ease well known to you; the writing-table stands at the 
 big window with the splendid view of lake and Alps ; quiet and 
 tranquillity surround me. A pretty garden, already very well 
 cultivated, offers me room for little walks and sittings-down, and 
 to my wife the pleasantest of occupation and diversion from her 
 crotchets about me; in particular, a good-sized kitchen-garden 
 absorbs her tenderest care. Quite a nice soil for my retreat is won, 
 you see, and when I reflect how much I have been longing after 
 such a thing for long, and how hard it was even to get a prospect 
 of it, I feel compelled to look on this good Wesendonck as one 
 of my greatest benefactors. Next July, too, the Wesendoncks hope 
 to be able to take possession themselves, and their neighbourship 
 promises me all that is friendly and pleasant. — So, something 
 achieved! — and I hope very soon to be able also to resume my 
 long-discontinued work.'' 
 
 Work is resumed a fortnight later; for act i of the Siegfried 
 'composition-sketch' bears as final date "20. Januar 1857," act ii 
 the dates " 22. Mai 1857 — 30. Juli 1857." The real trouble, 
 however, is only about to commence, and that with the Wesendoncks' 
 own definite removal from their Zurich hotel to their new villa 
 (August 22). Not one of Wagner's brief notes before that date 
 suggests the faintest shadow of a passion shewn,* and we may 
 dismiss F. Praeger's observation " During my stay I saw Minna's 
 
 * At first I felt inclined to place the letter concerning " die Liebe" and 
 " die Muse " (now numbered by me " 49 ") in May 1857 owing to a verbal 
 kinship with no. 28, where a " visit of the Muse " is also referred to ; but 
 we find a similar reference even so late as the Venice diary of December 
 1858 : " Da klopfte Koboldchen ; es zeigte sich mir als holde Muse" (p. 80 
 inf.), whereas the Muse of letter 28 as yet bears no "endearing" epithet. 
 A still more convincing reason for assignment of letter " 49 " to its present 
 position, is the fact that Minna plainly quotes it to her Berlin lady-friend 
 in July '59: "Mochte diesmal seine Muse ... in der Feme," — thus 
 practically identifying it with the letter she had intercepted in April 1858 
 (p. ix sup.). 
 
lx INTRODUCTORY 
 
 jealousy of another," and his connection thereof with what he 
 grossly misterms " a public scandal," as on a par with his usual 
 unreliability. Certainly he was one of the , series of guests who 
 enjoyed Wagner's hospitality for periods ranging from three days to 
 three weeks in this summer ; but he had left before the neighbours 
 settled in, and Frau Wesendonck herself informed me years ago 
 that she had no recollection of ever meeting him. Whatever gossip 
 the magpie picked up, must have filtered through a very dubious 
 channel afterwards : " Minna had been in correspondence with me " 
 — he tells us, of a later epoch indeed, but his chronology is always 
 negligible — "Of her letters I publish nothing." 
 
 At the end of July the Ring des Nibelungen is laid aside for years, 
 no business person wanting it, and Tristan taken up instead. 
 Authority has it, that Parzival himself originally was meant to meet 
 with Tristan in act iii, but the first was sundered from the second 
 in the early Asyl days and made the subject of a separate scenario 
 (cf. p. 94) — for further particulars of which we still must wait. What 
 is documentarily established, is that Wagner wrote Frau Ritter as to 
 Tristan July 4, " The poem is slumbering in me yet, and I shall 
 summon it to life erelong"; also that "20. August 1857" is the 
 date upon the Tristan prose-draft found among Frau Wesendonck's 
 effects and soon to be presented to the world elsewhere. 
 
 A fortnight later, the Asyl guest-chamber is occupied by very 
 memorable visitors ; after a week in neighbouring apartments, 
 Hans von Biilow brings his bride there — married in Berlin two days 
 before that draft was signed. Sept. 4, Hans writes to Richard Pohl : 
 " How I regret not having found you here still ; we might have 
 passed magnificent days, as yesterday for instance. Wagner was 
 in splendid vein, and what a glance at the score of ' young Siegfried ' 
 revealed me is colossal. What a giant of a man ! . . . Wagner has 
 promised to read us a new poem, at which he is working this 
 instant." — Then Wagner himself, to Frau Ritter again : "The visit of 
 the young Biilow couple was my most delightful episode of this 
 summer. They stayed in our cottage three weeks ; seldom have I 
 felt so agreeably stimulated, as by this intimate visit. Of a morning 
 they had to keep quiet, as I was writing my Tristan then, a fresh 
 act of which I read them out each week. The rest of the day we 
 almost always made music, when Frau Wesendonck would come 
 loyally across, and thus we had our most grateful little audience 
 
INTRODUCTORY lxi 
 
 close at hand." Could anything be more dramatic, than this daily 
 gathering under the Tristan poet's roof of the only three women 
 who ever had or were to have a share in his human destiny ? 
 
 The last act of Tristan und Isolde — do not forget that third 
 act— is read to this " most grateful audience" the 18th of September 
 1857. Wagner's diary of a twelvemonth hence completes the 
 history of that day (p. 42 inf.), and this is what Hans von Billow 
 tells a correspondent on the next : " I can imagine nothing that 
 could confer on me so great a boon, such spiritual refreshment, 
 as the being with this glorious, unique man, whom one must 
 reverence as a god. In presence of this great, good man I thaw 
 from all life's misere, and ascend." If in these Tristan days a 
 happy bridegroom can use such terms about another man, is it at 
 all astonishing that Mathilde also should have thawed at last, con- 
 fessed her pure and gentle love? O yes, this testimony of von 
 Billow's is worth a hundred times von Hornstein's : did the wonder- 
 ful epistles in our volume leave the faintest shadow of a doubt — 
 which emphatically they do not — it would be dispelled at once by 
 that immediate evidence of one who had seen the reflex of chaste 
 radiance on his hero's face. 
 
 And now I beg you to take up that phrase, again, of two months 
 hence to Liszt,—" will follow me to each existence." Indeed it is 
 the key to all the mystery : this love held no fulfilment in the 
 present life, but a sacred promise for the next. We have seen how 
 deeply Wagner had been steeped in Indian lore, how his Sieger was 
 an ideal of the most unstained renunciation. In the Venice diary 
 we shall see how he arrives " with greatest certainty, at proving in 
 Love a possibility of attaining to exaltation above the instinct of the 
 individual will " (p. 76). One other link alone is needed, a link 
 supplied by his demonstrable familiarity with Goethe's letters to 
 Mathilde's prototype, Frau Charlotte von Stein, where we find the 
 idea of such renunciant love embodied in these lines :— 
 
 " Sag, was will das Schicksal uns bereiten ? 
 Sag, wie band es uns so rein genau ? 
 Ach, du warst in abgelebten Zeiten 
 Meine Schwester oder meine Frau" — 
 
 and even still more appositely in prose: "If I come upon 
 
 this 
 
Ixii INTRODUCTORY 
 
 earth again, I will pray the gods to let me love but once; and 
 were you not so averse to this world, I would beg you for com- 
 panion of that life of mine." 
 
 " Happy Ananda ! Happy Sawitri ! " — Wagner cries (p. 56) — 
 and what filled von Biilow's hero with such exaltation that the 
 younger man felt ready to fall down and worship him, was the sense 
 of a very real, but spiritual victory : " And no one then shall lose, 
 when we — are victors" (p. 28). 
 
 Let me intrude no further, but reserve till the close whatever 
 else may still be requisite to say. 
 
 W. A. E. — February 1905. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Mathilde Wesendonck, after an oil-painting by C. Dorner . Frontispiece 
 
 Facsimile of a letter from Mathilde Wesendonck . . . facing p. I 
 
 Photograph of the " Green Hill " and " Asyl "... 
 
 Facsimile of a theme for " Parzival " 
 
 Facsimile of concert-close and programme, prelude to Tristan 
 und Isolde 
 
 Photograph of Richard Wagner, Brussels 1 860 
 
 Facsimile of Sachs' Cobbler-song, Meistersinger poem . 
 
 Medallion-portrait of Mathilde Wesendonck .... 
 
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ZURICH 
 
 1852 TO AUGUST 1858 
 58 56 58 
 
1. 
 
 Herr and Madame Wesendonck are most kindly re- 
 quested to join us on Sunday at dinner-time. 
 R.S. V.P. 
 
 Familie Wagner. 
 
 2. 
 
 Busy in the kitchen, my wife advises you to take the 
 carriage, which you would probably have made use of even 
 had the weather been fine ; further, that it will be ex- 
 traordinarily warm in our abode. 
 
 All which is to signify that we have no intention to give 
 you up yet. 
 
 3. 
 
 Many thanks for the kind invitation, which I unfortu- 
 nately shall be unable to obey. 
 Fare you well ! 
 
 4. 
 
 Esteemed Lady ! 
 God will guard you henceforth from my rudenesses ; 
 for you certainly perceive by now that it was no idle whim 
 of mine when I often dreaded accepting your kind invitations 
 lest my nasty temper might torture my good friends as much 
 as it torments myself. If in the future, also, I become more 
 abstinent in this regard — and ought I not to end by being 
 so, after experiences like those of yesterday? — rest assured 
 that it is simply to earn your pardon through presenting 
 myself to you in a better light. 
 
 3 
 
4 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 I hope to hear from your husband to-morrow at Basle 
 
 that at least your precious health has suffered no ulterior 
 
 harm through my unruly tongue.* With this heartfelt wish 
 
 your kind indulgence is besought by 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 Zurich, March 17, 1853. 
 
 5. 
 
 [Easter 1853.] 
 Fairest good-day! 
 
 My poor wife has become quite ill ; consequently I accept 
 to-morrow's invitation for myself alone. 
 
 Presumably you are not at home to-day ; otherwise I 
 should have inquired toward evening. 
 
 At my house everything is dull and dismal, despite the 
 growing " gaiety " of the apartments. 
 
 I hope things are going right well with you, and that you 
 
 are keeping Easter-day [March 27] with joy. 
 
 Many kind regards to all ! 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 
 6. 
 
 Friday morning. 
 
 The Herweghs have invited themselves for this evening. 
 
 If you think it would help you to recover from the 
 
 exertions of your last invitations, it would much delight us 
 
 if you consented to take part in our entertainment. 
 
 Kindest regards. 
 
 R. W. 
 
 7. 
 
 Here's syrup, for yesterday's ice.f 
 [May 29, 1853.] 
 
 * A clue to the above may be found in Letter 95. — Tr. 
 t Accompanying a few bars of a polka, whereon stands the date. 
 [Cf. Life of R. Wagner, iv. 132.— Tr.] 
 
ZURICH LETTERS 5 
 
 8. 
 
 Esteemed ! 
 
 You gave me permission to inquire to-day whether 
 you would be able to come to us again this evening. In 
 case of a favourable answer, I would suggest your passing 
 a couple of quiet hours with us till 10 o'clock : I would 
 invite nobody else, not to spoil this sacred evening in 
 any way. 
 
 Hoping for a kind consent, 
 
 Your 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 June i, 1853. 
 
 9. 
 
 [To Herr Otto.] 
 
 Your disposals are excellent, best friend : I thank 
 
 you for them from my heart. 
 
 To enter my fresh indebtedness in a manner worthy to 
 
 arouse your confidence, I am paying an old debt to-day : * 
 
 please give your wife the accompanying sonata, my first 
 
 composition since the completion of Lohengrin (six years 
 
 back !). 
 
 You soon shall hear from me again : but first send us 
 
 news how you're faring yourselves. 
 
 Your 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 Zurich, June 20, 1853. 
 
 10. 
 
 The best of good-mornings ! 
 Getting on pretty well. — Sincerest thanks for all kind- 
 
 * As is to be gathered from a fragment dated June 11, published in the 
 Letters to O. Wesendonck, Herr Otto had just advanced a sum of money. 
 The "composition" is that afterwards issued as "Album Sonata" (see 
 Life, iv. 131 and 448).— Tr. 
 
6 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 ness! — I propose going proudly on foot to the rehearsal. 
 If it must be, however, I accept the carriage for % to 2. 
 You would follow soon after. 
 
 I meant to send the accompanying yesterday ! 
 
 Auf Wiedersehen ! 
 
 11. 
 
 The best of good-mornings ! 
 
 Just skim a little Of this book [A. Schmid's biography of Gluck, 1852]. 
 
 It is badly written, and one is compelled to skip all where 
 the author thinks anywise needful to trot out an opinion 
 of his own ; yet the facts, particularly from Gluck's Paris 
 period, are highly interesting ; moreover, this passionate, 
 yet entirely self-centred Gluck, with his calm vanity, large 
 savings, and embroidered court-dress, has something quite 
 amusing and refreshing about him in his old age. — 
 Only, make a big skip at the beginning. 
 
 12. 
 
 Homer was stealing out of my library. 
 
 Whither ? I asked. 
 
 He replied : To congratulate Otto Wesendonck on his 
 
 birthday. 
 
 I answered : Do't for me, as well ! 
 
 Richard W. 
 March 16, 1854. 
 
 13. 
 
 With the present weather-outlook and west winds, will 
 you be travelling? 
 
 Merely a question.* 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 
 * A joint excursion to Glarus, Stachelberg, and the Muotta-Thal had 
 been arranged. [Footnotes unsigned are the German editor's. — Tr.] 
 
ZURICH LETTERS 
 
 14. 
 
 Is it necessary to remark that my question of yesterday, 
 touching a trip, to-day requires no answer ? 
 
 R. W. 
 
 15. 
 
 As Herr and Madame Wesendonck seem to have 
 abandoned that footing of intimacy whereon they would 
 drop in on us of an evening uninvited, I suppose we must 
 ceremoniously inquire whether they perhaps could deign to 
 take us unawares to-day, or — in case certain Professors have 
 been given this day for imparting their learning to the 
 gentleman and lady — whether we might expect a similar 
 surprise to-morrow? 
 
 16. 
 
 My Lady! 
 Frau Heim cannot sing before Tuesday,*— so for to- 
 morrow (if show you must have) a simple piano-evening. 
 
 I shall see you soon ! 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 
 17. 
 
 What should I do to cheer you up — poor invalid? I 
 gave the programme [Philh.] with the translations to 
 
 Eschenburg [professor of English at Zurich] ; but how shall that profit 
 
 * At the Zurich Subscription Concert of Tuesday, January 23, 1855, 
 when Frau Heirn sang songs by Schubert, and Wagner conducted 
 Mozart's Zauberflote overture, Beethoven's C minor symphony, and his 
 own revised Faust overture? — Tr. 
 
8 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 you ? Otto must at once procure you " Indian Legends 
 edited by Adolf Holtzmann, Stuttgart." I brought them 
 to London with me : their reading has been my only 
 pleasure here. All are beautiful : but — Sawitri is divine, 
 and if you wish to find out my religion, read Usinar. How 
 shamed stands our whole Culture by these purest revelations 
 of noblest humanity in the ancient East ! — 
 
 At present I'm reading a canto of Dante every morning 
 ere I set to work : I'm still stuck deep in Hell ; its horrors 
 accompany my prosecution of the second act of Walkiire. 
 Fricka has just gone off, and Wodan must now give vent 
 to his terrible woe. 
 
 Beyond this second act I shall in no case get here ; I 
 can work but very slowly, and each day brings some fresh 
 upset to contend with. — 
 
 My London experiences are determining me to withdraw 
 from public music-making altogether, for some years to 
 come : this concert-conducting must have an end. So don't 
 let our Zurich gentry put themselves to any expense on 
 my account ! I now need total inner equilibrium, to com- 
 plete my big work ; for which, as a grotesque chimera, I fear 
 this eternal outrageous contact with the inadequate and 
 insufficient might easily put me out of sorts. 
 
 — To enliven yourself, just reckon up how many fugues 
 ought to appear in my London oratorio, whether * * * * * 
 should wear white or black kid-gloves, and if the Magdalene 
 should carry a bouquet or fan. When you have settled these 
 important points, we'll go into it farther. 
 
 To-day is my fourth concert : the A major symphony 
 (which at any rate will not go anything like so well as at 
 Zurich), and with it a number of lovely things I never dreamt 
 of having to conduct again in my life. However, I'm fortified 
 for it all by the certainty that this — will have been the last 
 time. — 
 
ZURICH LETTERS 9 
 
 Best wishes to Otto, whom I heartily thank for his last 
 kind letter : if it really amuses him, I'll write him once more. 
 Is Marie [sister of Frau Wk] not coming to you soon ? — 
 
 To-morrow, after the concert, I shall write my wife : she 
 won't have any mighty news to give you, though. 
 
 Kind love to Myrrhatoo [the Wesendoncks" little girl]! Farewell, 
 and — keep your spirits up! 
 London, April 30, 1855. 
 
 18. 
 
 [July 8, 1855.] 
 
 I fear my good old faithful friend — my Peps — will pass 
 away from me to-day. It is impossible for me to leave the 
 poor thing's side in its last hours. You won't be cross with 
 us, if we beg you to dine without ourselves to-day? In 
 any case we shall not leave [for Seelisberg] till Wednesday : 
 so that we can still make up for what we miss to-day. 
 
 You surely will not laugh if I am weeping ? 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 Sunday morning. 
 
 19. 
 
 [September 1855 ?] 
 
 I am not well, and presumably shall have to keep my 
 wife's birthday [Sept. 5] a prisoner to the house. 
 Cordial thanks for your kindness ! 
 
 20. 
 
 Take notice : — 
 
 Wednesday : Othello 
 Ira Aldridge* 
 Tickets should be booked in good time. 
 
 (The top of the morning !) 
 
 R. W. 
 
 * "The African Roscius " (1805-66). 
 
IO WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 21. 
 
 If the Familie Wesendonck will give Heinrich of the Hotel 
 
 Baur that errand, they can obtain my wife from the theatre 
 
 too ; otherwise they must put up with my single self. 
 
 By the way, I, too, know English. 
 
 R. W. 
 
 22. 
 
 Dear Friend, 
 
 My wife has just told me a happy thought of hers, 
 which leads me to address you quite a big petition. 
 
 It is a matter of making one more effort to obtain a life- 
 lease of the Bodmer property at Seefeld, near Zurich. Were 
 it to succeed, I should be relieved of all cares about an 
 estate of my own, and for a mere rent I should arrive at the 
 same enjoyment I am seeking. This place is let at present 
 as a summer residence to a family by the name of Trumpler ; 
 so that the Bodmers would have to be persuaded to give 
 these ancient tenants friendly notice and let me have the 
 place for life, or perhaps for a term of ten years. 
 
 So far as we know, it is rather a habit than a requirement 
 of the Trumplers, to occupy the Bodmer place, and if the 
 Bodmers themselves were glad to let us have it, I have no 
 doubt they would find no difficulty in inducing the Trumplers 
 to stand back. Therefore it is merely a question of winning 
 the Bodmers to my wish in earnest ; and my wife, whom I 
 have commissioned to make overtures to Frau Bodmer, 
 desires the help of a third person who should tell that lady 
 all the ingratiating things which neither she nor I can say : 
 and to act as that third person, honoured friend, my wife 
 considers nobody more fitted than yourself. So the heartfelt 
 prayer goes up to you, to write Frau Bodmer and tfy to win 
 her to my part. For that — my wife thinks — it might be 
 advisable if you laid stress on my great want and need of 
 
ZURICH LETTERS II 
 
 such a quiet country home as her estate affords ; perhaps 
 
 also — so thinks my wife — if you pricked the lady's pride a 
 
 little, and pointed out to her the honour it might conceivably 
 
 bring her, to have her premises supply me with a fostering 
 
 haven for my future art-creations. — 
 
 What do you say to it ? Will you undertake it ? — 
 
 On my approaching return to Zurich I should very much 
 
 like to see this affair, which exercises me so urgently now, 
 
 brought so far forward that I might take a swift decision* 
 
 Need I say how much it would please me to be able to 
 
 bid good-day to you as well [as Otto] at Berne ? 
 
 Many hearty greetings from 
 
 Your 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 Mornex, August n, 1856. 
 
 23 
 
 [September (?) 1856.] 
 
 Most faithful of all Protectresses 
 of the Arts ! 
 My sister [Clara Wolfram] is obliged to keep her bed : if 
 you are not a victim to the same necessity, I beg you to dis- 
 pose of the vacant cover, or else to save it (something of a 
 consideration in these hard times, with the silk-crop failure !). 
 In the former event I would propose (without dictating) 
 
 Boohm. — f 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 
 * It came to nothing, for Wagner writes Herr Otto three weeks later : 
 " Here you have the B.'s letter back ; please give your dear wife my best 
 thanks again for her attempt at intervention. — Once more I feel much and 
 deeply humbled," etc.— Tr. 
 
 t Wilhelm Baumgartner. Frau Wesendonck adds a note concerning " a 
 beautiful poem " delivered by Gottfried Keller at the Schweiz. Musikfest, 
 1867, in memory of B.'s then recent death. She further explains that she 
 had warmly defended Rheingold and WalkUre against Minna's admoni- 
 tion to return to the style of Rienzi. 
 
12 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 The house is about my ears, through your speaking 
 disrespectfully of Rienzi yesterday ! — 
 
 24. 
 
 [Autumn 1856?] 
 
 Would it entertain you, perhaps, to see what my Weimar 
 Councillor has brewed about my poem ? 
 
 Various hints which I had given him are strewn with 
 marvellous fidelity amid his own gallimathias ; which makes 
 the thing fairly amusing.* 
 
 Much satisfaction is wished you by 
 Your much dissatisfied 
 R. W. 
 
 25. 
 
 happy swallow, wouldst be mating, 
 
 Thyself thou build'st thy brood a nest ; 
 In quest of quiet for creating, 
 
 1 cannot build my house of rest! 
 
 The peaceful home of stone and pine — 
 What swallow'll build that nest of mine? 
 
 26. 
 
 All in order. Will you be coming over for the last act 
 of the Walkiire ? 
 
 I — hope so. — 
 
 [May 8, 1857, evidently referring to a matter of some two 
 months previously, Wagner tells Liszt of a private rendering 
 
 * Liszt, August I, 1856 : " Franz Milller will visit you at Mornex the 
 middle of this month, and bring you his work on the Nibelungen." 
 Wagner finished his Mornex ' cure ' Aug. 17, met Otto at Berne on the 
 1 8th, and returned to Zurich next day; where he not only found his 
 sister Clara, but also that his " Weimar Regierungsrath and red-hot en- 
 thusiast had arrived, bringing novelties foretold by Liszt." Clearly, then, 
 our no. 24 refers to an ensuing MS. revision, for M tiller's Ring-hools. was 
 not published until six years later. — Tr. 
 
ZURICH LETTERS 1 3 
 
 of " the big last scene from ' Die Walkure ' " with Frau Pollert 
 as Brunnhilde, himself as Wotan, and Th. Kirckner as ac- 
 companist : " We did it three times in my rooms',' i.e. the 
 Zeltweg fiat, from which he moved out the middle of April; 
 see p. lviii sup. — Tr.] 
 
 27. 
 
 Herewith the music-journal* and a letter of Princess 
 Wittgenstein's, which please return to me when read. 
 
 I am to give you my wife's best wishes. 
 
 R. W 
 
 28. 
 
 May 21, 57. 
 
 I have naught to say to the father of my country : if he 
 were to presume to call upon me in my swallow's-nest, I 
 should shew him the door. His colours are white and green ; 
 this for Baur.f — 
 
 The Muse is beginning to visit me : does it betoken the 
 certainty of your visit? The first thing I found was a 
 melody which I didn't at all know what to do with, till of 
 a sudden the words from the last scene of Siegfried came 
 into my head. A good omen. Yesterday I also lit on the 
 commencement of act 2 — as Fafner's Rest; which has an 
 element of humour in it. But you shall hear all about it, 
 if the swallow comes to inspect her edifice to-morrow 
 
 [his birthday]. 
 
 Rich. Wagner. 
 
 * Probably the Neue Zeitschrift of April 10, 1857, containing Wagner's 
 article On Franz Liszt's Symphonic Poems, which originally formed a 
 letter to Pss Wn's daughter (February 15, 1857). The last clause would 
 seem to refer to the birth of little Karl, April 18.— Tr. 
 
 t Expecting King John of Saxony at his H6tel du Lac, Baur had 
 inquired as to the correct colour for decorations. 
 
14 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 29 
 
 [Early July 1857.] 
 
 It seems to me as though we had forgotten to send 
 you a proper invitation for Sunday evening [12th] : permit 
 us to remedy the omission herewith ! As you are aware, it 
 is a feast in honour of Sulzer. I am also to inform you 
 that tea will be served at 7 o'clock. 
 
 We hope to see you appear quite punctually with Herr 
 Kutter * whom we likewise beg you most cordially to invite 
 on our behalf. 
 
 For your personal gratification I may also tell you that 
 of late I have been unable to work again at night ; Calderon, 
 however, is committed to rest — Devrient sends you his 
 kindest regards. For the rest, the world is still standing, 
 Fafner alive, and everything as it was. 
 
 30. 
 
 [Mid- August 1857?] 
 There you make acquaintance with a very amiable 
 person [Robert Franz?]. Good-morning ! 
 
 [The poem of " Tristan und Isolde" was completed and its 
 last act given to Frau Wesendonck on the iZth of September 
 1857/ a memorable day — cf. p. 42 inf. In all likelihood the 
 next letter refers to a recital thereof, such as we know the 
 Herweghs etc. to have been present at. — Tr.] 
 
 31. 
 
 To the 
 
 highly-esteemed Familie 
 
 Wesendonck 
 (Myrrha, Guido, Karl etc.) 
 I don't want to leave it to Fortune whether you turn 
 
 * Of the firm of Kutter & Luckemeyer, New York. [Luckemeyer, 
 it will be remembered, was Frau Mathilde's maiden name. — Tr.] 
 
ZURICH LETTERS 1 5 
 
 up this evening, but to ensure that good fortune by begging 
 it of you. I am expecting Semper and Herwegh. So- 
 early, please ! 
 
 R. W. Lazarus. 
 
 38. 
 
 October i, 1857.* 
 [To Otto Wesendonck!\ 
 
 Thus, dear friend, you also receive your first 
 
 [nominal ? ] rent from me. In time I hope to get the 
 
 length of offering you the actual equivalent : perhaps it's 
 
 not so far off now; then you shall say — 
 
 " Hei, unser Held Tristan, 
 wie der Zins zahlen kann ! ! " — 
 
 And so for to-day, as for ever, my heartiest thanks again 
 for all the goodness and kindness you have shewn me ! 
 
 Your 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
 33. 
 
 [October 1857.] 
 
 "Die Morold schlug, die Wunde, 
 sie heilt' ich, dass er gesunde," 
 
 and so on 
 
 has come off capitally to-day — I must play it to you by 
 and by ! 
 
 * Also the date of commencement of the ' composition-draft ' of 
 act i. Tristan. — Tr. 
 
1 6 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 34. 
 
 [December 1857.] 
 
 The great outburst duet between Tristan and Isolde 
 has turned out beautiful beyond all measure. — 
 In the first flush of joy thereat. 
 
 35. 
 
 [Dec. 1857.] 
 
 [The following is a memorandum by Frau Wesendonck 
 herself, found in company of the said two additional closes to 
 " Schmerzen," the last whereof is the same as that now in use. 
 The difference between the \st and 2nd versions of " Traume " 
 consists in addition of the sixteen introductory bars, the first 
 version having commenced with our bar 17. — TV.] 
 
 On the $oth of November 1857 Richard Wagner wrote 
 the music to the song : 
 
 " In der Kindheit fruhen Tagen " [= " Der Engel "]. 
 
 December 4, 1857, the first sketch for: 
 
 "Sag*, welch' wunderbare Traume?" 
 
 December 5, 1857, the second version ^"Traume." 
 December 17, 1857, " Schmerzen " ; with a second, some- 
 what lengthened close. This was soon followed by a third 
 close, beneath which stood the words: 
 
 " It must become finer and finer ! 
 
 " After a beautiful, refreshing night, my first waking 
 thought was this amended postlude : we'll see whether it 
 pleases Frau Calderon, if I let it sound up to her to-day." — * 
 
 * "Traume" was also scored for a small orchestra, and, conducting 
 eighteen picked Zurich bandsmen, Wagner performed it beneath Frau 
 Wesendonck's window, as a birthday greeting, Dec. 23, '57 : possibly he 
 played or sang " Schmerzen " on the same occasion. — Tr. 
 
ZURICH LETTERS' 1 7 
 
 February 22, 1858, " Sausendes, brausendes Rad der 
 Zeit"[="Stehe still"]. 
 
 May 1, 1858, "Im Treibhause."— 
 r All five songs subsequently came out at Schotts Sons, 
 Mainz [1862], by the masters own instructions. — Before their 
 publication, " Traume " and " im Treibhause " were named by 
 himself " Studien zu Tristan und Isolde." 
 
 36. 
 
 [December 1857?] 
 
 Here is another winter-flower for the Christmas-tree, 
 full of sweet honey, without the smallest bane. 
 
 37. 
 
 Hochbegliickt, 
 
 Schmerzentriickt, 
 
 frei und rein 
 
 ewig Dein — 
 
 was sie sich klagten 
 
 und versagten, 
 Tristan und Isolde, 
 in keuscher Tone Golde, 
 ihr Weinen und ihr Kiissen 
 leg' ich zu Deinen Fiissen, 
 dass sie den Engel loben, 
 der mich so hoch erhoben ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 Am Sylvester, 1857.' 
 
 38. 
 
 I have not had the best of sleep, and was just hesitating 
 
 * New Year's Eve, 1857, together with the composition-draft of the 
 first act of Tristan, completed that day. Bare prose must serve for a 
 rendering : " Thrice happy, out of reach of pain, free and purely ever 
 thine— Tristan and Isolde, what they bewailed and forwent, their tears 
 and kisses, in music's chaste gold I lay at thy feet, that they may praise 
 the angel who has lifted me so high!" — Tr. 
 
 2 
 
1 8 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 whether I should come to-day, in spite of Vischer and ice. 
 Now, however, I think of looking in for half an hour. 
 
 I have much on my heart — yet everything, again, is but 
 the one thing without which poorest I should have no footing 
 more upon this earth. That one thing ! 
 
 A thousand greetings. 
 
 38a. 
 
 Thanks ! Slept well — go it must ! — And the one 
 thing !— * 
 
 Sincerest greeting ! 
 
 [From Jan. 16 to Feb. 2, 1858, Wagner was in Paris, 
 whence he sent at least one letter that has not been preserved 
 (see p. 68 inf.). Perhaps the following note refers to a small 
 commission executed there. — Tr.] 
 
 39. 
 
 Here is the lamp-shade. May it shed a rose-beam on the 
 snow! 
 
 I have had quite a passable night. And how was 
 Wahlheim f off for sleep ? 
 
 Best greetings ! 
 
 40. 
 
 [February 1858.] 
 I already have Soden too,J — unbound, and soon at 
 disposal. 
 
 * Ranging this and the preceding note here, I take the "go it must" 
 to refer to the 'orchestral sketches' of Tristan i, — commenced Nov. 5, 
 1857, completed January 13, 1858, — since the Hartels were to commence 
 engraving the work at once, and Wagner in fact began sending them his 
 fair-copy of the score in February. — Tr. 
 
 t "Home of Choice"; perhaps from Goethe's Werther, Dr. Golther 
 suggests. — Tr. 
 
 X Count J. von Soden's translation of Lope de Vega's dramas. 
 
ZURICH LETTERS 1 9 
 
 I knew the whole catalogue before, through Schulthess * 
 Perhaps the volume with Kaiser Otto at Florence would 
 also be worth reading. 
 
 Beyond these, Richard's translations seem to me not 
 uninteresting, as far as the matter goes.? 
 
 We might also think of Cervantes' tales— I possessed 
 them once myself. 
 
 For the rest, I can still help out awhile with my own 
 provision ; I'm — reading little. 
 
 Best thanks for Iphigenie [his own revision of Gluck's?]. 
 
 Herewith a present from Strassburg ; J no p&ti de foie 
 gras, though, our God be praised ! 
 
 Shall we see each other this afternoon, perhaps ? 
 
 41. 
 
 After a wonderful night, blest with almost ten hours of 
 Goethian sleep, § I wish you serenely happy Good-day, send 
 {schicke) you Schack, || and promise to read aloud quite 
 beautifully this evening, if Herr Otto has nothing against it. 
 
 * Zurich bookseller. 
 
 t C. Richard, Lope de Vega's Romantic Poems, 1824-8. 
 
 % A Strassburg playbill, dated January 15, 1858: — 
 
 Aujourd'hui, Le Foupar Amour, par MM. Bourgeois et A. Dennery. 
 
 Le spectacle commencera 
 
 par Ouverture de Tannhdtuser, Musique de R. Wagner. 
 
 [En route for Paris, Wagner had stumbled on this performance and 
 become the recipient of an impromptu ovation. — Tr ] 
 
 § In Goethe's letters to Charlotte von Stein allusions to sleep abound : 
 once he writes, " I have only two gods, Thyself and Sleep ; " still more 
 to the point, on two different occasions he says, " I slept 10 hours last 
 night." This in corroboration of my remark, p. lxi, on Wagner's mani- 
 fest familiarity with those letters. — Tr. 
 
 || Count A. F. von Schack's Geschichte der dramatischen Literatur in 
 Spanien. [Wagner subsequently became next-door neighbour at Munich 
 to Schack and his famous picture-gallery; in the 'eighties he was still 
 recommending this "History of Spanish Dramatic Literature" to his 
 friends. — Tr.J 
 
20 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 42. 
 
 So that one may not fall into the plight again, of having 
 to tell good stories badly, I deposit in the Wesendonck house 
 
 the accompanying exemplar [Grimms' Deutsche Sagen, 1816, No. 72] ; 
 
 for black on white is a glorious thing. 
 
 You see, you won't be rid of me in a hurry ! I'm burrowing 
 so into your house, that, even if you burned it down, a very 
 well-known voice would cry to you from out the salvage : 
 " 'Twas time that we got out ! " 
 
 43. 
 
 I'm sending to the bookbinder, and should like to get 
 [Lope de Vega's] " Star of Seville " etc. bound at the same 
 time. Do you still require it first ? 
 
 44. 
 
 Telegram. 
 
 Lucerne, 8.55 [A.M.] 
 Zurich, 31 March 58 ; 9.10. 
 To Herr Otto Wesendonck, Zurich. 
 
 The trusty Kapellmeister unfortunately cannot 
 conduct the concert to-day. Saint Gotthart has taken toll, 
 and given him in exchange a violently orthodox catarrh. 
 The concert shall still be conducted, though, if the bands- 
 men only keep in good tune* 
 
 Your 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
 * Wesendonck must have been as much puzzled as ourselves by the 
 "soil aber doch noch dirigirt werden, die Musiker mogen nur immer noch 
 gut einstimmen." The printed programme of this famous Villa concert 
 (detached movements from Beethoven's symphonies) bears the date March 
 31, 1858, and no contemporary speaks of its postponement; wherefore it is 
 probable that, when telegraphing, Wagner meant to get Heim to take his 
 place, but on reaching Zurich (2.30 p.m. — cf. p. 122) he felt better, and 
 
ZURICH LETTERS 21 
 
 45. 
 
 Madame Mathilde Wesendonck. 
 
 [Easter Sunday, April 4, 1858.] 
 Best thanks for the splendid flowers ! The old plant, 
 well looked after, is as magnificent as ever ; so I still 
 shall keep it. — A good thing I finished the act yesterday and 
 sent it off.* I should have been unable to work to-day ; the 
 catarrh has increased, and I am not free from a touch of 
 fever. Otherwise things go well— and brightly; how go 
 they in the neighbour-land ?— 
 
 46. 
 
 Madame Wesendonck. 
 Best thanks ! — I am still a little feverish and very limp, 
 but think of tasting a mouthful of the lovely air to-day. 
 Kindest wishes ! R. W. 
 
 47. 
 
 To the entire Familie 
 
 Wesendonck. 
 Children, am I not to get a glimpse of you to-day ? I'm 
 feeling better than yesterday. 
 
 R. W. 
 
 48. 
 
 [April 1858.] 
 I'm doing tolerably. How does the zealous lady-pupil 
 of de Sanctis ? t 
 
 conducted that evening himself — thereby "increasing his catarrh'' (see 
 no. 45). As he held a rehearsal on the 27th, he cannot have been absent 
 more than three days; so that the allusion to "der heilige Gotthart" 
 sounds like some private joke — a pun on " catarrh " ? — Tr. 
 
 * The German edition conjectures May 1857 as the date of this letter, 
 connecting it with Siegfried i ; but later research shews that no Siegfried' 
 music was ever " sent off" to Hartel's, whereas the final pages of act i of 
 Tristan were, full score, on the 3rd of April 1858. — Tr. 
 
 t Francesco de Sanctis (1818-83), an Italian scholar, then professor at 
 the Zurich Polytechnic. 
 
22 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 Thanks for the Cervantes meanwhile. It will tune me 
 gradually for work again. The second act is beckoning me.*, 
 Shall we see one another to-day ? 
 
 49. 
 
 [April 1858?] 
 
 And my dear Muse still stays afar ? In silence I awaited 
 her visit; with pleadings I would not disquiet her. For 
 the Muse, like Love, beatifies but freely; woe to the fool, 
 woe to the loveless, who fain would constrain what will 
 not yield itself of its free will. They cannot be constrained ; 
 is it not so? Not so? How could Love be Muse withal, 
 did it let itself be forced? 
 
 And my dear Muse stays far from me? — 
 
 50. 
 
 [Mid- April 1858?] 
 That letter — how mournful it has made me ! The demon 
 
 moves from out one heart into the other. How subjugate it ? 
 
 O we poor creatures ! We are not our own. Demon, 
 
 change to god! 
 
 That letter has made me mournful. Yesterday I wrote 
 
 to our friend, f She will be sure to come in, before long. 
 
 50a. 
 
 [The following unused sketch for " Parzival" was found 
 by Dr. Golther in the same envelope as letter 50, which would 
 
 * My arrangement of this little group of notes — which seem to have 
 followed each other pretty closely, and during their writer's temporary 
 confinement to the house by illness, — of course is purely tentative ; but I 
 now should guess the next of them, viz. no. 49, to have been the very one 
 " intercepted " by Minna (see pages ix and lix), thus accounting for com- 
 position of act ii Tristan not being actually commenced till May 4. — Tr. 
 
 t Frau Wille ? Cf. p. 51, inf. also p. x sup.— Tr. 
 
ill 
 
ZURICH LETTERS 
 
 23 
 
 thus appear to have been answered ere long by the poem " Im 
 Treibhaus," set to music May 1. — Tr.] 
 
 PARZrVAL. 
 
 5 
 
 W- 
 
 ^ 
 
 m 
 
 Wo find' ich dich, du heil' - ger Gral, Dioh 
 Where find I thee, thou ho ■ ly Gtra.il? With 
 
 J— JW- 
 
 £M 
 
 ^P 
 
 PS 
 
 ^ 
 
 8va. 
 
 I 
 
 :£$ 
 
 P= 
 
 =gt 
 
 3 
 
 w 
 
 sucht 
 yearn 
 
 voll Sehn - sucht mem Her 
 
 wig heart home I'y sought 
 
 Pp 
 
 viuy 
 
 Dear errant cMld ! 
 See, I was just about to write this down, when I found 
 thy lovely, noble verses. 
 
 51. 
 
 [April or May 1858?] 
 I have just been reading [Calderon's] holy " Ferdinand " 
 and found it very beautiful and touching. Perhaps it was 
 my frame of mind. Were death foretold me surely for this 
 year, I should embrace it as the most fortunate and conse- 
 crate of all my life. Only the uncertainty, how long remains 
 for us to live, makes us frail and prone to sin ; that certainty, 
 however, would hallow me completely. — How were it to 
 be gained, that certainty so ardently I yearn for ? — 
 
 52. 
 
 [May 22, 1858?] 
 
 Ah, the lovely pillow ! Too dainty, though ! 
 
 Tired and heavy as often is my head, I should never 
 
24 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 dare to lay it on it, not even in sickness ; — at most, in death ! 
 
 Then I may couch my head for once as easily as if I 
 
 had a right to ! Then you shall spread the pillow under 
 
 me. — There you have my testament ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 53. 
 
 [Late May or early June 1858.] 
 
 Madame Mathilde Wesendonck. 
 Here is my little musical home-goblin [Tausig] ; 
 may he find a kind welcome! 
 
 [July 2 (?) 1858.] 
 
 What a wondrous birth of our child of sorrows ! * Had 
 we to live, then, after all? From whom could it be asked, 
 that he should forsake his children ? — 
 
 God stand by us, poor creatures ! 
 
 Or are we too rich ? 
 
 Must we help ourselves unaided ? — 
 
 55 
 
 [July 6 (?) i8s8.]t 
 
 Tuesday morning. 
 
 Surely thou didst not expect me to leave thy mar- 
 vellously beautiful letter unanswered ? Or was I to forgo 
 the privilege of replying to the noblest word? And how 
 could I reply to thee, but in a manner worthy of thee ? — 
 
 The stupendous conflicts we have passed, how could 
 they end but with the victory over every wish and longing ? 
 
 In the most fervent moments of approximation, did we 
 not know that this was our goal ? — ' 
 
 * With the sketches for act ii Tristan, completed July 1. [Full score 
 begun July 5.] 
 
 + The original is missing. [Here for the first time " Du " appears in- 
 stead of " Sie," apart from the verses of No. 37 and the lines under the 
 " Parzival " theme.— Tr.] 
 
ZURICH LETTERS 25 
 
 Assuredly! Only because its difficulty was so untold, 
 was it only to be reached after the hardest of combats ; but 
 have we not fought out all our battles now? What others 
 could there still remain ahead ?— Of a truth, I feel it deep 
 within : they are at end ! — 
 
 When a month gone by I told thy husband my resolve 
 to break off personal commune with you ["Buck "—plural] I 
 had— given thee up, albeit I was not yet altogether whole in 
 that. For I merely felt that nothing save a total separation, 
 or — a total union, could secure our love against the terrible 
 collisions to which we had seen it exposed in these latter 
 times. Thus the sense of the necessity of our parting was 
 haunted by the possibility— present to the mind, if not to 
 the will — of union. In that still lay a racking suspense 
 which neither of us could bear. I approached thee, and clear 
 as day it stood before us, that that other possibility involved 
 a crime which could not be so much as thought of. 
 
 But hereby the necessity of our renunciation of itself 
 acquired another character : the strain resolved into a gentle 
 reconcilement. The last taint of egoism vanished from my 
 heart ; and now my decision to revisit you (Euck) was the 
 triumph of purest humanity over the last stirring of selfish 
 desire. I wished naught any longer but to reconcile, 
 assuage, console — cheer up ; and thus procure myself withal 
 the only happiness that still can come to me. — 
 
 So deeply and terribly as in these last few months, have 
 I never been affected in my life. All earlier impressions 
 were void of meaning 'gainst these last. Shocks such as 
 I endured in that catastrophe were bound to plough deep 
 furrows in me ; and if aught could add to the great serious- 
 ness of my reflections, it was my wife's condition. For two 
 whole months I was threatened each day with the possible 
 news of her sudden death ; for the doctor had felt obliged 
 to warn me of that possibility. Everything round me 
 
26 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 breathed the scent of death ; all my prospects and retrospects 
 became images of death, and life — as such — lost its last lure 
 for me. Admonished to the utmost sparing of the un- 
 happy soul, nevertheless I had to make up my mind to 
 raze our last hearth and home, so lately founded, and at 
 last to tell her so, to her deepest dismay. — 
 
 With what feelings dost thou think in this sweet 
 summertide I viewed this charming Asyl,* the sole and 
 perfect counterpart of my whilom aims and wishes, when 
 I wandered through the tiny garden of a morning, watched 
 the flowers springing into bloom, and listened to the white- 
 throat that had built her nest within the rosebush? And 
 what this tearing loose from my last anchor meant for me, 
 that tell thyself, who know'st my inmost thought as none ! 
 
 If I have fled from the world once before, dost dream I 
 could return into it now? Now, when each nerve of me 
 has grown so sensitive and tender with the lengthier weaning 
 from all contact with it? Even my recent interview with 
 the Grand Duke of Weimar [mid- June] shewed me plainer 
 than ever that I can thrive in nothing but most absolute 
 independence, so that I earnestly had to decline every 
 possible kind of obligation to be entered, even towards this 
 really not unamiable prince. I cannot — cannot face towards 
 the world again ; to settle down in a big city, is inconceiv- 
 able to me. And if not that — how could I think again 
 of founding a new refuge, a new hearth, after having to 
 break up this, scarce tasted, which friendship and the noblest 
 love had founded for me in this charming paradise? No, 
 no ! — To go forth hence, for me is tantamount to — going 
 under ! 
 
 With wounds like these in my heart, I can try to found 
 me no new home again ! — 
 
 * " Refuge," or " Haven of Rest " — the name he had given his little 
 house. — Tr. 
 
ZURICH LETTERS 27 
 
 My child, there's only one salvation for me I can think 
 of; and that can only arise from the innermost depth of 
 the heart, not from any sort of outer dispensation. Its 
 name is Rest ! A truce to yearning ! Allaying of every 
 desire ! Worthy, noble overcoming ! Life for others, for 
 others — in relief to ourselves ! — 
 
 Thou know'st the whole solemn resolve of my soul 
 now ; it relates to all my views of life, to my whole future, 
 to all that stands anigh me, — and so to thee, too, who art 
 dearest to me! Upon the ruins of this world of longing, 
 let me — bless thee! — 
 
 See, never in my life, in any manner of relation, have 
 I ever been importunate, but always of an almost exaggerated 
 sensibility ; so for the first time will I seem to be impor- 
 tunate, and implore thee to be profoundly tranquil as 
 regards me. I shall not often visit you (EucA), for in future 
 you must only see me when I'm sure of shewing you a calm 
 and cheerful countenance. — Of old, maybe, I have sought 
 thy house in suffering and longing : thither, whence I wanted 
 solace, have I brought unrest and suffering. That shall be 
 no more. Wherefore if thou dost not see me for a length 
 of time, then — pray for me in silence ! — For, then be sure 
 that I am suffering ! But when I come, be sure I'm bringing 
 to your house a gracious gift of my being, a boon such 
 as lent perhaps to me alone to shed, who have endured 
 so much and willingly. — 
 
 Probably, nay, certainly, the time is at hand — I conjecture 
 the beginning of next winter — when I shall depart from 
 Zurich altogether for a spell ; my amnesty, expected soon 
 [in vain 1], will reopen to me Germany, whither I shall peri- 
 odically return for the only thing I could not make good 
 to myself here. Then I often shall not see you for long. 
 But then to return again to the Refuge so endeared to 
 me, to recover from worry and unavoidable vexation, to 
 
28 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 breathe pure air, and gain new zest for the old work for 
 which Nature has chosen me, — this, if you grant it me, will 
 ever be the point of mellow light that buoys me up there, 
 the sweet relief that becks me here. 
 
 And — wouldst thou then have shewn my life no highest 
 benefaction ? Should I not owe to thee the only thing that 
 yet can seem worth thanks to me upon this earth ? And 
 ought not I to seek to requite what thou has won for me 
 with suffering and sacrifices so indicible ? — 
 
 My child, these last months have perceptibly blanched 
 the hair on my temples ; there is a voice in me that cries 
 with yearning after rest, — that rest which long, long years 
 ago I made my Flying Dutchman yearn for. It was the 
 yearning after "home," — not after the seductive joys of 
 love : only a grandly faithful woman could gain for him that 
 homeland. Let us vow ourselves to this fair death, which 
 stills and buries all our hankerings and cravings ! Let us 
 fade away, with peacefully transfigured gaze, and the holy 
 smile of beautiful self-victory ! — And — no one then shall lose, 
 when we are victors ! 
 
 Farewell, my dear hallowed angel ! 
 
 56. 
 
 [August 1858?] 
 
 It must be so!* 
 
 57. 
 
 [August, 17, 1858.] 
 
 Farewell ! Farewell, dear love ! 
 
 I'm leaving tranquilly. Where'er I be, I shall be wholly 
 thine now. Try to keep the Asyl for me auf Wiedersehen ! 
 Auf Wiedersehen ! Dear soul of my soul, farewell — auf 
 Wiedersehen ! — 
 
 * English in the original. This clearly refers to his irrevocable de- 
 cision to break up his home at once. — Tr. 
 
DIARY 
 
 AUGUST 1858— JANUARY 1859 
 
 VENICE 
 
 {With one entry, April 1859, Lucerne) 
 58 58 58 
 
DIARY 
 
 Since my flight from the Asyl 
 17. August 1858 
 
 se 
 
 Geneva. 
 August 21. 
 
 The last night in the Asyl I went to bed at 
 11 o'clock: I was to start at 5 next morning. Before I 
 closed my eyes, it flashed through my soul how I had 
 always sent myself to sleep here by the thought that on 
 this very spot I once should die : thus should I lie when 
 thou approachedst me for the last, last time, clasp'dst my 
 head in thine arms, in open view of all, and with one final 
 kiss receiv'dst my spirit ! That death was my fondest 
 conception, and it had framed itself entirely to the locality 
 of my sleeping-room : the door toward the staircase was 
 closed, thou enter'dst through the curtains of the study; 
 thus didst thou wind thine arm around me ; thus, gazing 
 up to thee, I passed away. — And now ? Even that possibility 
 of dying had been snatched from me ! Cold, as if hunted, 
 I was quitting this house, in which I had been shut with 
 a daemon I no longer could ban save by flight. — Where — 
 where shall I die, then ? Thus I fell asleep. — 
 
 Out of troubled dreams I was wakened by a wondrous 
 rustling : as I woke I plainly felt a kiss upon my brow : — 
 a shrill sigh succeeded. 'Twas all so lifelike, that up I 
 sprang, and peered around me. All still. I struck a light : 
 
 31 
 
32 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 it was just before r, at end of the ghosts' watch. Had 
 a spirit stood guard by me in that drear hour? Wert 
 thou awake or sleeping, near that time? — How fared it 
 with thee? — Never an eye could I close thereafter. For 
 long I vainly tossed in bed, till at last I rose, completely 
 dressed myself, shut the last trunk to, and, now pacing up 
 and down, now stretched full length on the divan, uneasily 
 waited for daylight. This time it appeared later than I 
 had been accustomed-to on sleepless nights in the summer 
 past ; shame-flushed the sun crept up behind the mountain. 
 — Then I gazed across once more and long. — O Heaven, 
 not a tear came to me, but it seemed as if every hair on 
 my temples were turning grey ! — I had taken leave ; now 
 everything was cold and set within me. — I went downstairs. 
 There my wife was waiting for me ; she offered me tea. 
 'Twas an awful, lamentable hour. — She accompanied me. 
 We paced down the garden. It was a magnificent morning : 
 I never turned my head. — At the last farewell my wife 
 broke out in tears and lamentations ; for the first time 
 my eyes stayed dry. Once again I exhorted her to gentle- 
 ness and nobleness and quest of Christian comfort ; once 
 more the old revengeful vehemence flared up in her. She 
 is incorrigible, — I could not help telling myself, — yet I 
 cannot venge myself on the unhappy woman ; herself she 
 must work out her own sentence. — So I was in terrible, sad 
 and deadly earnest ; but — weep I could not. — So I set forth 
 And lo ! — I won't deny it : it was well with me, I breathed 
 free. — I was faring into solitude : there I am at home ; 
 in that solitude where I may love thee with every breath 
 
 I draw ! 
 
 Here I haven't spoken to a soul as yet, save servants. 
 Even Karl Ritter I have written not to call upon me. It 
 does me so much good, not to have to speak. — Thy diary * 
 
 * See pages 50 and 56, infra. — Tr. 
 
VENICE DIARY 33 
 
 I read ere going to my first sleep since my departure. 
 Thy diary ! Those fair deep imprints of thy being ! — I 
 slept well. 
 
 Next day I moved into a lodging,* which I have hired 
 by the week. Here I am quiet and undisturbed, collect 
 my thoughts, and wait till the heat is past, to let me go 
 to Italy. I keep the house the whole day long. — 
 
 Yesterday I wrote to my sister Klare,t whose acquaint- 
 ance thou madest two years ago: she wanted brotherly 
 explanation from me, as my wife had written and announced 
 herself. I indicated to her what thou hast been and art 
 to me these six years since ; what a heaven thou hadst 
 prepared for me, and with what strifes and sacrifices thou 
 hadst stood by me ; and how that wonder-work of thy high, 
 noble love had then so rudely and so clumsily been mauled. 
 I know she'll understand me — she has the heart of an 
 enthusiast in a somewhat unkempt shell — and I was bound to 
 shed a little light on that side ; but how my soul and bosom 
 heaved as I ventured to delineate thy lofty, noble purity 
 with tender touch ! — Of a surety, we shall forget and forgive 
 all, all, and nothing but elation will remain ; the conscious- 
 ness that here a miracle has happened, the like whereof 
 Dame Nature weaves but once in centuries, perhaps never 
 so nobly before. Away with grief ! We are the happiest ; 
 with whom would we exchange? — 
 
 August 23. S in the morning. 
 
 In a dream I saw thee on the terrace, dressed as 
 a man, with a travelling-cap upon thy head. Thou peer'dst 
 toward the direction in which I had departed ; but I drew 
 near from the contrary : thus thy gaze was ever turned from 
 
 * Third floor of the "Maison James Fazy," subsequently Hotel de 
 Russie, corner of the Quai du Leman and Rue du Montblanc. — Tr. 
 t The letter reproduced in the preface to the present volume. 
 
 3 
 
34 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 me, and I sought in vain to signal my approach, until I 
 softly cried : Mathilde ! then louder and still louder, till my 
 bedroom echoed with the sound, and my own cries awakened 
 me. — Then, when I had relapsed a little into slumber, I 
 dreamed I was reading letters of thine, wherein thou con- 
 fess'dst to me a youthful love-affair ; thou hadst renounced 
 thy lover, yet kept'st singing his praises, so that I appeared 
 in the light of a mere would-be consoler, — which somewhat 
 galled me. I would not let that dream proceed, and arose to 
 write these lines. — The whole day I had had vehement 
 longing, and a grievous impatience of life had mastered me 
 once more. — 
 
 August 24. 
 
 Yesterday I felt utterly wretched : Why go on 
 living ; why live ? Is it cowardice — or courage ? Why that 
 immeasurable happiness, to be so boundlessly unhappy? 
 
 The night brought sound sleep. — To-day has gone 
 
 better. — I have had a beautiful portfolio made here, expressly 
 to lock away thy keepsakes and letters : it will hold a great 
 quantity, and what once gets in, will not be given out again 
 to naughty children. Therefore take good care what thou 
 send'st me in future : not a jot thereof wilt thou have back 
 — until after my death ; unless thou wouldst fain commit it 
 to the grave with me. — To-morrow I go direct to Venice. 
 I am dying to get there, where I think of settling calmly 
 down, tho' the journey in itself is most distasteful to me. — It 
 is a week to-day since I saw thy terrace for the last time ! — 
 
 Venice, the 3rd of September. 
 
 Yesterday I wrote thee and our lady friend,* so 
 long had I been withheld by the journey and my accommoda- 
 tion here. Now the diary shall be kept right methodically. — 
 
 * Frau Wille : the letters are not preserved. 
 
VENICE DIARY 35 
 
 My route lay over the Simplon ; the mountains, particu- 
 larly the long valley of Wallis [Vaiais], weighed me down. 
 One lovely hour I spent on the garden-terrace of the Isola 
 bella; a wondrous sunny morning; I knew this spot,* and 
 dismissed the gardener at once, to be alone there. A beauti- 
 ful sense of calm and uplifting came over me — so beautiful, 
 that it could not last. Yet what raised me up, what was 
 with and in myself, that lasted : the happiness of being loved 
 by thee! 
 
 At Milan merely a night's halt ; on August 29 arrived in 
 Venice after noon. On the way down the Grand Canal to 
 the Piazetta, melancholy impressions and graveness of mood ; 
 grandeur, beauty and decay, in close array : yet comfort in 
 the reflection that here no modernity flourished, and in con- 
 sequence no bustling triviality. S. Mark's Square of magical 
 effect. A wholly distant, outlived world, it admirably fits 
 the wish for solitude : nothing to strike one as directly real 
 life ; everything objective, like a work of art. I will remain 
 here, — and accordingly I shall. — Next day, after long debate, 
 apartments taken on the Grand Canal in a mighty palace 
 where I am quite alone for the present; wide, lofty spaces, 
 wherein I can wander at will. Since the question of Abode 
 is so important to me, as the housing for my labour- 
 mechanism, I'm devoting all possible care to arranging it 
 after my wish. I wrote for the Erard at once ; it ought 
 to sound wonderful in my vast, high palace-salon. The 
 peculiarly intense stillness of the Canal suits me splendidly. 
 Not till 5 in the afternoon do I leave my abode, to dine; 
 then promenade towards the public garden ; brief halt in 
 the square of S. Mark, which gives a thoroughly theatrical 
 suggestion through its absolute uniqueness and its sea of 
 utter strangers void of all concern to me, merely distracting 
 
 * See letter to Otto of July '52.— Tr. 
 
36 WAGNER TO MATHIL&E WESENDONCK 
 
 one's fancy. Toward 9 return home in a gondola ; find the 
 lamp lit, and read a little till bedtime. — 
 
 Thus will my life flow outwardly on, and thus would 
 I have it. Unfortunately, my stay here is already known ; 
 but I have given orders, once for all, to admit nobody. — 
 This solitude, possible wellnigh here alone to me — and so 
 agreeably possible — caresses myself and my hopes. — Eh ! 
 I hope, for thy sake to get well ! To save thee to me, means 
 to save me to my art. With it — to live for thy consolement ; 
 that is my mission, that fits with my nature, my fate, my 
 will, — my love. Thus am I thine ; thus, too, shalt thou get 
 well through me ! Here will the Tristan be completed — a 
 defiance to all the raging of the world. And with that, 
 an I may, shall I return to see thee, comfort thee, to make 
 thee happy ; there looms my fairest, my most sacred wish, 
 So be it ! Sir Tristan, Lady Isolde ! help me, help my 
 angel ! Here shall your wounds cease bleeding, here shall 
 they heal and close. From here shall the world once learn 
 the sublime and noble stress of highest love, the plaints 
 of agonising joy. And august as a god, serene and hale, 
 shalt thou then behold me back, thy lowly friend ! 
 
 September 5. 
 
 This night I have been sleepless, long my vigil ; 
 my sweet child does not tell me how it fares with her? — 
 Marvellously beautiful, the Canal by night ; bright stars, 
 last quarter of the moon. A gondola glides by ; from the 
 distance the chant of gondoliers calling to each other. This 
 last is extraordinarily beautiful, sublime : Tasso's stanzas 
 are recited to it no more, they say, but the melodies are 
 in any case of hoary eld, as old as Venice ; certainly older 
 than Tasso's stanzas, which must simply have been fitted 
 to them after. Thus the everlasting has preserved itself 
 
VENICE DIARY 37 
 
 in the melody, whereas the stanzas were but taken there- 
 into as a passing phenomenon, at last to be engulfed* 
 These profoundly melancholy ditties, sung with full 
 ringing voice, borne across the water from afar, and dying 
 into still remoter distance, have sublimely moved me. 
 Glorious ! — 
 
 September 6. 
 
 Yesterday I saw Ristori as Maria Stuart. I had 
 seen her first a few days since as Medea, in which she 
 pleased me much, nay — made a fairly deep impression on 
 me. Uncommon virtuosity, and in the play of emotions 
 a certainty of gesture never known to me before in such 
 perfection ; but what I missed from the first — and as for that, 
 is necessarily foreign to Medea — I plainly recognised now 
 as the chief defect in her art, since it is imperatively 
 demanded of Maria Stuart. Here ideality, enthusiasm, 
 deep, rapturous warmth, are needed. It was humiliating, 
 how painfully the artist fell short here ; and with no little 
 pride I felt the height and the significance of German art, 
 when I remembered how enkindlingly, ay, transportingly 
 I had seen this very task fulfilled by many a German 
 actress ; f whereas the Ristori, with her abrupt leaps from 
 sophisticated prose to almost animally plastic passion, 
 shewed that she had not even remotely guessed the nature 
 of her task, to say nothing of being born to it. It was 
 truly deplorable and exasperating. This strain of ideality 
 in German art, however, is that which makes my music 
 possible, and by means thereof my poetry. How distant, 
 on the other hand, are these French-Italian evolutions from 
 all I can ever conceive ; and yet the ideal element casts 
 
 * Cf. Prose Works, vol. v. 73-4 (the Beethoven essay), 
 t Minna herself had played the part at Riga in 1839 as "guest," 
 and therefore presumably before her marriage also. — Tr. 
 
3 8 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 an unconscious spell over Italians and French themselves, 
 when it comes upon them from without, so that I cannot 
 let it merely rank as a sort of specifically German onesided- 
 ness of character. I myself have experienced this in the 
 effect on individuals of my performances. — In what, then, 
 consists the difference between the ideality I mean and that 
 realistic comedy of passion? Glance through the scene 
 in the third act of Maria Stuart, in the garden where she 
 welcomes freedom, and imagine that Ristori left out the 
 greater part here, nay, almost all that did not lead up to 
 a point of hatred against Elisabeth, and thus afford an 
 opening for development of her rapid changes of impassioned 
 byplay. — Yet, that will not make it quite clear to thee, 
 but thou'lt know what I mean in an instant, if I remind thee 
 of our love 
 
 September 7. 
 
 To-day I had a note from Frau Wille ; it was the 
 first tidings I had had of thee. Thy mind is made up, she 
 says, calmly and resolutely to go through with the renuncia- 
 tion : parents, children — duties. — 
 
 Oh but how foreign it sounded to me, in my solemn 
 cheerfulness ! — 
 
 Thinking of thee, never have parents, children, duties, 
 come into my mind : I simply knew that thou lov'dst me, 
 and that everything sublime must be unhappy in the world. 
 From this height it startles me to see a written catalogue 
 of what makes us unhappy. Then of a sudden I see thee 
 in thy gorgeous house, see all that, hear all those to whom 
 we must ever remain unintelligible ; those who, strangers, 
 yet are — near us, all anxiety to keep the Near afar from 
 us ; and anger takes me at the thought : To these, who 
 know naught of thee, comprehend naught of thee, but want 
 everything from thee, thou'rt to sacrifice all ! — I cannot, will 
 
VENICE DIARY 39 
 
 not see or hear it, if I'm to finish worthily my earthly work ! 
 Only from the inmost depth can I gain the strength ; but — 
 everything from without, that would usurp my resolutions, 
 stirs bitterness up in me. — 
 
 Thou hopest to see me for a few hours in Rome this 
 winter ? I fear — I cannot see thee ! To see thee, — and then 
 depart from thee for the delectation of another, — can I do 
 that now already ? Surely not ! — 
 
 And no letters, wouldst thou ? — 
 
 I have written thee* and sincerely hope not to be rejected 
 with that letter ; — ay, I am sure of thine answer ! — 
 
 Away with these foolish thoughts ! — I hope. — 
 
 Sept. 8. 
 
 " O blinde Augen ! 
 Blode Herzen!" [Tristan, i.-Tr.] 
 
 Sept. 10. 
 
 Yesterday I was downright ill, with fever. In the 
 evening, too, I received another letter from Frau Wille : — 
 enclosed was my note to thee — sent back unopened ! — 
 Nay, that should not have happened !— Not that !— 
 To-day I have nothing for the diary as yet; no 
 thoughts,— merely feelings. Those must first come to 
 clearness. — 
 
 That thou art recruiting thy health, and feeling strong, 
 is my consolation. I have yet another, that almost looks 
 like a revenge : — Some day thou'lt read this rejected letter 
 also,! — and realise what an appalling injustice has been done 
 me with its rejection ! — But much the same has occurred 
 to me quite often before. — 
 
 * See entry under date September 3.— Tr. 
 f See above, Sept. 3 and 7.— Tr. 
 
4-0 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 Sept. n. 
 
 Ha ! — a direct address from thee ! Three words — 
 nothing more ! 
 
 Yet mere go-betweens, were they the most intelligent 
 and sympathetic, can make up for nothing. How hard it is 
 for two to understand each other fully, how necessary, 
 even for that communion, that they should be in a happily 
 like mood, such as nothing but the fullest feeling of the 
 loved one's actual presence can really bring to pass ; but a 
 third person stands ever apart. Who could efface himself 
 and his particular standpoint so entirely, as only to be a 
 channel for two others? That Frau Wille, purely for her 
 own part, cannot prevail on herself to convey to thee letters 
 from me, I can but deem intelligible : of course there can 
 be no regard paid to their contents there, no consideration 
 how quieting, therefore how needful such communications 
 are ; — enough, they're letters, and she feels, perhaps must 
 feel, compunction in delivering them. As for that, whatever 
 can the "lady friend" advise in general, save what her 
 attitude toward all concerned makes possible to her, and 
 possible in the best and noblest sense ? — But — she also acted 
 according to thy wish ! What ! — a case of conscience 
 between us two? 
 
 Enough for to-day ! — Peace ! Peace ! — 
 
 September 13. 
 
 I felt so sad, that I meant to confide nothing 
 even to the diary: then thy letter came to-day — the letter 
 to Frau Wille. — That thou lov'st me, I knew full well, and 
 thou art good as ever, profound and wise ; so I had to smile, 
 almost to rejoice at my late vexation, since thou prepar'st 
 me here so excellent a satisfaction. I understand thee — even 
 where I think thee a shade in the wrong, — for everything* 
 is a wrong to me, that savours of defence against im- 
 
VENICE DIARY 4 1 
 
 portunacy. By that terrible departure from Zurich I should 
 have thought I had given final proof that I can — withdraw ; 
 consequently I have a right to resent any doubt of my 
 resignative nicety as an unmerited and deep affront. — Yet 
 to what purpose that now?— My beautiful exaltation has 
 been cast down ; it needs an effort, to mount again : for- 
 give me if I still am tottering ! — I'll be cheerful again — 
 so far as I can ; to Frau Wille, too, I'll write ere long ; 
 but even with letters to her I'll be moderate. God ! every 
 single thing is so hard, and yet the highest can only be 
 attained through moderation. — Yes ! 'tis well, and all will 
 turn out well. Our love stands high above all obstacles, and 
 every hindrance makes us richer, more spiritual, nobler, and 
 ever more intent upon the substance and essence of our love, 
 ever more indifferent toward the inessential. Yes, good, 
 pure darling ! we shall triumph, — we are already in the 
 midst of victory. — 
 
 September 16. 
 
 Behold me well and cheerful. Thy letter rejoices 
 me yet. How apt, how sweet and beautiful, is everything 
 that springs from thee ! — Our personal fate seems to me 
 almost a matter of indifference now, everything within is 
 so pure, so altogether fitted to our nature alike and necessity. 
 With that harmonious feeling I wish to return to my work, 
 and am waiting for the piano. The Tristan will cost much 
 still ; but once it is quite ended, meseems a vastly important 
 period of my life will have then been rounded off, and I 
 shall look with new senses, calmly, clearly and with deep con- 
 sciousness into the world, and through the world up to thee. 
 For that it also is, I now feel so much drawn to work. — 
 
 Meanwhile I have all manner of dreadful and tedious 
 eorrespondence, that takes away my time; yet ever thou 
 quicken'st me in midst thereof, and Venice gloriously assists 
 
42 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 thee to cheer me up. For the first time I breathe this pure, 
 delicious, ever even air ; the magic of the place enfolds 
 me in a tender melancholy charm, which never ceases to 
 exert its beneficial power. Of an evening, when I take a 
 gondola trip to the Lido, it vibrates round me like one 
 of those mellow long-drawn fiddle-notes I love so, and to 
 which I once compared thee. Judge thence how I feel, in 
 the moonbeams there on the sea ! — 
 
 September 18. 
 
 A year gone by to-day I finished the poem of 
 Tristan and brought thee its last act, thou led'st me to 
 the chair before the sofa, placedst thy arm around me and 
 saidst : "I no more have a wish ! " — 
 
 On this day, at this hour, was I born anew. — To then 
 was my before-life : from then began my after-life : in that 
 wondrous instant alone did I live. Thou know'st how I 
 spent it ? In no tumult of intoxication ; but solemnly, 
 profoundly penetrated by a soothing warmth, free as if 
 looking on eternity. — I had been painfully, but more and 
 more definitely detaching myself from the world ; all had 
 turned to negation in me, to warding off. Painful was even 
 my artistry ; for it was a longing, an unstilled longing, to 
 find for that negation, that warding off — the positive, 
 affirmative, self-wedding-to-me. That instant gave it me, 
 with so infallible a certitude that a hallowed standstill 
 came o'er me. A gracious woman, shy and diffident, 
 had taken heart to cast herself into a sea of griefs and 
 sorrows, to shape for me that precious instant when 
 she said : I love thee ! — Thus didst thou vow thyself to 
 death, to give me life ; thus did I receive thy life, thence- 
 forward from the world to part with thee, to suffer with 
 thee, die with thee. — At once the spell of longing was 
 dissolved ! — And this one thing thou knowest too, that 
 
VENICE DIARY 43 
 
 ne'er since have I been at variance with myself. Perplexity 
 and pang might come to us ; even thyself might'st be swept 
 by an eddy of passion: — but I — thou know'st! — remained 
 ever the same ; never, by never so awful a moment, could 
 my love to thee be reft of its fragrance, were it but of one 
 minutest film. All bitterness had vanished from me ; I 
 might mistake, feel pained or tortured, but ever it stayed 
 clear as day to me that thy love was my highest possession, 
 and without it my existence must be a contradiction of 
 itself.— 
 
 Thanks to thee, thou gracious, loving angel ! — 
 
 September 23. 
 
 The drinking-vessel [see p. 88] and cup have arrived ; 
 once again the first friendly token from without. What am 
 I saying ? " von Aussen " ? How can anything come from 
 without to me, that comes from thee ? And yet, — it comes 
 from out the distance ; from that distance where my nearest 
 now is. A thousand thanks, thou dear inventive soul ! 
 Thus mute, how plainly can we tell each other what is so 
 inexpressible ! — 
 
 September 26. 
 
 I can't even get to my diary now, such an odious 
 mass of business letters I have to attend to. How foolish 
 I am, though ! This constant vulgar care for life, — and at 
 bottom so deep a disgust with it ; a life I always have to 
 dress up artificially, not to see it constantly before me in 
 its natural offensiveness ! If people only knew what lies 
 between me and a final possibility of rest for work ! — Yet 
 I'll hold on, since I must; I do not belong to myself, and 
 my griefs and troubles are the means to an end that scoffs 
 at all these sufferings. Tut, tut !— no shirking !— 
 
44 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 September 29. 
 
 The waning moon now rises late : at its full it fur- 
 nished me finecomfort through agreeable sensations which I 
 needed. After sunset I regularly took a gondola to meet 
 it, toward the Lido, for the battle twixt day and night was 
 always an entrancing vision in this limpid sky: to the 
 right, amid the dusk-rose aether, gleamed kindly bright the 
 evening star; the moon in full splendour cast its flashing 
 net towards me in the sea. Then when I turned my back 
 upon it for the journey home, my gaze — athwart toward 
 where thou dwellest, and whence thou look'dst towards the 
 moon — would meet the comet, stern and brilliant with its 
 tail of waxing light, close above my affinity the Wagoner. 
 For me it had no terrors, just as nothing can inspire me 
 any more with fear, because I absolutely have no hope, 
 no future more ; rather, I could but smile quite earnestly 
 at people's awe of such a visitant, and chose it with a certain 
 insolent pride for my star. I could see nothing in it but 
 the unaccustomed, dazzling, marvellous. Am I such a comet 
 myself? Have I brought misfortune ? — Was it my fault ? — 
 I could not lose it from my ken again. Silent and at peace 
 I reached the gaily-lighted, ever-lively Piazzetta. Then 
 down we go the melancholy grave Canal : to left and right 
 stand lordly palaces : without a sound : only the gentle 
 gliding of the gondola, the plashing of the oar, broad 
 shadows from the moon. At my dumb palace steps I 
 disembark : wide halls and spaces, now inhabited by me 
 alone. The lamp is burning ; I pick up a book, read little, 
 ponder much. All's still. — Music there, on the canal ! 
 An illuminated gondola with singers and musicians : more 
 and still more boats with listeners follow in its wake: the 
 flotilla spans the breadth of the canal, gliding all but moveless 
 past. Fine voices, passable instruments, render songs. All 
 is ear. — Then, scarcely perceptibly it curves round the bend, 
 
VENICE DIARY 45 
 
 and vanishes still more imperceptibly. For long I still can 
 hear the tones, ennobled and transfigured by the midnight 
 stillness, tones that as art could hardly captivate me, but 
 had here become part of nature. At last all ceases: the 
 last sound as it dissolves into the moonlight, which softly 
 goes on shining as a visual remainder of the sound-world — 
 
 Now the moon has waned. — 
 
 I have not been well these last few days : I have had 
 to give up my evening cruise. Nothing remains but my 
 loneliness, and my futureless existence ! — 
 
 On the table before me lies a little picture. It is the 
 portrait of my father,* which I no longer could shew thee 
 when it arrived ; a noble, gentle, sufferingly pensive face 
 that infinitely moves me. It has become very dear to 
 me. — Whoever enters, would probably suspect at first the 
 picture of a lady-love. Nay ! Of her I have no picture, 
 but her soul I carry in my heart; there let him peep 
 who can ! — Good-night ! — 
 
 September 30. 
 
 To-day I have gone through much. I heard of 
 my beloved's care for me, and quite a beautiful letter lay 
 by.f I have answered as well as I could, sadly and gladly, 
 just as I felt! — 
 
 Once more I have experienced a thorough horror of 
 youthful marriages ; J except with persons of absolutely no 
 
 * Surely this must be meant for "stepfather"; see the letter of 
 Jan. 5, 1870 to Otto, also the portrait of Geyer on page 34 of Mr. H. S. 
 Chamberlain's Richard Wagner. — Tr. 
 
 t See letter of same date to Frau Wille, printed below. 
 
 % Comparing this sentence with the said letter to Frau Wille, I take 
 the preceding dots to represent some allusion to Karl Ritter, whose 
 marriage, contracted four years previously, had by no means proved 
 a happy one. — Tr. 
 
46 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 importance, I have not yet encountered one the radical 
 mistake whereof has not shewn forth in time. What misery, 
 then ! Soul, character, parts — all must warp, unless excep- 
 tional, and then of course most sorrowful new relations 
 supervene. Thus all around me is quite doleful ; what has 
 any manner of significance, helpless and suffering : and 
 only the insignificant can thoroughly enjoy existence. Yet 
 what recks Nature of it all ? She goes her blind way, intent 
 on nothing but the race : i.e. to live anew and anew, com- 
 mence ever again; spread, spread — utmost spread; the in- 
 dividual, on whom she loads all burdens of existence, is 
 naught to her but a grain of sand in this spread of the 
 species ; a grain she can replace at any moment, if she only 
 gives an extra twist to the race, a thousand- and a million- 
 fold ! Oh, I can't stand hearing anyone appeal to Nature : 
 with finer minds 'tis finely meant, but for that very reason 
 something else is meant thereby; for Nature is heartless 
 and devoid of feeling, and every egoist, ay, every monster, 
 can appeal to her example with more cause and warranty 
 than the man of feeling. — What, then, is such a marriage,, 
 which we contract for life in giddy youth at the first stir 
 of the sexual impulse ? And how seldom are parents made 
 prudent by their own experience ; when they themselves at 
 last have steered out of misery and into ease, they forget 
 all about it, and heedlessly allow their children to plunge 
 along the selfsame track ! — Yet it is just like everything 
 in Nature : for the individual she holds misery, death and 
 despair, in readiness, and leaves him to lift himself above 
 them by his highest effort of resignation : — she cannot 
 prevent that succeeding, but looks on in amazement, and 
 says perhaps : " Is that what I really willed ? " — 
 
 I'm not quite well yet, but have great hopes of to-night 
 if it brings me calm sleep. Thou wilt not grudge me 
 that ? — Good-night ! — 
 
VENICE DIARY 47 
 
 October 1. 
 
 The other day, in the street, my eye chanced to 
 light on a poulterer's stall ; unconsciously I was looking at 
 the heaped-up wares, all neatly and appetisingly dressed, 
 when, as a man at one side was busy plucking a fowl, 
 another thrust his hand into a cage, dragged out a live 
 hen, and tore off its head. The bird's horrible shriek, its 
 pitiful clucking while being overcome, sent a shudder through 
 my soul. — Often as I had experienced the impression before, 
 I haven't got rid of it since. — It is ghastly, the bottomless 
 abyss of inhumanest misery on which our existence, for 
 the most part bent on pleasure, is really poised ! This has 
 always been so manifest to me, and with increasing sensibility 
 has become so stamped upon my mind, that I recognise the 
 rightful cause of all my sorrows as strictly residing in my 
 inability to give up life and strife as yet for good. The 
 consequences thereof are bound to shew in everything ; and 
 my often unaccountably changeful behaviour, my not 
 infrequent acrimony toward my dearest, is to be explained 
 by this conflict alone. Where I observe decided ease, or 
 marked tendency to procure it, I turn aside with a certain 
 inward horror. So soon as an existence appears to me 
 painless, and carefully planned for avoidance of pain, I am 
 capable of dogging it with implacable bitterness, because 
 I account it so far removed from the right solution of man's 
 task. Thus, with no feeling of envy, I have felt an instinc- 
 tive dislike of the rich : I admit that, despite their pos- 
 sessions, even they are not to be called happy ; but they 
 have a very pronounced aspiration to be so, and that so 
 alienates me from them. With studied aim they hold at 
 arm's-length whatever might bewray to their dormant 
 fellow-feeling that misery whereon all their wished-for ease 
 is based ; and that alone divides me from them by a whole 
 world. I have searched my heart and found that I am 
 
48 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 drawn with sympathetic urgency towards that other side, 
 and nothing seriously touches me save in so far as it awakes 
 my fellow-feeling — that is : fellow-suffering. This com- 
 passion I recognise as the strongest feature in my moral 
 being, and presumably it also is the wellspring of my art. 
 
 What characterises compassion, however, is that its accesses 
 are not determined by thesuffering object's individual qualities, 
 but just simply by the witnessed suffering itself. With love 'tis 
 otherwise : in it we ascend to communion of joy ["Mit-Freude"], 
 and we can share an individual's joy only when his or her 
 particular qualities are in the highest degree agreeable and 
 homogeneous to us. Among ordinary personalities this is 
 far more lightly possible, because purely sexual regards are 
 almost exclusively at work here ; but the nobler the nature, 
 the more difficult this integration to communion of joy, 
 and should it succeed, behold the highest height ! — On the 
 contrary, compassion can bestow itself on the commonest 
 and meanest creature, a creature which apart from its suffering 
 has absolutely nothing sympathetic to us, ay, is positively 
 antipathetic to us in what it is able to enjoy. The cause 
 hereof in any case is infinitely deep, and if we espy it, we 
 see ourselves thereby raised above all stricter barriers of 
 personality ; for in this exercise of our compassion we en- 
 counter Suffering itself, irrespective of personality. 
 
 To deaden oneself to the promptings of pity, one generally 
 argues that lower natures have been proved, you know, to 
 feel pain itself far more slightly than is the case with higher 
 organisms ; that pain increases in reality in direct ratio to 
 the degree of heightened sensibility which enables one to pity : 
 therefore that compassion bestowed on lower natures is a 
 squandering, exaggerating, ay, a cockering of our emotions. — 
 But this opinion reposes on the fundamental error from which 
 all realistic readings of the world proceed ; and it is precisely 
 here that idealism shews itself in its true moral import, since 
 
VENICE DIARY 49 
 
 it lays that bare to us as egoistic hebetude. Here it is not a 
 question of what the other suffers, but of what / suffer when 
 I know it to be suffering. Indeed we know all that exists 
 outside us only in so far as we figure it to ourselves, and as 
 I figure it, so it is to me: if I ennoble it, it is noble because 
 I am ; if I feel its pain to be profound, so it is, because 
 I feel profoundly when figuring its pain, — and whoever, 
 on the contrary, may figure it as small, merely shews 
 thereby that he is small himself. Thus my compassion 
 makes the other's suffering a verity, and the smaller the being 
 with which I am able to suffer, the more extensive and en- 
 compassing is the field of my emotion in general. — Herein 
 resides that attribute of mine which to others may appear a 
 weakness, and I grant that one-sided dealing is much impeded 
 thereby, though I am certain that when I do deal, I deal 
 conformably to my nature, and at any rate never inflict pain 
 on anyone intentionally. For all my future dealings, how- 
 ever, I shall be guided by this consideration alone : to occasion 
 others as little pain as possible. In that way I shall find 
 myself entirely at one with myself, and only so can I also 
 hope to give others joy ; for there is no true, sterling joy, 
 save of agreement in compassion. That, however, I cannot 
 compel : it must be brought me by my friend's own nature 
 of itself, and therefore — have I only once been fronted with 
 it whole and full ! — 
 
 But another thing has also grown clear to me : why 
 I can feel even more compassion for lower natures, than for 
 higher. The higher nature is what it is for very reason that 
 its own suffering uplifts it to the height of resignation, or 
 that it has the germs of that uplifting in it, and tends them ; 
 it stands directly near to me, is my equal, and with it I 
 attain to communion of joy. Wherefore I feel less com- 
 passion for men, at bottom, than for beasts. To these I 
 see the capability of elevation above pain, of resignation 
 
 4 
 
50 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 and its deep, divine tranquillity entirely denied ; so that when 
 they fall on suffering — for instance when they're tortured — I 
 see with torturing despair myself just simply absolute suffer- 
 ing, void of redemption, without any higher purpose, and 
 with death alone for liberation ; a liberation which goes to 
 prove that it would have been better had they never arrived 
 at existence at all. Wherefore if there be any purpose at 
 all in this suffering, it can only be the wakening of pity in 
 Man ; who thereby takes the animal's failed existence up 
 into himself, and becomes redeemer of the world inasmuch 
 as he recognises the error of existence in general. (This 
 meaning will become clear to thee some day from the 
 third act of Parzival, Good Friday morning.) Now, to see 
 this capacity for world-redemption through pity innate in a 
 man, but undeveloped, and rotting through studious neglect, 
 makes just that man repellent to me, and weakens my com- 
 passion for him to the point of complete insensibility towards 
 his want. In his want he has the very road to redemption 
 which is closed to the beast ; if he does not recognise it, but 
 absolutely wills to keep it blocked to him, I on the contrary 
 feel urged to throw that door wide open to him, and can go 
 the length of cruelty, to bring the want of suffering to his 
 consciousness. Nothing leaves me colder than the philistine's 
 howl over a disturbance of his ease : here any compassion 
 would be complicity; just as it is a property of my whole 
 nature to rouse people out of vulgarity, I am driven also here 
 to naught but goading, to give them to feel of the great 
 sorrow of life ! — 
 
 Now with thee, child, I also have no compassion more. 
 Thy journal which at last thou gav'st me,* thy latest letters, 
 shew me thee so high, so true, so clarified and glorified by 
 sorrow, so mistress of thyself and the world, that I now can 
 feel but communion-of-joy, but reverence, worship. Thou 
 
 * See pages 32 and 56. — Tr. 
 
VENICE DIARY 5 1 
 
 beholdest thy pain no longer, but the pain of all the world ; 
 thou canst not so much as figure it to thyself in any other 
 form than of the suffering of the world at large ; in the 
 noblest sense, thou hast become a poet. — 
 
 But terrible compassion I had for thee then, when thou 
 thrust'st me from thee ; when, no longer a victim to pain 
 but to passion, thou deem'dst thyself betrayed, believ'dst the 
 noblest in thee misconstrued ; then wast thou to me as 
 an angel abandoned by God. And just as that thy state 
 soon freed me from my own bewilderment, it made me in- 
 ventive to convey thee balm and healing ; I found the 
 lady-friend * to bring thee solace and uplifting, relief and 
 reconciliation. See, it was pity did that ! Of a truth, I could 
 forget myself for that sake, will to renounce for aye the bliss 
 of seeing thee, of being near thee, if but I knew thee calmed, 
 enlightened, given back to thine own self. So contemn not 
 my pity where thou seest me exert it, since I have nothing 
 left to bestow on thyself save communion of joy ! Oh, that 
 is the sublimest ; it can only appear where sympathy is at 
 its full. From the commoner nature to which I gave pity 
 I must swiftly turn away so soon as it demands of me 
 community of joy ; that was the cause of the last embroil- 
 ment with my wife. The unhappy woman had understood 
 in her way my resolve not to set foot in your house any more, 
 and read it as a rupture with thee ; so she thought that ease 
 and intimacy were bound to be established between us on 
 her return. How fearfully I had to undeceive her ! But — 
 quiet ! quiet ! Another world will rise for us ; be thou blest 
 therein, thrice welcomed to eternal unity of joy ! — 
 
 October 3. 
 
 What a hard life I have of it, to be sure ! When I 
 think of the vast expenditure of care, worry and pain I need, 
 
 * See letter $q, page 22.— Tr. 
 
52 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 merely to procure myself a little leisure from time to time, 
 I'm inclined to be ashamed of going on imposing myself in 
 this way on existence, since the world, speaking strictly, will 
 really have nothing to do with me. Thus for ever and ever 
 to be fighting for provision of the needful, often obliged for 
 whole long periods to think of absolutely nothing but how 
 to set about obtaining outward quiet and the requisites of 
 existence for a little time ahead ; and for that to have so 
 entirely to depart from my own way of feeling, to appear tq 
 those through whom I want myself maintained so altogether 
 different from what I am, — it truly is revolting. And added 
 to it all, to be framed the very way to recognise it as none 
 other. All these cares come so naturally to a man who views 
 life as an end in itself, who finds in concern for provision of 
 the needful the best of sauces for his imaginary enjoyment of 
 the finally procured. For which reason, also, no one else can 
 quite understand why this is so absolutely repugnant to a 
 man like me, seeing that it is the lot and condition of all 
 men ; that for once in a way a man should just not view 
 life as an end in itself, but as an unavoidable means to a 
 higher end — who will comprehend that right earnestly and 
 clearly ? — There must be something peculiar about me, that I 
 should have put up with all this so long already, and more- 
 over should still go on doing so. — The hideous part of it is 
 the growing more and more aware that really not one human 
 creature — certainly, no male— is quite sincerely and seriously 
 interested in me ; with Schopenhauer, I begin to doubt the 
 possibility of any genuine friendship, to rank as utter fable 
 what is dubbed so. People have no idea how little such a 
 friend is actually able to place himself in the other's position, 
 to say nothing of his mode of thought. But that, too, is 
 quite explainable : by the nature of things, this superlative 
 friendship can be nothing but an ideal ; whereas Nature, that 
 hoary old sinner and egoist, with the best of will— if she could 
 
VENICE DlARV 53 
 
 possibly have it— can do no else than deem herself the 
 whole exclusive world in every individual, and merely acknow- 
 ledge the other individual so far as it flatters this illusion of 
 Self. — Tis so, and yet, one holds on ! God, what a worth 
 it must have, the thing for whose sake one holds on, with 
 such a knowledge! — 
 
 October 5. 
 
 A while ago the Countess A. announced a " little 
 figure " that would soon arrive for me ; I didn't understand 
 her, and meantime finished reading Koppen's History of the 
 Religion of Buddha. An unedifying book : instead of 
 sterling features from the oldest legends, which I expected, 
 for the most part a mere account of development in girth, 
 which naturally turns out more and more repellent, the purer 
 and sublimer is the core. After being so thoroughly dis- 
 gusted by a detailed description of the ritual at last estab- 
 lished, with its relics and preposterous simulacra of the 
 Buddha, the "little figure" arrives, and proves to be a 
 Chinese specimen of one of these sacred effigies. My 
 abhorrence was great, and I could not conceal it from the 
 lady, who fancied she had hit the very thing. 
 
 One has much trouble in this distortion-loving world 
 to hold one's own against suchlike impressions, and keep 
 unwarped the pure-beheld ideal, everybody is so fond of 
 representing the noblest, if he cannot reach up to it, as 
 akin to himself, i.e. a parody. Nevertheless, in spite of the 
 Chinese caricature, I have succeeded in keeping pure to 
 myself the son of Qakya, the Buddha. 
 
 Yet I did find in that history one new, or hitherto 
 unheeded feature that was very welcome to me, and pro- 
 bably will lead to an important point. It is this : — Cakya- 
 Muni at first was quite against the admission of women 
 into the community of the elect ; he repeatedly expresses 
 
54 NJ7AGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 the view that women are far too subjected by Nature to 
 the sexual function, and consequently to caprice, wayward- 
 ness, and attachment to personal existence, ever to attain 
 that concentration and breadth of contemplation whereby the 
 unit cuts itself loose from the Natural drift, to arrive at 
 redemption. Now, it was his favourite pupil, Ananda — the 
 same to whom I had already assigned his r61e in my 
 " Sieger " * — , who finally induced the master to depart from 
 his severity and allow women also to be received into the 
 flock. — In that I have an uncommonly weighty gain ; with- 
 out the least forcing, my plot acquires a great and powerful 
 expansion. The difficulty here, was to adapt this entirely- 
 liberated mortal upraised above all passion, the Buddha 
 himself, for dramatic, and particularly for musical treatment. 
 It is solved at once by his attaining himself one final step 
 in evolution through acceptance of a new cognition ; which 
 is here conveyed to him — as all cognition — through no 
 abstract combination of ideas, but through intuitive 
 emotional-experience, namely by way of a shock to his 
 inner man, and therefore displays him in one final advance 
 to consummate perfection. Ananda, standing nearer to life 
 as yet, and directly affected by the young Tschandala maiden's 
 impetuous love, becomes the medium of this last perfecting. 
 — Ananda, deeply stirred, can reciprocate that love in none 
 save his, the highest sense, as desire to draw the loved one 
 up to him, to let her also share the last salvation. Herein 
 the master crosses him, not harshly, but deploring an error, 
 an impossibility ; finally, however, as Ananda in pro- 
 foundest sorrow believes he must give up hope, f akya — 
 attracted by his compassion, and as it were by a last 
 fresh problem solution whereof has still detained him in 
 existence — feels moved to examine the girl. In her deepest 
 
 * See RichardWagju^s Prose Works, VIII. 385-6 ; the date of the 
 sketch is "Zurich, May 16, 1856;*— Tr. 
 
VENICE DIARY 55 
 
 distress, of herself she comes to implore the master to wed 
 her to Ananda. He recites the conditions, renunciation of 
 the world, discardal of all the bonds of Nature. At the 
 final decree she is frank enough to lose all command of 
 herself; whereon there ensues (perhaps thou recall'st it?) 
 the opulent scene with the Brahmins who cast in his teeth, 
 as proof of the perverseness of his teaching, his intercourse 
 with such a girl. While denouncing every kind of human 
 pride, his growing interest in the maiden, whose prior 
 existences he reveals to herself and his opponents, reaches 
 such a pitch, that, when she — recognising in her own 
 sufferings the vast concatenation of the sufferings of the 
 world— declares herself ready to take any vow, he admits 
 her among the saints as if for his apotheosis, thus regarding 
 his world-career for the redeeming of all beings as finished, 
 since he has been able — directly — to accord redemption to 
 Woman also. — 
 
 Happy Sawitri ! thou now durst follow thy beloved 
 everywhere, be ever near him, with him. Happy Ananda! 
 she is nigh thee now, won never to be lost ! — 
 
 My child, surely the glorious Buddha was right when 
 he sternly prohibited art. Who can feel more distinctly 
 than I, that it is this abominable art which forever gives 
 me back to the torment of life and all the contradictions 
 of existence? Were this strange gift not within me, this 
 strong predominance of plastic phantasy, clear insight might 
 make me obey my heart's dictate, and — turn into a saint; 
 and as saint I durst bid thee, Come, quit all that holds 
 thee, tear down the bonds of nature : at that price do I 
 point thee out the open road to healing ! — Then were we 
 free : Ananda and Sawitri ! — But so it is not now, for see ! 
 even this, this knowledge, this plain insight — , it makes 
 me ever and again but poet, artist. At the instant I attain 
 to it, it stands before me as an image, with the most lifelike, 
 
56 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 soul-filled visuality, but — an image that enraptures me. 
 Perforce I must regard it ever closer, ever more intimately, 
 to see into it still more definitely and deeply, sketch it, 
 execute it, breathe life into it as my own creation. For 
 that I need mood, elation, leisure, a comfortable sense of 
 having overcome the common, sordid needs of life ; and 
 all this I have to wrest from just this crabbed, refractory, 
 at all points hostile life, at which I can only get in its 
 own, its sole intelligible way. Thus, with self-reproach at, 
 heart, I must incessantly be seeking to beat down mis- 
 understanding (which I feed myself), worry, want, vexation, — 
 merely to say what I see but cannot be ! Not to go under, 
 I look up to thee ; and the more I cry, Help, be near me ! — 
 the farther dost thou vanish, and a voice makes answer 
 to me : " In this world, where thou burden'st thyself with 
 this want, to realise thine images, — in this world she belongs 
 not to thee ; for that which mocks thee, racks thee, ever- 
 lastingly misunderstands thee, it compasses even her about ; 
 to it she belongs, and it has a claim on her. Why does 
 she, too, delight in thine art? Thine art belongeth to the 
 world, and she — belongeth likewise to the world." — 
 
 Oh, if ye foolish men of learning but understood the 
 great love-brimming Buddha, ye would marvel at the depth 
 of insight which shewed him the exercise of art as the 
 most certain of all pathways from salvation ! Believe me, 
 I know what I am saying ! 
 
 Happy Ananda ! Happy Sawitri ! 
 
 October 6. 
 
 The piano has just arrived, been unpacked, and 
 set up.- While it was being tuned, I read thy Spring diary 
 through again. There, too, the Erard figures. — I have been 
 very much moved since its arrival, for the history of this 
 instrument is full of meaning. Thou know'st how long 
 
VENICE DIARY 57 
 
 I had wished for it in vain. Then last January, when I 
 went to Paris — thou know'st for why? — strange, how it 
 struck me to sue so actively for just such a piano ! Not one 
 of my projects did I take in earnest ; all was indifferent to 
 me ; nothing did I pursue with an atom of zeal. Yet it was 
 different with my visit to Frau Erard ; in presence of that 
 altogether dull, insignificant person I became rightdown 
 inspired, and transported her — as I heard thereafter — to 
 regular enthusiasm : with the turn of a wrist I won the 
 instrument, as if in fun. Odd instinct of nature, how it 
 comes out in every individual, according to his character, 
 as simply that of preservation of his Jife ! — The import 
 of that acquisition was soon to grow yet clearer to me. 
 On the 2nd of May, just ere thou too wast to start for 
 " change of scene," and I must be left so wholly forlorn, — 
 the long-expected came to hand. While it was being set 
 in my room the weather outside was bad, raw and cold ; 
 I had abandoned every hope of seeing thee that day upon 
 the terrace. The piano was not quite fitted, when — of a 
 sudden — thou stepp'st from the billiard-room on to the front 
 balcony, sitt'st down on a chair, and look'st over here. 
 Then all was ready, I opened the window, and struck the 
 first chords ; but thou hadst no idea, as yet, that this was 
 the Erard. — For a month I saw thee no more, and in 
 that interval it became clearer and surer to me that we 
 must henceforth stay apart ! Then I should really and 
 truly have done with my life, but this wondrous soft, 
 sweet melancholy instrument wooed me right back to music 
 once more. So I called it the swan that had come to bear 
 poor Lohengrin home again ! — Thus did I begin the com- 
 position of the second act of Tristan. Life wove its web 
 around me like a dream of existence. — Thou returnedst ; 
 we did not speak with one another, but my swan sang 
 across to thee. — 
 
58 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 And now I've fared right forth from thee, the Alps 
 lie piled up heaven-high between us, it becomes ever clearer 
 to me how all must turn, how everything will be, and 
 that I now shall live a life no more. — Ah ! if the Erard 
 but came, it must help, — have I often thought — for, when 
 all's said — things must be ! I had long to wait, but here 
 it is at last, that cunning tool with its lovely timbre, which 
 I won in those weeks when I knew that I should lose thy 
 presence. How symbolically plain my genie here speaks 
 to me, — my dsemon ! How unconsciously I erst happed 
 on the piano, yet my sly vital spark knew what it wanted ! 
 — The piano ! — Ay, a wing,* — were it the wing of the angel 
 of death ! — 
 
 October 9. 
 
 I have begun — what with? 
 
 Of our songs I had only the pencilled jottings, often 
 entirely unworked up, and so faint that I was afraid of 
 clean forgetting them some day. So I first set to work 
 playing them over to myself again, and calling every detail 
 back to memory ; then I wrote them carefully out. Now 
 thou need'st not send me thine again ; I have them all 
 myself. — 
 
 So, that was my first task, my pinions are preened. — 
 Better than these songs have I never done, and very little 
 in my works will bear setting beside them. 
 
 " und lost dein Rathsel — 
 heil'ge Natur "— f 
 
 I had a strong mind to re-christen the " heil'ge Natur " — 
 the thought is right, but not the expression : Nature is no- 
 
 * "Fliigel," the ordinary German name for a "grand" pianoforte 
 also, on account of its shape. — Tr. 
 
 t The last words of " Stehe Still ! "— Tr. 
 
VENICE DIARY 59 
 
 where holy, saving where she revokes and denies herself 
 —but for thy sake I have let it stand 
 
 October 12. 
 
 My friend Schopenhauer somewhere says : " It is 
 much easier to expose the faults and errors in a great mind's 
 work, than to give a complete and lucid exposition of its 
 value. For the faults are single things and finite, which 
 therefore can be fully surveyed ; but this, on the contrary, 
 is the stamp impressed by Genius on its works, that their 
 excellence is unfathomable and inexhaustible." — 
 
 I apply this saying with sincerest conviction to thy last 
 letter. What to me seemed erroneous therein was so easy 
 for me to review, and therefore at first I could deliver myself 
 on that alone : but the deep, divine and beautiful thereof is 
 so infinite and inexhaustible, that I can only enjoy it, not 
 speak about it even to thyself. What profound consolation, 
 the only one possible, it affords me to know thee so high 
 and sublime, I can attest to thee through nothing save the 
 whole further and concluding tendence of my life. How its 
 outward course will shape, I certainly cannot foretell, for 
 that belongs to Fate ; but the inner core, from which to 
 shape the dispensations of my outward fate, is settling in me 
 to a firm, clear consciousness, whose purport I will outline 
 here as well as I am able. — 
 
 My course of life till the time when I found thee, and 
 thou at last becamest mine, lies plain before me. The 
 nature of the world, in its contrast with my own, had been 
 making itself more and more painfully and cheerlessly clear 
 to me, and more and more consciously and definitely had 
 
 * Six pages, pp. 23-28, are missing from the manuscript [ — a hiatus 
 probably to be explained by the nature of the reference to Mathilde's 
 "last letter'' in the next entry. — Tr.]. 
 
60 WA&MEfc TO MATHILDE WESENtXDNCK 
 
 * 
 
 I been withdrawing from my relations therewith, yet with- 
 out being able as artist and indigent man entirely to snap 
 all bonds that chained me to it. I shunned men, since their 
 contact pained me, and sought with strenuous design for 
 isolation and retirement ; yet the more ardently did I cherish 
 the yearning to find in one heart, in one specific individual, the 
 sheltering, redeeming haven to harbour me entire and whole. 
 By the world's nature this could only be a loving woman : 
 even without having found her, that was bound to be clear 
 to my clairvoyant poet's-eye ; and the sheer impossibility of 
 finding what I longed for in the friendship of a man, could 
 but be proved me by the noblest attempts thereat. Yet, 
 never did I dream that I should find what I sought so 
 absolute, so realising every wish, so satisfying every longing, 
 as I found it in thee. Once more : — that thou couldst hurl 
 thyself on every conceivable sorrow of the world, to say to 
 me " I love thee ! " — redeemed me, and won for me that 
 solemn pause * whence my life has gained another meaning. 
 But that state divine indeed was only to be won at cost 
 of all the griefs and pains of love: we have drunk them to 
 their dregs ! — And now, after suffering every sorrow, being 
 spared no grief, now must the quick of that higher life 
 shew clear which we have won through all the suffering of 
 those birth-throes. In thee it lives so pure and sure already, 
 that I need only shew thee to thy joy, thy fellow-joy, what 
 shape it now takes in myself. 
 
 The world is overcome; in our love, our sufferings, it 
 has overcome itself. No longer is it a foe that I flee, but 
 an object void of substance, indifferent to my will, towards 
 which I bear myself now without dread, without pain, 
 and therefore with no actual revulsion. I feel this ever 
 more distinctly, in that I no longer recognise the bent 
 to absolute retirement as theoretically strong in me. That 
 
 * " Stillestand "—see the words of their song " Stehe Still." — Tr. 
 
VENICE DIARY 6 1 
 
 tent itself had heretofore the sense of longing, seeking and 
 desiring : but that — oh yes, I feel it ! — is now completely- 
 stilled ; the last issues between us have brought me the 
 clear consciousness that I have simply nothing more to 
 seek, no more to yearn for. After the fulness wherewith 
 thou hast given thyself to me, I cannot call it resignation, 
 still less despair. That reckless mood confronted me before 
 with exit [by death?] from all my seeking and yearning : from 
 its necessity, beatified by thee, I am redeemed. My feeling 
 is one of a sacred satiety ; the bent is slain, because it is 
 completely satisfied. — Informed with this consciousness, I 
 look afresh upon the world, which consequently dawns upon 
 me in an altogether new light ; for I have nothing more to 
 seek in it, no more to discover a spot wherein I might be 
 sheltered from it. To me it has become quite an objective 
 spectacle like Nature, in which I see day come and 
 go, seeds of life sprout and decay, without feeling my 
 inner self dependent from that coming and going, that 
 sprouting and decay ; I bear myself towards it almost 
 solely as seizing and re-presenting artist, as a man who 
 feels and fellow-feels, yet without willing, seeking or striving, 
 himself. Even in purely external regards I recognise this 
 new relation, inasmuch as that craving, so well known 
 to thee, for a lonely and sequestered dwelling-place has 
 practically left me; tho' I admit that the sad fruit of 
 experience has had its share in that. For what could best 
 have met my fondest wishes, in that sense, yet left me in 
 the end unsatisfied ; since it was precisely there I had to 
 learn from our severance, and the necessity of that severance, 
 that the longed asylum neither can nor ever shall be 
 furnished me. 
 
 And where in the world now, should I will to found 
 myself a fresh asylum? When I left the fatal last one, I 
 became entirely insensible to such a wish.— On the contrary, 
 
62 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 I feel so strengthened and soothed in my inmost depth 
 now, so sheltered and protected from all the world by the 
 everlasting, inviolable and indestructible haven I've won 
 in thy heart, that from its refuge, which accompanies me 
 throughout the world, I can look with calmly pitying smile 
 upon this world ; to which I may now belong without a 
 shudder, just because I belong thereto no more — no more 
 as suffering, but merely as fellow-suffering subject. Where- 
 fore I now yield myself completely wish-less to the figuration 
 of my outward fate, submissive to it just as it may hap. 
 I strive for nothing : what presents itself, and is not against 
 my deep enlightenment, I shall tranquilly take, without 
 hope, but also without despair, and go on proffering to 
 the world, as well as the world permits, the best I can, 
 untroubled for reward, ay, even for understanding. — Following 
 this tranquil trend (the fruit of endless battles with the 
 world, and finally of my redemption through thy love!), 
 presumably I shall some day pitch my tent where ample 
 artistic means are to be had without my needing first to 
 fash myself for their procuring (to me the game no longer 
 is serious enough for that !), so that I may give myself a 
 periodic hearing of my works according as the spirit moves 
 me. Naturally, any kind of " position " or " appointment " 
 could not even remotely enter my plans. Neither, for that 
 matter, have I the slightest preference for this or that 
 particular spot; for — nowhere shall I seek again for some- 
 thing definite or individual, to say nothing of intimate : 
 from that craving, in truth, I am freed ! On the contrary, 
 I shall simply grasp whatever allows me the most general, 
 maybe even the most superficial, bearings towards my sur- 
 roundings ; and that is like to come the easier, the larger 
 is the place. I haven't the remotest idea of withdrawing 
 into any sort of intimacy, e.g. to Weimar; in fact, such a 
 thought is distinctly repugnant to me. For I can only 
 
VENICE DIARY 63 
 
 act up to my deeply settled attitude towards the world 
 by taking men quite in the general, without any sort or 
 kind of closer individual relationship ; an endeavour like 
 that at Zurich, where I tried to draw each single creature 
 to me, can never attract me again. — 
 
 There thou hast the main features of my frame of mind. 
 What will come of it outwardly — as said — I cannot predeter- 
 mine, as it also is indifferent to my deepest soul. Of any- 
 thing permanent for my future I do not think at all : while 
 striving after permanence I grew so used to change, that I 
 the more willingly yield the latter play now, the less I have 
 a — wish. 
 
 How our personal intercourse, thine and mine, will shape 
 itself — the only question left to agitate me — I suppose we 
 must also leave, my love, to Fate. 
 
 Here lies, in truth, the one sore point, the thorn of 
 suffring and of bitterness toward others, who make the 
 heavenly boon of nearness impossible for us, without securing 
 for themselves the smallest gain thereby ! Here we are not 
 free, but hang from those to whom we sacrifice ourselves and 
 to whom we turn back, with the one great sacrifice at 
 heart, to exert on them our next compassion. Thou wilt 
 bring up thy children :— accept my full blessing thereon ! 
 Shouldst thou have joy of them and their flourishing, I shall 
 ever look towards thee with naught but deep contentment. — * 
 Haply also we shall meet again, yet meseems but as in 
 dream at first — like two departed spirits that meet on the 
 scene of their sufferings, once more to feast on the look, the 
 
 * See the letter of some few days later to Otto :— " My last words to 
 your wife were my blessing on the rearing of your children."— Letters to 
 Otto Wesendonck, p. 43-— Tr > 
 
64 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 pressure of the hand, that raised them from this world to win 
 them Heaven. If perchance — by cause of my profound 
 appeasement — a green old age be granted me, perhaps 'tis 
 yet reserved me to return for good to thy proximity, some 
 day when every pang of jealousy is overcome. The " Asyl " 
 then might yet becomeja truth at last. Maybe I then should 
 even need some tending : I am sure it would not be denied 
 me. Perhaps — one morn thou yet wouldst step through the 
 green workroom to my bedside, and with one parting kiss 
 receive my spirit in thine arms. — And thus my diary would 
 close as it began. — Yes, my child, so let this diary be closed 
 herewith! It offers thee my suffering, my lifting up, my 
 struggles, my looks into the world, and over all — my ever- 
 lasting love to thee ! Entreat it kindly, and forgive me if on 
 any page it opens up a wound. — 
 
 I shall now return to " Tristan," to let the deep art 
 of sounding silence there speak for me to thee. As for 
 present things, the great isolation and retirement in which 
 I live refreshes me : in it I'm collecting my sorely shattered 
 vital forces. Already since a little while I enjoy the boon, 
 almost never known by me to this extent, of deep and 
 quiet sleep at night : would I could give it to everyone ! 
 This I shall enjoy till my amazing work has thriven to 
 completion ; not until then will I look around for once, to 
 see what face the world presents to me. The Grand Duke 
 of Baden has [?] effected thus much, that I may return awhile 
 to Germany for the personal production of a new work ; 
 perhaps I shall make use of it for the Tristan. Till then 
 I stay alone with that in my dream-world turned to life here. 
 
 If aught occurs to me worth telling, I shall jot it down, 
 store it up, and thou shalt receive it as soon as thou wishest. 
 We shall give each other tidings of ourselves as frequently 
 as possible ? They can do naught but delight us now, for 
 all is crystal-pure between us, and no misunderstanding, 
 
VENICE DIARY 65 
 
 no mistake, can cumber us again. So fare thee well, my 
 heaven, my redemptrix, my pure, angelic love, farewell ! 
 Be blessed from the devoutest depth of my soul ! 
 
 {Here ends the first diary, despatched forthwith^ 
 
 Venice 1858. 
 October 18. 
 
 A year ago to-day we had a beautiful day at the 
 Willes. It was the season of wonders, we were celebrating 
 
 the 1 8th of September [completion of the Tristan poem]. As we 
 
 returned from our walk and were mounting the hill thy 
 husband offered Frau Wille his arm, so I also might offer 
 thee mine. We spoke of Calderon : how well he served ! 
 Indoors I went straight to the new grand piano : myself, 
 I did not understand how I could play so finely. — It was 
 a glorious, a glutting day — hast thou kept it to-day ? 
 Oh, that fair time had to bloom for us once! It passed — 
 but the flower fades not ; that breathes its everlasting 
 perfume in our souls. — 
 
 A letter from Liszt arrived also to-day, and gave me 
 great joy ; so that — with fine weather here too — I'm in 
 quite a calmly-cheerful mood. I had written him lastly 
 on various tender points : I had to, as he really is so dear 
 to me, and I therefore felt candour a duty ; and behold, he 
 answers me with unwavering gentleness. From this beautiful 
 experience I learn that I have not to repent my recognition 
 of the impossibility of a perfect friendship such as floats 
 before us as ideal ; since it has by no means made me 
 insusceptible, but on the contrary, all the more grateful 
 and sensible to what presents itself as some approach to 
 that ideal. Between Liszt's intelligential character and my 
 own there is so great and essential a difference, that the 
 
 5 
 
66 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 difficulty — I must believe, in fact, impossibility — of making 
 myself understood of him, often tortures me and drives me 
 into bitter irony : but here love steps so beautifully in, 
 with its very own allowances and satisfactions, that I'm 
 half inclined to think warm friendship possible twixt man 
 and man only when their modes of view are different. 
 For it really is this friendly feeling alone, that can bring 
 about agreement in the male sex : probably they never 
 will fully concur in their views, or at most when they are 
 insignificant persons and their views relate to common 
 everyday things ; if they touch on something higher and 
 uncommon, it could wellnigh only be a case of the equations 
 of practical logic, such as may occur in the sphere of 
 science : the true glow of friendship, however, first enters 
 at the very point where differences are equalised thereby 
 and shewn to have no importance, as it were by a higher 
 intervener. This agreeable feeling I have repeatedly received 
 through Liszt before ; yet I will not deny, that — on calm 
 reflection — I think it well we should never be long and 
 close together, since I should then have to fear too strong 
 a salience of our dissimilarity : at a distance we gain very 
 much to each other. — 
 
 But we — : far and near, we are united — mated — one ! — 
 
 October 24. 
 
 How much I hang from thee, Beloved, I again have 
 felt most keenly at this serious time. My mood of deep and 
 beautiful tranquillity I had really won through thee alone : 
 I knew thee so serene and lofty, that I could but be it too. 
 And then this mourning, this woeful suffering, to know thee 
 smitten with the loss of thy little boy : * how everything 
 
 * Guido, born Sept. 13, 1855, died Oct. 13, 1858. [See the beautiful 
 epistle of condolence in the Letters to Otto Wesendonck, cf. note to 
 page 63 sup. — Tr.] 
 
VENICE DIARY 67 
 
 of a sudden was changed ! All pride, all calm, dissolved so 
 swiftly into fear and trembling; deep trouble, weeping and 
 lamenting ; the built-up world all tottering, my gaze on 
 it blurred by tears. Truly, an outer Power has come once 
 more to knock at the gate of our hearts and prove if all is 
 right within. It has been a time of seriousness ; thou wilt 
 recognise that only with an effort, wellnigh not at all, could 
 I think of my work in days like these? — Yet from that 
 I don't infer that there is something amiss with me ; rather 
 is it growing clear to me that even this work is merely one 
 utterance of my being, which has other, surer channels of 
 expression at command. I am able to suffer and mourn 
 with thee : could I do aught finer, when thou art suffering 
 and mourning? 
 
 Now let me hear from thee soon, that I may behold thee 
 with utmost distinctness in this trial of so grave a meaning ! 
 What thou tell'st to me, as everything that comes from thee, 
 will teach me and enrich me with a noble gain. Speak to 
 me out of that feeling which habituates itself to embrace the 
 whole world, wherein thy child with its existence — its tender 
 death — was held as well ; be sure of being kindly and 
 devoutly understood of me in everything ! — Thou poor dear 
 child !— 
 
 October 31, evening. 
 
 Dost not know, then, my child, that I depend from 
 thee alone — from thee alone — that the earnest cheerfulness 
 which closed the diary sent to thee was a mere mirror of 
 thy beauteous mood as told to me ? O, hold me not so great 
 that I could be what and how I am entirely of and through 
 myself! How deeply I feel that now, when unspeakable 
 grief and woe have cloven me to the midriff ! — I have received 
 thy packet, read thy diary, thine answer, — dost really not yet 
 know, then, how I live on thee alone? Didst not believe 
 
68 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 it, when I had it told thee but lately again ? * To be like 
 thee, worthy of thee, is the holdfast of my life ! So do not 
 chide me if I once more tell thee, I am altogether as thyself, 
 feel as thou, entirely share thy every mood, thy faintest grief, 
 not merely because it is thine, but because it so clearly and 
 surely is also my own ! — Hast forgotten how we wrote each 
 other when I was in Paris,t and that joint lament burst 
 simultaneously from our hearts, after we had told each other 
 our resolves as if inspired ? So it still is, so will it remain, 
 for ever and ever! — Everything is Wahn, everything self- 
 delusion ! We are not made, to square the world to us. O 
 thou dear angel of pellucid truth, be blest for thy heavenly 
 love ! O, I knew all ; what fearsome days did I live through, 
 what waxing apprehension ! The world was at a stop, to 
 me, and I could breathe but when I felt thy breath. — O my 
 sweet, sweet girl, I cannot comfort thee to-day, poor doleful, 
 broken-down man that I am ! Neither can I give thee balm, 
 and — " have I indeed no healing for thee ? " How should 
 I have power to give thee healing ? My tears are flowing in 
 full salt streams — : might they have power to heal thee ? — 
 I know, they are the tears of love, of such love as never was 
 before : in them flows all the lamentation of the world, and 
 yet the only rapture I would fain experience now, to-day, 
 they give to me ; they give me a deep, deep inward certitude, 
 an inexpugnable, inalienable right, for they are the tears of 
 my eternal love to thee. Might such tears heal thee ? — O 
 heavens ! more than once I have been on the point of starting, 
 to come into thy precincts : have I refrained out of care 
 for myself? Nay ! oh, nay ; but of care — for thy children ! 
 Wherefore — once again — and ever : courage ! — 'tis needed for 
 a while yet. Methinks — methinks — I might — ere long present 
 
 * See the letter of Sept. 30 to Frau Wille, p. 86.— Tr. 
 t Last January ; the letters are not preserved. 
 
VENICE DIARY 69 
 
 myself more fairly to thee, more acceptably, worthier of thee : 
 and how gladly would I !— but what boots Would ? — 
 
 No ! no ! sweet child, I know all ! I understand all :— 
 
 I see clear, clear as day ! I'm going mad ! — Let 
 
 me break off now ! Not to seek rest, but to deliver myself 
 over to drown in the rapture of my grief! — O my precious ! 
 
 —Nay ! Nay ! He'll not betray thee. Not— 
 
 he!— 
 
 November 1. 
 
 To-day is All Souls' day!— 
 I woke out of brief, but deep sleep, after long and 
 fearful sufferings such as I never had suffered before. I 
 stood upon the balcony, and peered into the Canal flowing 
 black below; a tempest was raging, my leap, my fall, 
 would have been noticed by no one. I were free of torments, 
 once I sprang, and I clenched my fist to mount the 
 hand-rail. — Could I — with my sight on thee, — upon thy 
 children ? — 
 
 Now All Souls' day has broken ! — 
 All Souls ! peace be with you ! — 
 
 Now I know it still is granted me to die within thine 
 arms! Yes, I know it! — — I shall see thee soon 
 again : certainly by the Spring ; perchance the middle of 
 this winter. — 
 
 See, my child, the last sting has left my soul ! 
 
 I can bear anything now. We soon shall meet again ! — 
 
 Place no reliance on my art ! I have discovered all 
 about it now : 'tis no solace, no compensation to me ; it 
 is simply the accompanist of my deep harmony with thee, 
 the fosterer of my wish to perish in thine arms. When the 
 Erard arrived, it could lure me only since thy deep un- 
 faltering love shone out more fixt and brightly on me after 
 the storm than ever : with thee I can do all things — without 
 
70 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 thee nothing, nothing ! Don't let thyself be cheated even 
 by the expression of calm serenity that concluded my last 
 diary ; it was nothing but the reflex of thine own fair, 
 noble elevation. Everything falls asunder with me, so soon 
 as I espy the slightest want of harmony between us ; believe 
 me, only one ! — thou hold'st me in thy hands, and with thee 
 alone can I — achieve. — 
 
 So, after this terrible night I pray thee : — Have trust in 
 me, unconditional, boundless trust ! And that but means 
 again : Believe that with thee I can do all things, without 
 thee nothing ! — 
 
 So thou knowest who disposes of myself, my acts and 
 sufferings ; 'tis thou, e'en when I'm seized with foolish 
 qualms about thee. And thus, too, am I sure of thee ; thou 
 wilt not forsake me, not turn a deaf ear on me, but 
 guide me loyally through want and misery. Thou canst 
 not else : this night I have won a fresh claim on thee — thou 
 canst not know me given back to life, to grudge me any 
 act of grace. So help me, then ! and I will help thee 
 loyally too. — 
 
 Help me also to bear the frightful load that weighs on my 
 heart ! — A load it is ; but on my heart it weighs. — Yesterday 
 I received from a reliable physician the exact report on 
 my wife's illness [see p. xiv] : she seems past saving. She is 
 threatened with development of dropsy in the chest : 
 increasing, perhaps protracted, but ever more agonising 
 pain, with death for sole prospect of rescue. The only 
 thing to ease and make it bearable, is utmost quiet, 
 avoidance of all moral agitation. — Help me to tend the 
 unfortunate ! True, I shall only be able to do it from a 
 distance, since I myself must deem remoteness from her 
 the aptest of means. When I'm near her, I become in- 
 capable of it : my presence, moreover, is bound to upset 
 her ; only at a distance can I calm her, as I then can 
 
VENICE DIARY 7 1 
 
 choose my time and mood so as ever to be mindful of 
 my task towards her. But neither can I do that, unless— 
 thou help'st me. I must not know thy heart bleeding; I 
 must not feel myself in the misery of being able to offer 
 thee no physic for thy wounds ! That breaks me in a 
 thousand pieces, and leads me thither whence I returned 
 last night to thee once more! Thou understandest me, 
 my angel, dost thou not? Thou know'st that I am thine, 
 and thou alone disposest of my actions, steps, my thoughts 
 and resolutions ? Do not scruple to acknowledge it — for 
 so it is! No Swan can help me, if thou help'st me not: 
 nothing has sense or meaning, save through thee ! O believe 
 it, believe it ! — So, if I bid thee, Help me, help me to this 
 or that, I merely mean : Believe that through thee alone 
 can .1 do aught, and naught without thee ! That is the 
 whole secret. — I have become more deeply cognisant thereof 
 than ever. Since the death of thy little son, it has stood 
 sadly with my work ; then I saw right clearly that it was no 
 comfort to me, but merely the expression of the lone man 
 who felt himself made one with thee and had not to distress 
 himself about thee. Ah, that's why it long has gone hard 
 with it : in truth, 'tis but a game to me ; my true earnest 
 abides not therewith, as it never was really quite in it, but 
 over and away from it, in what I yearned for, and now in 
 what alone' still makes me capable of life and art-work ! 
 O believe ! believe me that thou alone art my earnest ! 
 — Last night, when I drew my hand back from the raif 
 of the balcony, it was not my art that withheld me ! 
 In that terrible instant there shewed itself to me with well- 
 nigh visual distinctness my life's true axis, round which 
 my resolution whirled from death to new existence : it was 
 Thou ! — Thou ! — Like a smile the thought stole over me : 
 - Were it not sweeter to die in her arms ? — 
 
J 2 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 Be not vexed with me, my child: "Die Thrane quillt, 
 die Erde hat mich wieder ! " * — All Souls' day ! The day 
 of resurrection ! — 
 
 I'm writing Heim to-day, to retain me the free pass for 
 the Erard, after all ; I think of making use of it, some day, 
 to take the instrument back into Switzerland duty-free. 
 The swan has lost much of its meaning since last night; 
 it is hardly worth my promising thee delight therefrom in 
 future ! — 
 
 Our lot is hard, very hard, my beloved child ; yet in 
 exchange, we're rich enough to be able to pay each debt 
 of life and still keep for ourselves the most infinite gain. 
 But thou'lt not be dumb towards me, wilt thou? — and — 
 if I cannot "heal" thee, at least thou'lt not despise my 
 "balm"?— 
 
 We shall see each other soon. 
 
 Farewell ! 
 
 All Souls' day ! 
 Farewell ! — 
 And wish me well ! — 
 
 November 24. Venice. 
 
 Karl [Ritter] has left me for a while, to congratulate 
 his sick mother on her birthday ; he will come back shortly. 
 At our parting he much affected me, the queer creature 
 could hardly tear himself away. I really think, whoever has 
 been much with me in these last months, must have derived 
 a good impression ; certainly I have never been so clear 
 in everything, as now, or felt so little bitterness, wellnigh 
 none at all. Who knows so surely that he has nothing 
 left to seek, and henceforth but to give, is really also re- 
 conciled to all the world ; for his quarrel with it had 
 
 * " Tears flow ; the earth regains me '' — Goethe's Faust. — Tr, 
 
VENICE DIARY 73 
 
 consisted simply in his seeking something, where nothing 
 could be given him. And how does one attain this wonder- 
 gift of Giving ? To be sure, but through one's own desiring 
 nothing more oneself: he who is conscious that the only 
 happiness to touch the bottom of his heart lies quite beyond 
 the power of the world to give him, at last feels, too, how 
 justified it is in refusing what it cannot give. But what do 
 we signify by the World ? In our sense, all those human 
 beings who are practically able to give to themselves what 
 their happiness asks : honour, fame, property, smooth wed- 
 lock, diverting society, Possession in every shape; and who 
 does not attain it, scolds the world for his pains. But how 
 ill were it of us, to scold the world, since we truly ask 
 naught of all that it can give and take at its good 
 pleasure ! So I pityingly turn my gaze back to mankind, 
 and rejoice in the gifts which allow me the power of 
 comforting where Illusion lays up sorrow for itself. Who 
 stands so high, however, so wondrously upraised above the 
 world, should also under no condition ask aught of it, or 
 aught accept of it, but what upraises and endows the giver's 
 self through that acceptance. If, on the contrary, we craved 
 of it an actual sacrifice, felt by it as such — something it 
 grudged to give, — that ought to shew us at once that we 
 had descended from our plateau, and were in act of some- 
 what derogating from our dignity. This, too, was the mean- 
 ing of the Buddhist mendicancy; the monk, who had re- 
 nounced all possessions, quietly took his station in the 
 streets and before men's houses, to bless those who should 
 tender him alms by acceptance thereof. What would the 
 pious renunciant have thought of himself, if he had had to 
 wring a gift from an unwilling giver, perchance to stay his 
 hunger ; his, to whom hunger was a devotional exercise ? 
 I was glad to find my mind already clear about this 
 doctrine of giving and receiving, when I had to answer the 
 
74 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 letter of a friend on the Lake of Zurich not long since.* 
 How despicable, eh ! how criminal would that have been 
 which in that evil sense I should have had to extort from 
 the spirit of the world itself, a spirit which would believe 
 itself making a concession to me at the very time I fancied 
 it raised up to me by my high opinion of it. How proud 
 I was then, but not bitter ; the Buddhist beggar had 
 stationed himself before the wrong house, and hunger 
 became a devotion : where I dreamed of rendering happy, 
 one thought of being called to sacrifice oneself to me. 
 Needed it more, than to recognise that error? And had I to 
 renounce my last breath of life, what lives within me stays 
 pure and divine if no sacrifice of the World's attaches to it. 
 This is the knowledge — this the will — that magnifies us 
 so, that gives us the stupendous power of feeling pain itself 
 no more, and — making hunger a devotion. 
 
 — I had a winter-journey in view. That is abandoned, 
 but I see the world still clearer now ; with each devotion 
 my spirit strengthens to a power of working miracles. I 
 must have much control over people now : that I judged 
 by Karl, when he said goodbye for a little while. — I am not 
 always quite well, still my mood for the most part stays 
 bright and unruffled, nor can I help smiling when Kobold- 
 chen flits t : I heard its rattle yesterday again. — 
 
 December i. 
 
 Here have I been, poor wretch, confined to my 
 room once more for a week, and this time even to my chair, 
 
 * There can be little doubt that the said " friend " was Francois 
 Wille, if one compares these few sentences with the letter of Sept. 
 30 to Frau Eliza — -aid. inf. p. 87. Their meaning, of course, is impos- 
 sible to define precisely, but it looks as though Dr. Wille had bluntly 
 refused a friendly loan ; see also p. 144. — Tr. 
 
 t See Grimms' fairy-tale, referred to in letter 42. — Tr. 
 
VENICE DIARY 75 
 
 from which I dare not rise, and out of which I have to 
 be carried to bed of nights. Yet it is nothing more than 
 an outward affliction, which I even regard as altogether 
 determinant of my health ; so that my condition even fills 
 me with hope of being able to keep to my work quite un- 
 disturbed in future, whereas its interruption was the main 
 thing that made my previous illnesses so insufferable to me. — 
 At such times my intellect is always wide awake, plans 
 and sketches actively engage my fancy ; this time it was 
 philosophic problems that engrossed me. Of late I have 
 slowly been reading friend Schopenhauer's chief work 
 straight through again, and this time it has extraordinarily 
 incited me to expansion and even — on some points — amend- 
 ment of his system. The subject is uncommonly weighty, 
 and perhaps it had to be reserved for my peculiar nature, 
 precisely at this quite peculiar epoch in my life, to arrive 
 at insights which could open to no other man. For it is 
 a matter of demonstrating a path of salvation recognised 
 by none of the philosophers, particularly not by Sch., — 
 the pathway to complete pacification of the Will through 
 love, and that no abstract love of mankind, but the love 
 which actually blossoms from the soil of sexual love, i.e. 
 from the affection between man and woman. It is conclusive, 
 that I am able to use for this (as philosopher, — not as poet, 
 since as such I have my own) the terminology which Sch. 
 himself supplies me. The exposition leads very deep and 
 far, for it embraces a preciser explanation of the state in 
 which we become able to apprehend Ideas, as also of that 
 of Genius {Genialitaf), which I no longer conceive as a state 
 of disengagement of the intellect from the will, but rather 
 as an enhancement of the intellect of the individual to a 
 cognitive organ of the race itself (Erkenntnissorgan der 
 Gattung), thus of the Will as Thing-in-itself ; whence alone, 
 moreover, is to be explained that strange enthusiastic 
 
76 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 joyfulness and rapture in the supreme moments of geni-al 
 cognition which Sch. seems hardly to know, as he can 
 find it [i.e. that mode of cognition] only in repose and in the silenc- 
 ing of the individual passions. Quite analogously to this 
 conception, I then arrive with greatest certainty at proving 
 in Love a possibility of attaining to that exaltation above 
 the instinct of the individual will where, after complete 
 subjection of this latter, the racial will comes to full con- 
 sciousness of itself; which upon this height is necessarily 
 tantamount to complete pacification. All this will be made 
 clear even to the inexperienced, if my statement succeeds ; 
 whilst the result cannot but be very significant, and entirely 
 and satisfactorily fill the gaps in Schopenhauer's system. 
 We will see if I'm in the mood for it some day. — * 
 
 December 8. 
 
 To-day I have been into the open air again for 
 the first time. I'm not completely well yet, nevertheless this 
 last illness — in which I really was quite helpless, as I could 
 not stir a foot — has enlightened me about myself quite 
 satisfactorily, through the experiences reaped from it. Karl 
 has been away nearly 3 weeks [p. 72], so that I had almost 
 
 * The idea, so far as it touches Love, seems never to have been 
 worked out farther than the following fragment of an uncompleted letter, 
 never sent to Schopenhauer, which made its posthumous appearance in 
 the Bayreuther Blatter 1886, and now is definitively dated by the above: — 
 
 "Metaphysics of Sexual Love. — 'Each year presents us with one or 
 another case of concerted suicide of a loving, but outwardly impeded 
 pair. To myself it nevertheless remains inexplicable, how two persons 
 assured of mutual love, and anticipating the utmost bliss from its fruition, 
 should not rather adopt the extremest steps to extricate themselves from 
 all relations and suffer any ignominy, than give up with their lives a 
 happiness beyond which they can conceive of no greater' [Welt als 
 Wille u. V. ii. § 44]. 
 
 " It flatters me to suppose that you really have not yet discovered 
 any explanation of this, as it tempts me to connect with such a point 
 
VENICE DIARY 77 
 
 nobody to talk with except my doctor and the servants ; 
 oddly also, I never felt the least desire for company, but 
 quite the reverse. When a Russian prince here* — whom 
 I could not quite shake off, and who combines a right 
 good-heartedness with much intelligence, particularly in 
 respect of music — came to call on me one day, I was heartily 
 glad at bottom when he left ; I always feel it a useless, 
 altogether profitless exertion, to — entertain myself with 
 anybody. On the other hand, I'm always glad to see the 
 servants ; here the still naive man appeals to me, with all 
 his faults and merits. And they have tended me right well, 
 in fact with some self-sacrifice, for which I am very grateful : 
 Kurwenal, for once, stands nearer me than Melot. Moreover, 
 communications from without kept silent almost all the 
 time, the postman hardly ever shewed his face. When 
 I reached the Piazza to-day in the gondola, the whole place 
 was swarming with life and colour ; but I have chosen an 
 hour for dining when I'm sure of being quite alone in 
 the restaurant, so I slipped unnoticed through the motley 
 throng once more, back to my gondola, and fared down the 
 silent canal to my earnest palace. The lamp is burning, 
 
 to submit to you a view whereby I think I can see in the beginnings of 
 sexual love itself one path of salvation, to self-knowledge and self-denial 
 of the Will, and that not merely of the Individual will. 
 
 " You alone supply me with the terminology whereby my view may 
 be imparted philosophically; and, in attempting to make my meaning 
 clear, I rely on nothing but what I have learnt through yourself. Please 
 attribute it to my inexpertness, perhaps also to my inaptitude for 
 dialectics, if it is only by a circuitous route — and in particular, by first 
 reciting the highest and most perfect instance of that resolution of the 
 Will which I refer to — that I arrive at an explanation of the case adduced 
 by you ; which, again, I can only regard as an imperfect and lower grade 
 of that other." 
 
 Combining the two passages, we could wish for no completer refuta- 
 tion of the "Tristan and Isolde " slanderers old and new. — Tr. 
 
 * Prince Dolgorucki ; see letter 58a, also of Nov. 21 to Liszt. — Tr. 
 
78 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 everything is so still and grave around me; and within 
 the sure, unequivocal feeling that this is the world for me, 
 from which my longing can reach forth no more without 
 grief and self-deception. So I feel happy in it ; the servants 
 often catch me in the blithest humour, and then I'm fond 
 of joking with them. — 
 
 With reading, too, I stay most limited ; little tempts me. 
 In the long run I always hark back to my Schopenhauer, 
 who has led me to the most remarkable trains of thought, 
 as lately indicated, in amendment of some of his imperfec- 
 tions. The theme becomes more interesting to me every 
 day, for it is a question here of explications such as I alone 
 can give, since there never was another man who was poet 
 and musician at once, in my sense, and therefore to whom 
 an insight into inner processes has become possible such 
 as could be expected of no other* — 
 
 I meant also to read Humboldt's Letters to a Lady-friend, 
 but could only get the booklet of Elisa Mayer, about him 
 and with extracts from him. I laid this little tract down 
 much dissatisfied : unmistakably the best of it was what my 
 lady-friend already had extracted from it for me. Whoever 
 knows Humboldt well, will certainly make acquaintance 
 with a very able scientific student and inquirer. As man, 
 too, he must have been most pleasing and attractive ; I 
 cannot quarrel with Schiller for having frequented his 
 society ; such a man would have been very valuable to 
 myself. Productive minds need closer contact with such 
 decidedly receptive natures, were it only because one often 
 wants to give of oneself unchecked ; whereas one easily 
 consoles oneself for discovering, on a final valuation, that 
 
 * To this period must accordingly be assigned at least that jotting 
 found among the Posthumous papers, "The great joy," etc., Prose Works 
 VIII. p. 391 ; whilst the larger subject gets developed at length in the 
 Beethoven essay (1870). — Tr. 
 
VENICE DIARY 79 
 
 the assumption of one's having been quite grasped was 
 really nothing, after all, but our own good faith. As a fact, 
 Humboldt didn't comprehend much of the essence of things ; 
 there he remains decidedly shallow and ordinary, and this 
 parson-like cant about Providence and the kind God is a 
 little surprising in the intimate friend of Schiller, the pupil 
 of Kant. I very soon saw that this man, too, was one of 
 those of whom Jesus said : it is easier for a camel to go 
 through a needle's eye, than for them to enter the kingdom 
 of Heaven ! The perpetually-recurrent ensurance of his easy 
 circumstances is positively droll : to two inherited fortunes 
 he weds two others, and further receives from the State 
 the present of a fifth ; robust and well brought up, he 
 marries young a wife he can love with full sincerity until 
 his death : add to all which a lively mind, an era of 
 Schiller and Goethe, and I should say one couldn't be more 
 luckily equipped by " Providence " ; neither for his becoming 
 a statesman and diplomat, one hopes, had he Providence 
 to blame. — The more touching and affecting, however, is 
 the love of this man, and his gentle exit from the world. 
 Above all, / thank him for one deep and final anodyne, 
 through a tiny immaterial saying which my lady-friend, 
 however, repeated to me with so wondrous beautiful an 
 accent of innocence that those few lines have made a great 
 impression on me, pointing out the only path to hope : it 
 was the passage about "confidence" and "confidences." — 
 
 Since yesterday I have been occupied with the Tristan 
 again. I'm in the second act still, but — what music it's 
 becoming! I could work my whole life long at this music 
 alone. O, it grows deep and fair, and the sublimest marvels 
 fit so supply to the sense ; I have never made a thing like 
 this ! But I also am melting away in this music ; I'll hear 
 of no more, when it's finished. In it will I live for aye, 
 and with me — 
 
80 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 December 22. 
 
 A lovely morning, dear child ! 
 For three days had I been plodding at the passage 
 " Wen du umfangen, wem du gelacht " and " In deinen 
 Armen, dir geweiht," etc. — I had been long interrupted, and 
 could not find the corner in my memory for its working 
 out ; it made me seriously uneasy. I could get no farther, — 
 when Koboldchen tapped, it shewed its face to me as 
 gracious Muse, and in an instant the passage was clear ; I sat 
 down to the piano, and wrote it off as rapidly as if I had 
 known it by heart for ever so long. A severe critic will 
 find a touch of reminiscence in it : the " Traume " flit close by ; 
 but thou'lt forgive me that — my darling ! — Nay, ne'er repent 
 thy love of me : 'tis heavenly ! — 
 
 1859. 
 
 January 1. 
 
 Nay ! ne'er repent them, those caresses wherewith 
 thou deck'dst my threadbare life : I had not known them, 
 those flowers of bliss, bloomed from the purest soil of noblest 
 love ! What I had dreamt as poet, was destined once to 
 turn out for myself so wondrous true, on the common clay 
 of my earthly existence was destined once to fall that 
 gentle quick'ning and refreshing dew : I never had hoped 
 it, and yet it is to me as if I still had known it. Now 
 am I raised to nobility, I have received the highest badge 
 of knighthood ; at thy heart, in thine eye, by thy lips — 
 have I been raised out of the world, every inch of me now 
 is free and noble. As with holy awe at my lordship, I'm 
 thrilled through and through with the sense of having been 
 loved by thee with such abundance, so exquisitely tenderly, 
 and yet so altogether chastely! — Ah, I still breathe it, the 
 magic fragrance of those blooms thou pluck'dst me from thy 
 
VENICE DIARY 8 1 
 
 heart ! They were not buds of life : so smell the wonder- 
 blooms of heavenly death, of life eternal ; so decked they of 
 yore the hero's corse, ere it was burnt to godlike ashes. Into 
 that grave of flames and perfumes leapt his loved one, 
 to mingle her beloved's ashes with her own — and they were 
 one ! One element, not two loving mortals : one divine 
 ur-substance of eternity ! — Nay, ne'er repent those flames ; 
 their fire was radiant, pure and white ! No lurid glow, no 
 fumes, no acrid vapour soiled it aye, the clear chaste flame 
 that shone for no one yet so pure and so transfiguring as for 
 us, and therefore also none can know of. — Thy caresses — 
 they are the crown of my life, the sweet roses that blossomed 
 from the wreath of thorns wherewith alone my head was 
 clad. Now am I proud and happy ! Not a wish, not a 
 longing ! Delight, supreme consciousness, strength and 
 aptitude for everything, for every storm of life ! — Nay I nay, 
 repent them not ! Repent them ne'er ! — 
 
 January 8. 
 
 O Tag! Du aller guter Geister Gott 
 
 Sei mir gegriisstl 
 Gegriisst nach langer Nacht ! — 
 Bringst Du von ihr mir Kunde ? — * 
 
 April 4. 
 Lucerne. 
 
 The dream of Wiedersehen is dreamt ; so — have 
 we met again. Was it not in reality naught but a dream ? 
 These hours I have passed in thy house, in what do they 
 
 * " O Day, thou god of all good spirits ! I greet thee, greet thee after 
 weary Night ! — Bringest me word of her ? — " Tr. 
 
82 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 differ from that other dream I erewhile dreamed so fondly 
 of my coming back? Almost it stands before me more 
 distinct, than the triste reality to which my memory will lend 
 itself so little. To me, it is as if I actually had not seen 
 thee plainly at all ; thick mists lay between us, through 
 which scarce pierced the sound of voices. Also it is to me 
 as if thou actually didst not see myself ; as if, in my stead, a 
 ghost had come into thy house. Didst recognise me? — O 
 heavens ! I recognise it : this is the road to sanctity ! Life, 
 reality, ever more dreamlike, the senses numbed ; the eye — 
 wide open — sees no more, — the willing ear forgoes all echo 
 of the Present ; where we are, we see each other not ; only 
 where we are not, rests each's gaze on each. Thus is the 
 Present non-extant, and all our Future null. — Is my work 
 really worth my preserving myself for? — But thou, thy 
 children? — Let us live! — 
 
 And when I read on thine own face the traces of so great 
 a suffering, when I pressed to my lips thy shrunk hand— a 
 deep throb shot through me, and called me to a finer duty. 
 Our love's miraculous power has helped till now ; it 
 strengthened me to win the possibility of a return ; it taught 
 me this dreamlike oblivion of all the Present, enabling me to 
 approach thy presence undeterred thereby ; it quenched all 
 my chagrin and bitterness, so that I could kiss the very 
 threshold which permitted me to pass to thee : so let me 
 trust it ! It will also teach me to see thee plainly once again, 
 e'en through the veil — which we have donned as penitents — 
 to shew myself as well to thee all bright and clear I — - 
 
 Thou heavenly saint, have trust in me ! 
 
 I shall be able ! — 
 
 Sg 
 
VENICE LETTERS 
 
 SEPT. 1858 TO MARCH 1859 
 
 83 
 
58. 
 
 Venice, Sept. 30, 58. 
 To Frau Eliza Wille.* 
 
 Believe me, dear honoured Lady, I must keep tight hold 
 on myself, to hold out at all ! Almost every hour I have 
 cause to remind myself : Sit tight ! otherwise all flies 
 asunder ! — The one thing now left me is isolation, complete 
 seclusion. It is my only comfort, only rescue ; and yet 
 it's so unnatural, especially for me, who am so fond of 
 unrestrained communication. However — unnatural is just 
 the word for everything about me. I have no experience 
 what family, relatives — children are : my wedlock has been 
 nothing but a trial of my patience and pity. — By me no 
 friend is thinkable, to whom I could , fully unbosom myself 
 without repenting it ; every day I become more aware how 
 misunderstood I always am, wholesale and retail ; and an 
 inner voice, the voice of my truest nature, assures me it 
 were better if I relentlessly freed, not only myself, but also 
 my friends, from all illusion in that regard. — 
 
 For, the whole world is nothing if not practical ; but 
 with me the ideal gains such reality that it makes out 
 my true life, and I can bear no jot thereof to be disturbed. 
 Thus, arrived at my forty-sixth year, I'm forced to see that 
 
 * " An die Freundin Frau Eliza Wille." As the original of this letter is 
 missing, presumably the superscription is an addition of Frau Mathilde's. 
 The Willes lived on the opposite side of the Lake of Zurich, but had 
 become intimate with the Wesendoncks, probably through Wagner 
 himself. See also the letters to Frau Wille published together with the 
 Letters to Otto Wesendonck. — Tr. 
 
 85 
 
86 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 solitude must be my only solace and I must stand alto- 
 gether alone. Tis so and I cannot deceive myself, 'tis this 
 insight that keeps me from collapse, and were I once to act 
 against it, I know I should be utterly lost : then bitter 
 ire would deluge everything. So my motto is simply, Hold 
 out — hold thy tongue ! * — 
 
 When fancy gets full play at last, then things will go ; 
 and mental work indemnifies, so long as it proceeds un- 
 troubled. But mind, in the long run, always feeds upon 
 heart : and how waste that region stands with me ! — 
 
 All foreign and cold around ! No lulling, not a look, 
 no soothing sound. I have sworn not even to procure 
 myself a little dog : it shall never be that I've a pet about 
 me. — After all, she has her children ! — 
 
 Nay, but that is no reproach, merely a moan ; and I 
 think she likes to take me as I am, moaning and all. True, 
 I have my art! Yet even that affords me no delight, and 
 I can but shudder if I look away from my work to the 
 world it will have to belong to; a world that only in the 
 most repulsive mangling can make it its own ! — 
 
 Yes, I ought not to think on it, as on so much else: 
 I know that. Wherefore I also don't mean to, but keep 
 on calling to myself : Sit tight ! it must be ! Go it must — and 
 go it shall ! — 
 
 Indeed she helps me charmingly ! What a heavenly 
 letter was that you sent me to-day from her ! The dear 
 sweet soul — let her be comforted ; her friend is faithful to 
 her, lives on her alone — and therefore holds out ! — 
 
 Ay ! it must go, and — go it shall ;— I imagine that 
 Venice will help, and believe the selection was excellent. 
 I really meant to write Wille a word or two about my 
 life here ; but that also you must take on your shoulders. 
 
 ijjee next page, also the Diary entry'of Nov. 24, p. 74, — Tr, 
 
VENICE LETTERS 87 
 
 He has already vouchsafed me an unheard-of sacrifice, a 
 letter in which he simply gave me to understand the sacrifice 
 it cost him. Tho' that was and sounded very waggish, 
 I won't put him to the pains again ; * best for us to have 
 another chat, about Venice this time, on the sofa in his 
 red study with the fine antiques. Give him my very best 
 anticipations ! — 
 
 I am not leading an actual life as yet here ; there can 
 be no question of that till I'm at work once more : and I still 
 am waiting for the piano ! So rest content with a description 
 of the terrain on which I have had to fix to live. Did 
 you not write me, you knew this part? My palace lies 
 about midway between the Piazzetta and the Rialto, close 
 to the knee the Canal here makes, which is formed the 
 sharpest by the Foscari palace (barracks now) at my side; 
 right opposite is the Palazzo Grassi, which Herr Sina at 
 present is having restored. My landlord is an Austrian, 
 who received me enthusiastically for my famous name, and 
 shews himself extraordinarily obliging to me in every way. 
 (He also is the cause of my arrival's getting into the 
 newspapers at once.) You have read how people regarded 
 my being here as a political move, to worm my cautious 
 track through Austria into Germany. Even friend Liszt 
 was of that opinion, warned me, but also exhorted 
 me to count on no successes of my operas in Italy, on 
 which I surely must have had an eye : it really was not 
 my terrain, and he was surprised at my refusal to see it. 
 The answer to that I found most hard ! — 
 
 I was supposed to be on my way to Vienna, too, as 
 you probably know, but scarcely believed ? — 
 
 I'm still the solitary guest (lodger) in my palace, and 
 occupy spaces that scared me at first. However, I could 
 
 * See pages 74 and top of 86. — Tr. 
 
88 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 find little cheaper, absolutely nothing more convenient ; 
 so I moved into my big drawing-room, which is exactly 
 twice as big as the Wesendoncks', with a passable ceiling- 
 picture, splendid mosaic floor, and what is bound to be 
 glorious resonance for the Erard. I took some pains forth- 
 with to overcome the stiff unhomeliness of the upholstery ; 
 the folding-doors between a huge bedroom and a little 
 adjoining cabinet had to be removed at once, and portieres 
 took their place, though of no such beautiful material as 
 my last in the Asyl ; cotton must serve for the nonce to 
 establish the stage-decoration. The colour had to be red 
 this time, as the rest of the furniture was that already; 
 only the bedroom is green. An immense hall gives space 
 for my morning promenade; on one side it has a balcony 
 over the canal, on the other it looks into the courtyard 
 with a little well-paved garden. So here I pass my day till 
 about 5 in the afternoon. Of a morning I make my own 
 tea : I have two cups, one of which I bought here and 
 Ritter gets to drink from, if I bring him back in the evening ; 
 out of the other, which is very large and handsome, I drink 
 myself. I also have a proper [? soda-]water-apparatus, 
 which I didn't buy here : it is white with gold stars, which 
 I have not counted yet, but presumably are more than 
 seven* 
 
 About S the gondolier is called, for I'm so situated that 
 whoever wants to get at me must cross the water (which also 
 affords me a pleasant shut-offness). Through the narrow 
 alleys right and left, yet " sempre dritto " (as you know !) to 
 the restaurant in S. Mark's Square, where I find Ritter as a 
 rule. Thence " sempre dritto " in the gondola to the Lido 
 or the Giardino publico, where I usually take my little 
 promenade ; then back by gondola to the Piazzetta for 
 
 * See p. 44 about the " Wagoner," alias Ursa Major. For the cup and 
 " Wassertrinkgeschirr " (which might also mean a filter), see p. 43. — Tr. 
 
VENICE LETTERS 89 
 
 another saunter, my glass of ice in the Cafe" de la Rotunde, 
 and then to the traghetto, which returns me through the 
 sombre night of the Canal to my palace, where a lighted lamp 
 awaits me about 8 ! — 
 
 The singular contrast of the still and melancholy grandeur 
 of my abode and its site with the constant mirth and glitter 
 of the Square and its belongings, the pleasing sense of 
 personal indifference towards this throng, the perpetual din 
 of wrangling gondoliers, and finally the quiet transit in the 
 twilight or as night falls — hardly ever fails to make a grateful, 
 and at last an agreeably calming impression upon me. And 
 at this I have stopped, for the present ; as yet I have felt no 
 craving for inspection of the art-treasures ; I reserve that for 
 the winter : I'm glad enough, for now, to be able to taste 
 this placid rise and setting of my day with equable content. — 
 My mouth I open to no one but Ritter, who is so taciturn as 
 never to disturb me ; he likewise is alone, his wife having 
 stayed behind. We part on the traghetto every evening, and 
 very seldom does he set his foot in my abode. — It would 
 have been impossible for me to choose a spot better suited to 
 my present needs. Utterly alone in an insignificant, un- 
 interesting little place, a gregarious hankering after company 
 would have been bound in the end to make me seize some 
 opportunity of social intercourse ; and an acquaintanceship 
 sprung from that sort of need, and finally consolidated, is just 
 the thing to torture one at last. On the contrary, I could 
 nowhere lead a more retired life than here ; for the interesting, 
 theatrically absorbing spectacle that here renews for me its 
 vivid contrast day by day prevents the faintest wish arising 
 to play a definite individual r61e therein, since I feel I 
 should then lose all the charm which the spectacle offers me 
 as a purely objective beholder. Thus my life in Venice 
 until now is a perfectly faithful image of my whole bearings 
 toward the world at large ; at least as, in accord with my 
 
90 WAGNER TO MATHH.DE WESENDONCK 
 
 knowledge and resignative need, they must and shall be. 
 How I have to regret it, every time I step beyond them ! — 
 
 When they've played pieces from Tannhauser and 
 Lohengrin in S. Mark's Square — where we have a military 
 band on Sunday evenings — it really seemed to me, for all 
 my anger at the dragging tempo, as if I had nothing what- 
 ever to do with it. For that matter, I'm already known 
 everywhere ; in particular, the Austrian officers often astonish 
 me with signs thereof in delicate attentions. It has got 
 about, however, that I wish to remain in most thorough 
 seclusion, and after a few callers have been persistently 
 refused admittance people are leaving me in peace. With 
 the police I'm on excellent terms: certainly my. pass was 
 demanded again, after a while, so that I began to think of 
 measures commencing ; but it was soon sent me back with 
 due ceremony, and the assurance that there was absolutely 
 no objection to my continued stay in Venice. Thus Austria 
 decidedly vouchsafes me refuge, which really is something 
 worth acknowledgment. — 
 
 What gives my life from within out so peculiar, almost 
 dreamlike a character, is its utter lack of future; the 
 sentiment of Humboldt and his lady-friend is altogether 
 mine. When I go on the water of an evening, survey the 
 mirror-bright expanse of sea, which, stretching motionless 
 to the horizon, there joins the sky with absolutely no 
 distinction to be noted, the evening red of the heavens 
 completely wed to its reflection in the water — I have before 
 me a faithful likeness of my present : what is present, past 
 or future, is as little to be distinguished as there the sea 
 and sky. Yet streaks then shew, flat isles that give the 
 picture drawing here and there, and far away a ship's 
 mast points on the horizon ; the star of evening shines, the 
 fixed stars twinkle, above in the sky and below in the sea : — 
 which is past, which future ? I see but stars and pure rose- 
 
VENICE LETTERS 9 1 
 
 tinted clarity, and in between them glides my bark, all 
 noiseless with light plashing of the oar,— maybe that is the 
 present. — 
 
 Greet the dear angel many-thousand times, and tell her 
 not to scorn the gentle tears that drip for me ! And if you 
 partake of all as well, in power of your noble friendship, 
 indeed, indeed we're happy ! — 
 
 Farewell ! 
 
 Your 
 R. W. 
 
 \To Frau Wesendonck henceforward.~\ 
 
 58a. 
 
 [Mid-December 1858.*] 
 Our letters have crossed : yours came just after I had 
 posted mine ! — 
 
 I have been quite alone for some time past ; Karl Ritter 
 left me to congratulate his sick mother on her birthday 
 [cf. p. 72]. When he went, I was just recovering from an 
 
 * In the German edition this letter is printed as an integral part of 
 that numbered "6l," there filling the position indicated by the line I 
 have left blank on p. 107. Its contents, however — more particularly in 
 their similarity to the Diary entries of Nov. 24, Dec. 1. and 8, 1858 — assign 
 it beyond all doubt to somewhere between the 12th and 15th of December 
 '58 ; a point of considerable interest in view of the concluding information 
 as to the printing of the Tristan und Isolde poem. Nor is it difficult 
 to guess how the confusion arose, if we bear in mind that of letter 61 
 "the original is missing"- clearly, in copying-out at some distant epoch, 
 Frau Wesendonck has in this instance misarranged a sheet of Wagner's 
 manuscript. The only point uncertain is that of the location of the brief 
 sentence " Our letters have crossed " etc : placing it here, I am influenced 
 by the consideration that it is far more appropriate to a letter's beginning, 
 than to its middle or end. If that conjecture of mine is correct, we have 
 an indication of the former existence of at least one other letter of Wagner's 
 concurrent with his Venice Diary. Finally, I have to observe that the 
 " Du," which still appears in the intimate Diary, is replaced in this and 
 All subsequent letters by the more ceremonious " Sie." — Tr. 
 
92 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 illness that had interrupted my work — then scarce commenced ; 
 I promised him, if he returned, to have another large slice 
 of the Tristan ready, but I had to reconcile myself once 
 more to keeping my room, and this time — in consequence 
 of an outer lesion on my leg — a captive even to my chair, on 
 which I had to get myself carried to bed. That lasted more 
 or less till now ; only the last few days have I been out 
 in the gondola again. I tell you this, to link to this chapter 
 of misfortunes the tidings that I did not lose my patience 
 for a moment, although I had to give up work again, but 
 kept my mind free and cheerful through it all. I didn't 
 see a creature all the time except my doctor, Louisa — my 
 Donna di servente, who nursed and bandaged me very well — 
 and Pietro, who had much stoking to do, fetched me food, 
 and with aid of a gondolier, morning and night, bore me 
 out of and into bed again upon my chair: a manoeuvre 
 I called the " traghetto " and always gave orders for with 
 the habitual Venice " Popp6h." Louisa and Pietro were 
 surprised and delighted to find me in such constant good 
 spirits ; what particularly pleased them, was my explanation 
 why I was such a bad hand at talking with them, namely, 
 because they had the Venetian dialect, whereas I knew 
 nothing but pure Tuscan. — 
 
 A good-natured, well-informed and intelligent man, a 
 Prince Dolgorucki, called on me one day ; I was pleased 
 when he came, still more so when he went away, I feel 
 so happy not to be amused and distracted. I didn't do 
 much reading, however — even in such predicaments I read, 
 tho' little — yet I sent for W. v. Humboldt's letters, which 
 didn't particularly please me. In fact I found it difficult 
 to read much of them, as I already knew their best part 
 through an extract : four lines of that were dearer to me 
 than all the diffuse, confused remainder. I wonder if you 
 will guess the four lines? — 
 
VENICE LETTERS 93 
 
 I am more interested in Schiller. With him I'm un- 
 commonly fond of consorting now : Goethe has had a hard 
 job to hold his own beside this intensely sympathetic nature. 
 How everything here is pure ardour for knowledge ! One 
 fancies, this man never existed at all, but was simply always 
 on the watch for intellectual light and warmth. Apparently 
 his ailing health didn't stand at all in his way: at his 
 maturity, though, he also appears to have been altogether 
 free from overpowering moral sorrows ; in that quarter 
 all seems to have gone fairly well with him. And then 
 there was so much still. for him to know — at a time when 
 Kant had left such weighty points unsettled — so much 
 that it was difficult to acquire, especially for a poet who 
 also tries to be quite clear in his thinking (im Begriffe). 
 One thing lacks to all these men, though — Music ; albeit 
 they felt a need thereof, a presage. This often comes 
 out quite distinctly, for instance in that most happy sub- 
 stitution of the antithesis of " plastic " and " musical " poetry 
 for that of "epic" and "lyric." With Music, however, a 
 puissance has been won compared wherewith the poets 
 of that wondrous seeking, strenuous age of evolution were 
 but as outline-draughtsmen in their works ; and that is just 
 why they belong so intimately to me, they're my incarnate 
 heritage. Happy were they, tho' — happier without music: 
 the intellectual concept {Begriff) gives no pain, but in 
 music Begriff becomes Feeling; that consumes and burns, 
 until it bursts into bright flame and the wonderful new 
 light can laugh aloud ! — 
 
 Then I did a lot of philosophy, and arrived at some 
 big results, supplementing and correcting my friend 
 Schopenhauer : I prefer to ruminate a thing like that in 
 my head, however, to writing it down. On the other hand, 
 poetic schemes are looming again very lifelike before me. 
 The Parzival has occupied me much : in particular a singular 
 
94 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 creation, a strangely world-dsemonic woman (the Grail's 
 messenger), is dawning upon me with ever greater life 
 and fascination — if I bring this poem off some day,* I 
 should have to do something very original with that. Only, 
 I have no idea how much longer I ought to live, to carry 
 out all my various plans. Were I really in love with life, 
 I might fancy quite a long existence guaranteed me by 
 this multitude of projects ; yet it does not necessarily 
 follow — Humboldt tells us that Kant still proposed to work 
 out quite a mass of ideas, from which, however, and very 
 naturally at his great age, death stopped him. — 
 
 Even against the completion of Tristan I remark quite 
 a fatalistic opposition, this time. Not that that can induce 
 me to scamp it : on the contrary, I'm composing away 
 as if I meant to work at nothing else my whole life long, 
 and in return it will be finer than anything I've ever done ; 
 the smallest phrase has the import to me of a whole act, 
 with such attention am I carrying it out. And as I happen 
 to be speaking of the Tristan, I must tell you of my delight 
 at having just received a first copy of the newly-printed 
 poem, in the nick of time to send it you as birthday 
 present.t — 
 
 * " Wenn ich diese Dichtung noch einmal zu Stande bringe, miisste ich 
 damit etwas sehr Originelles liefern." Since the noch einmal is repeated 
 in the next sentence, " wenn ich all' meine Plane noch einmal ausfuhren 
 soil," in respect of " plans " which certainly had not been " carried out " 
 before, it cannot here be held to signify that Wagner had actually 
 written a Parzival "poem" already. On the other hand, in his preface 
 to the German edition of these letters, Dr. Golther informs us that 
 " the three acts of Parzival were provisionally sketched in brief at the 
 end of April 1857," — for which, in the absence of more exact specification, 
 and as Wagner was then in the thick of a household removal (p. lix.), I 
 take the liberty of reading " April 1858 " (cf. pp. 22-23). — Tr. 
 
 t "Angebinde," i.e. for Dec. 23. Presumably there was more than 
 this in the original letter, of which the above appears to be but a 
 stray fragment, as it does not come to a full close, and one would 
 naturally expect some sort of signature. — Tr. 
 
VENICE LETTERS 95 
 
 59. 
 
 Venice, Jan. 19, 59. 
 
 Thanks for the lovely fable, Lady-friend [see p. 98]. 
 'Twere easy to explain how everything that comes from you 
 always reaches me with symbolical significance. Precisely 
 to the hour, the moment, came your greeting yesterday, 
 as if a necessity conjured by magic ; I was seated at the 
 piano ; the old gold pen was spinning its last web over the 
 second act of Tristan, its touch just lingering on the fleeting 
 joys of my pair of lovers' first re-meeting. When I yield 
 to the sedative of a last enjoyment of my own creation, as 
 happens with its instrumenting, I often get plunged in an 
 infinitude of unbidden thoughts withal, which display to 
 me the utterly peculiar nature of the poet, of the artist, 
 forever unintelligible by the world. Then I plainly recognise 
 herein the wonder of it, its total opposition to the usual 
 view of life : whereas that view turns ever on the pivot 
 of experience, poetic intuition, preceding all experience, 
 embraces altogether of its ownest potency what first lends 
 all experience a sense and meaning. If you were a regular 
 adept at philosophy, I would call to your mind that here 
 we meet in strongest measure the phenomenon whereby all 
 manner of cognition first grows possible, to wit, by this : 
 the whole scaffolding of Space, Time and Causality, wherein 
 the world presents itself to us, pre-exists in our brain as its 
 most distinctive function ; consequently these conditioning 
 attributes of every thing, namely its dimension, duration and 
 effectuation, are already contained in our head before our 
 cognition of the things themselves, which we otherwise could 
 not cognise at all. — 
 
 Now, that which is upraised above Space, Time and 
 Causality, and does not need these helps for its cognition ; 
 that which is loosed from these conditions of finitude, and 
 whereof Schiller so finely says that it alone is true (wahr) 
 
96 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 because it never was (war) ; this which is totally incom- 
 prehensible by the common view of the world only the 
 poet cognises with that full prefigurement residing in himself, 
 and governing all his fashionings, that he is able to represent 
 it with infallible certainty, — this Something that is surer and 
 more definite than any other object of cognition, albeit it 
 bears on itself not one attribute of the world which we know 
 by experience. — 
 
 The supreme marvel must be, tho', if that foreknown 
 essential Something should enter at last the poet's own 
 experience. His Idea then will take great part in this 
 experience's shaping : the purer and higher that, the more 
 unworldlike and incomparable this ; it will purge his will, 
 his' aesthetic interest will become a moral one, and to the 
 highest poetic idea will link itself the highest moral conscious- 
 ness. Then will it be his task to prove it in the moral 
 world ; the same foreknowledge will guide him, that, as 
 cognition of the aesthetic idea, had moved him to present 
 that idea in his artwork and qualified him for the 
 experience. — 
 
 The common world, still standing under the influence 
 of experiences forced upon it from without, and grasping 
 nothing that is not driven home to its sense of touch, so 
 to say, can never comprehend this position of the poet 
 toward his experiential world. It will never be able to 
 account for the striking positiveness of his fashionings, 
 otherwise than that they must at some time have come 
 as directly to his own experience as all that it has made 
 a note of in its memory. 
 
 That phenomenon I have observed the most surprisingly 
 in my own case. With my poetic conceptions I have been 
 so far ahead of my experiences, that I may consider my 
 moral development as almost exclusively induced and 
 brought about by those conceptions ; Flying Dutchman, 
 
VENICE LETTERS 97 
 
 Tannhauser, Lohengrin, Nibelungs, Wodan— all existed 
 earlier in my head than my experience. But the marvellous 
 relation in which I stand to the Tristan now, you will easily 
 perceive yourself: I say it openly, since it is an observa- 
 tion due to the initiated mind, though not to the world, 
 that never has an idea so definitely passed into experience. 
 How far the two predestined one another, is so subtle, so 
 wondrous a regard, that the common mode of perception 
 will be able to conceive it only in the sorriest distortion. 
 And now, when Sawitri — Parzival^are filling my mind 
 with previsions and striving to mould themselves next to 
 the poetic idea— now to be bending o'er the work of 
 artistic completion of my Tristan with all the calm of 
 plastic meditation, — now ! who will divine the wonder that 
 must fill me, and so waft me away from the world that to 
 me it seems all but wholly overcome already ? You divine 
 it, You know it ! Ay, and haply you alone ! — 
 
 For if another guessed it, knew it, then no one would 
 chafe at us more ; and every triste experience, invading his 
 heart from without, he must needs offer up with a noble's 
 sense of exaltation as a sacrifice due to, and in sympathy 
 with, the higher ends of the World-spirit, which moulds 
 from out itself experiences wherein to suffer, and through 
 those sufferings to lift itself still higher. But — who will 
 comprehend it? — would there be such nameless sorrow in 
 the world, if our cognition were so much alike as the 
 eudaemonistic will is like in all of us ? In this alone resides 
 men's misery : if we all cognised the Idea of the world 
 and of Existence alike and accordantly, that misery would 
 be impossible. But whence this hurly-burly of religions, 
 dogmas, opinions and eternally warring views ? Because all 
 wish the same, without cognising it. So let the clearer- 
 sighted save himself; and above all — let him dispute no more ! 
 Let him mutely suffer of the madness that grins around him, 
 
 7 
 
98 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 thrusts at him in every shape, in every reference, demanding, 
 where it is blind, coveting where it misjudges. Here nothing 
 helps but — silence and endurance ! — 
 
 All this will strike you as another fairy-tale ; yet per- 
 chance, as another, it holds the key to yours*: the grey 
 sparrow extols its Creator, and as good as it understands 
 Him, so good sounds its song ! — 
 
 You see, I'm so happy as to be able to work again. 
 And verily that is a happiness, whereas a really serious 
 illness is no such great misfortune, since it also liberates the 
 mind and sets the moral force in action. The worst of 
 states is that in which we are not absolutely ill, yet hampered 
 and unsettled ; where profound discomfort takes us in our 
 contact with the outer world, wishes and requirements try 
 to raise their voice, the instinct of activity finds no right 
 fulcrum, all is barred, all clogged, nothing permitted, naught 
 will fit. Where this void and cheerlessness arise — this long- 
 ing, yearning, wanting — it is given to no mortal to maintain 
 himself continually at height of his true nature ; for his 
 whole existence is strictly based on one perpetual struggle 
 with the more subsidiary conditions of its very possibility, 
 and his higher nature can express itself through nothing but 
 the final victory in this fight ; ay, it is nothing else except 
 that victory, the force which compasses it, and thus at 
 bottom one perpetual negation— namely, a denial of the 
 sway of those subsidiary conditions. And this comes out 
 so strikingly in the purely physical groundwork of our body 
 itself, where all, even the chemical (vegetaleri) components of 
 the whole are forever pressing on to dissolution, severance ; 
 conspicuously succeeding, too, at last in bodily death, when 
 the vital force is finally exhausted by the constant fight. 
 Thus we have to be ever, ever fighting, merely to be what 
 
 * " The stranger bird " [see p. 339 inf. — Tr,]. 
 
VENICE LETTERS 99 
 
 we are ; and the more subsidiary and lowly are the elements 
 of our existence from which we have to wrest submission, 
 the less worthy of our highest essence can we shew ourselves 
 when at war for the time being with them alone. Thus 
 I have to do battle every day, and almost all day, with 
 the purely corporeal base of my existence. I'm not exactly 
 an invalid, but quite uncommonly susceptible ; so that I 
 feel a smart in all those regions which in people of lesser 
 sensibility never enter consciousness at all. Naturally I 
 suppose that this malaise of mine would vanish in great 
 part if my extremely acute sensibility were deflected and 
 agreeably absorbed by an element in life's surroundings 
 such as perhaps might be my due, but is entirely denied 
 me ; I lack the kindly, coaxing entourage to draw my 
 sensitiveness {Empfindlichkeif) towards itself and gently curb 
 it into sentiment (Empfindsamkeit). Lady-friend — be it 
 said with quite a placid smile — what a wretched life I lead ! 
 Indeed I dare not read the account of Humboldt's life, if 
 I'm to reconcile myself to mine ! — 
 
 Well, that you know ! Neither do I say it to get myself 
 pitied ; merely — I repeat it to you just because you know 
 it j — No longer can I feel any sort of wellbeing save when 
 I've swung myself up to my topmost height, but that height 
 itself is hard to scale, and the harder as it is a height ; 
 judge, then, how relatively brief must be my wellbeing, 
 how lasting the reaction. But you have judged all that 
 before, and know it; then why do I speak of it? It can 
 only be because you know it ; — I need any number of good 
 wishes, and tell it you since I know how your wishes are 
 with me ! — 
 
 So I'll just go on complaining. — My abode is big and 
 beautiful, but horribly cold. Hitherto I've frozen— now I 
 know it — in Italy alone ; not in the Villa Wesendonck, 
 least of all in the Asyl. Never in my life have I made 
 
IOO WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 such friends with the stove, as in lovely Venice. The 
 weather is mostly bright and set fair, thank goodness ! — but 
 it's cold here, too, though perhaps colder where you are 
 and in Germany. The gondola merely serves as a hack 
 conveyance now, for pleasure-trips no longer ; for one 
 freezes badly in it, — which comes of the incessant north-wind, 
 which is just what gives such brilliant weather here. What 
 I am getting to miss the sorest, are my rambles over hill 
 and dale : nothing remains for me but the fashionable 
 promenade from the Piazzetta along the Riva to the public 
 gardens, half an hour's walk, with a fearful crush of people 
 always. Venice is a wonder : but that's all it is. — 
 
 I often long for my dear Sihl valley, for the Kilchberg 
 slopes where I met you also proudly driving. So soon 
 as it turns warmer, and I can make a little pause in my 
 work (my solitary help now !), I think of an outing, first 
 to Verona and the neighbourhood, where the Alps come 
 quite close. It makes a strangely triste impression on me, 
 when, in very clear weather, I can watch from the public 
 gardens the far procession of the Tyrol chain. Then I'm 
 often seized with a yearning of youth that draws me to the 
 mountain-top whereon the tale once built the shining palace 
 with its beautiful princess inside ; 'tis the rock on which 
 Siegfried found Briinnhilde sleeping : the long, flat level, 
 that surrounds me here, looks like nothing so much as 
 resignation. — 
 
 My relations with the moral world are not inspiring, 
 everything is leathern, tough and dull, precisely as it must 
 be. How my personal lot will shape, God only knows ! 
 A suggestion has been made me from Dresden, to go there 
 with a safe-conduct, surrender my person to the law, and 
 let action be commenced against me ; in consideration 
 whereof, even in the event of conviction, the King's pardon 
 would be a certainty. That would be all very fine for a 
 
VENICE LETTERS IOI 
 
 man who might attain all he needed for life's happiness by- 
 such a submitting to the most odious chicaneries etc. of 
 a trial; but, good God! what should / gain by it? In 
 return for highly problematic refreshment by a possible 
 few performances of my works, the quite certain annoyance, 
 worry and over-exertion, which are now the more inevitable 
 as my ten-year retirement has made me susceptible in the 
 highest degree to any contact with this atrocious art-boggle 
 I still should have to use as means. With that Dresden 
 suggestion I therefore have not fallen in [see next letter]. To 
 tell the truth, I'm altogether in the air with my works, 
 none of my new ones could I possibly allow to be produced 
 without my personal assistance. 
 
 The Grand Duke of Baden seems to be the most faithful 
 and energetic of my princes. He sends me word that I'm 
 to reckon for certain on producing the Tristan at Carlsruhe 
 under my personal supervision ; they wish to have it the 
 6th of September, the Grand Duke's birthday. I should 
 have nothing against it, and the persevering sympathy of 
 this amiable young prince inclines my heart towards him ; 
 so we will see if he carries it through, and whether I — am 
 ready. I still have a great, a serious task before me, arid 
 altho' I hope to keep to it now without disturbance, in 
 no case shall I be able to finish it before June. — Then, if 
 no change occurs, I think of withdrawing from Venice and 
 visiting the mountains of my Switzerland again ; when 
 I may even inquire at your house one day, my friend, 
 whether you still remember me, and if my call is 
 welcome. — 
 
 Karl Ritter returned on New Year's day, and now comes 
 to see me at 8 every evening again. He has reported to 
 me that he found my wife looking somewhat better. She 
 seems to be doing tolerably, on the whole, and I take 
 care that nothing lacks to her ease. At anyrate the awful 
 
102 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 beating of her heart appears to have quieted down, though 
 she continues to suffer from sleeplessness, and, now that she 
 has grown a little calmer, complains of increasing oppression 
 in the chest with prolonged paroxysms of coughing— which 
 unfortunately cannot hold out good prospects to me of her 
 mending. The doctor, a tried friend of mine [Pusinelli], 
 makes the prognosis of her illness depend on a lengthy cure 
 in the country next summer ; after such fearful derange- 
 ment, and particularly in view of the obstinate sleeplessness 
 and consequent malnutrition, we must therefore wait for 
 Nature's decision about this poor tormented soul which finds 
 itself so much a stranger in the world now. You haven't a 
 moment's doubt, dear friend, that my attitude toward the 
 unhappy one is nothing but forbearance and heartily kind 
 consideration ? — 
 
 Thus I have care upon care — wherever I look the 
 world makes life hard for me, dear child ! Can it then be 
 otherwise, than that I give you worry too ? Yet you worry 
 yourself for simply nothing but my cares, and ah ! indeed 
 you always help me so kind-heartedly. And where you 
 cannot help me, I help myself with you : do you know how ? 
 I heave a great deep sigh until I smile : then to a good book, 
 or — my work. Then all vanishes in an instant, for you are 
 with me then, and I'm with you. — 
 
 If you'll send me a book from time to time, that you 
 have read, I shall accept it with profoundest thanks. True, 
 I read very little ; but then I read well, and you shall hear 
 about it every time. To yourself I likewise recommend 
 a book: read "Schiller's Life and Works — by Palleske" 
 (only one volume has appeared as yet). Such a piece of 
 reading, the intimate history of a great poet's life and evolu- 
 tion, surely is the most sympathetic thing in the world ; it 
 has uncommonly appealed to myself. Now and again one 
 must obliterate Palleske, though, and keep to the direct com- 
 
VENICE LtfTTE&S 10$ 
 
 fnUmcations of Schiller's male and female friends. It will 
 fascinate you greatly ; ay, in some parts you'll be quite- 
 amazed. In his youth, when connected with the theatre at 
 Mannheim, Schiller stood on a brink whence he was 
 withdrawn by a glorious apparition, which he was lucky to 
 have enter his life thus early, — you must tell me much about 
 that ! And — if I may — I'll write you oftener in return now. 
 Then you shall learn all you would like to know of curious 
 exiled me : all — I hide nothing from you, as you may judge 
 by to-day ! — 
 
 I'll write Myrrha too, for once, of course : what eyes 
 she'll make ! Only prepare her for my hand in advance. 
 And if Wesendonck wants to hear from me some day, I'll 
 write to him as well : already I have told him that. For to- 
 day, give him my kindest regards ! — 
 
 Thus I part from you with the palm ! There where my 
 wreath of thorns rests, my roses shed unwithering scent ; 
 the laurel tempts me not, — wherefore, if I am to decorate 
 myself before the world, I choose the palm ! 
 Peace ! Peace be with us ! — 
 
 A thousand thousand greetings ! 
 
 Your 
 R. W. 
 
 60. 
 
 Venice, February 22, 59* 
 
 According to the law of the most-gloriously-perfect 
 Buddha, the accused shall confess his offence aloud before 
 the congregation, and thereby alone is he absolved : you 
 know how I have involuntarily become a Buddhistt To the 
 Buddhist beggar maxim, also, I have unconsciously ever 
 
 * The original is missing. 
 
 t " Sie wissen, wie ich unwillkurlich zum Buddhisten geworden bin. 
 Though the " unwillkurlich " might be translated " instinctively," I take 
 this to be a more concrete allusion, either to some passage omitted by 
 
104 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 adhered. And that's a very lofty maxim : the monk comes 
 into the towns and streets of men, shews himself naked and 
 reft of possessions, and thus his appearance confers on 
 believers the precious opportunity of practising the noblest, 
 the most meritorious work of gifts and alms. Conse- 
 quently his acceptance is the most visible grace he can 
 bestow, and in that grace resides the blessing, the exalta- 
 tion, he sheds upon the givers. He needed not the gifts, 
 since of his own free will he had given up all for very sake 
 of reviving men's souls through his receipt of alms. — 
 
 I mean to be privy to my fate, down to its minutest 
 ramification ; not to divert it from its course, but merely to 
 face it without a vestige of illusion. For my future, however, 
 I have no need : the noblest need of my life — you know 
 that ! — I have to restrain ; how, then, could I flatter myself 
 with any kind of ordering of my fate ? Only for others do 
 I wish : if those wishes are unrealisable, I must learn to 
 renounce them as well. For, after all, the blessing of each one 
 of us must flow from his inner self : medicaments are snares. 
 
 Does that sound sad and serious? — And yet I say it 
 for your comfort. You needed that relief, I know, because 
 you need reassurance about me ; so we will vie with one 
 another in this sweet exercise, relief for relief ! — 
 
 I renounce Germany with cold and placid heart ; I also 
 know that I must. I have determined nothing for my future, 
 however — except — to complete the Tristan ! — 
 
 As a beginning, immediately on receipt of my memorial 
 the Archduke Max had the measures for my expulsion 
 quashed [see footnote], so I'll see if I can bring the draft 
 
 Frau Wesendonck when transcribing, or to the petition for amnesty re- 
 jected about this date (see Die Musik I. 20-21), as the Archduke Max 
 is mentioned there in the same terms as later in this letter — which un- 
 fortunately is so disconnected as to suggest more than one involuntary 
 transposition — Tr. 
 
VENICE LETTERS 105 
 
 of the third act also off here. Then I should instrument 
 it in Switzerland, presumably not far from you, at Lucerne, 
 which I rather liked last summer. Next winter I shall 
 probably pass in Paris,— so I imagine at least, albeit 
 without a spark of wish, but rather with great reluctance. — 
 
 I thank Wesendonck much for his offer, but don't let 
 my correspondence with America etc. worry you and him 
 too much. It is my lot, to have to help myself in this 
 way, and the help's unproductiveness makes me suffer less 
 than the road thereto ; from which, however, none can spare 
 me. To be sure, posterity will some day wonder that I, 
 of all men, should have been compelled to turn my works to 
 wares : for, only as posterity (Nackwelt) does the world 
 ever come to a little understanding, and then forgets with 
 childish self-complacence that it also is a contemporary 
 {Mitwelt) itself ; in which latter capacity it stays as dense 
 and feelingless as ever. But that's the way it wags, and 
 we can't alter it. Eh, and that is what you tell me of people 
 in general, neither is there much chance of alteration in 
 myself: I retain my little weaknesses, am fond of nice 
 rooms, love carpets and pretty furniture, like to dress for 
 my indoor work in silk and velvet, and — have to pay for 
 it in correspondence ! — 
 
 No matter, if but my Tristan turns out well : and that 
 it will, as never anything yet! — Is Koboldchen laid, and 
 Lady-friend relieved ? — 
 
 Don't forget Vienna ; perhaps it will give you a little 
 delight — I would gladly go there myself some day : for the 
 present you must take my place. Again and again I hear 
 very good news of the representation of Lohengrin there, 
 and from all I gather, it is the best of any of the performances 
 of my operas. I'm waiting for definite notice from there, 
 how long the season still lasts and you will be able to hear 
 the Lohengrin ; as soon as I know, I will send you word ! — 
 
106 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCS 
 
 And now kindest greetings and thanks to Wesendonck. — 
 Koboldchen has been on its best behaviour, and I greet 
 Lady-friend from the bottom of my heart ! Adieu ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 61. 
 
 Venice, March 2, 59.* 
 
 Best thanks to the fair Fairy-tale-teller, she tells so 
 beautifully, and yet is a long way off having such experienced 
 wrinkles as the Grimms ! I'm in good humour owing to the 
 second act's success. Of evenings of late I've had Ritter, 
 and Winterberger into the bargain,f to play me the chief 
 portions bit by bit, and so it seems I've done a pretty thing : 
 all my earlier works, poor creatures, are thrown into the 
 shade by this single act ! Thus I'm storming away at myself, 
 and ever reducing my children to one. — 
 
 Ah, dear Heaven ! Thou knowest what I will ! 'tis pure, 
 clear and transparent as Thyself when Thou spread'st Thy 
 fairest crystal o'er me ! From my truest inner man not a 
 cloudlet rises more, that could cloak from any human soul 
 the aspect of my clarity ! Out of themselves they blow them 
 across to me, those clouds ; how much longer must I scatter 
 them, to shew them that I'm, after all, a good pure man ? 
 Nor is it for my own sake, I scatter the clouds — fain would 
 I remain what I am ; but they hide themselves away from 
 me behind those clouds, and I cannot rejoice them ! — 
 
 Lady-friend, my case is hard, oh — very hard ! But in 
 return, my guardian angel also becks to me. It comforts me, 
 and gives me rest when I need it most. Therefore will I 
 thank it, and tell myself : " Thus was it bound to be, that — 
 so it might be ! " — Only he knows the palm, who has worn 
 
 * The original is missing [see footnote to next page. — Tr.] 
 t Alexander Winterberger, pianist and organist, a pupil of Liszt's. 
 [See also Wagner's letter of Feb. 22, 59, to Liszt. — Tr.] 
 
VENICE LETTERS 107 
 
 the wreath of thorns : and it rests so soft, so swaying in 
 
 the hand, and bows above the head like the airiest 
 
 angel's-wing that cools and supremely revives us with its 
 fanning ! — * 
 
 As I still am very poorly, without exactly being ill, the 
 other day I set my heart upon a land excursion. I wanted to 
 go to Vicenza, but a train was leaving in the other direction, 
 and so I arrived at Treviso. After a miserable night, as the 
 sun was shining I started on a good long walk of about 
 three German miles [14 English]. Out through the gate I made 
 straight for the Alps, which proudly drew their splendent 
 chain against me ; my thoughts were many. Tired out, 
 I returned to the city of lagunes that evening, and asked 
 myself my chief impression of this trip to the main land ; 
 I was so melancholy at finding nothing in my memory but 
 the dust and poor tortured horses, which I lit on again. I 
 looked mournfully down on my silent Canal : " Dust and 
 poor wretched, tortured horses — eh, those thou hast not 
 here ? — but they exist in the world." Then I put out my 
 lamp, prayed my angel for its blessing— and my light went 
 out too, — dust and torment blew away. — 
 
 Next day work was resumed. — 
 
 And then I had letters to write — but I have told you 
 that before. Tomorrow I intend to work again, but this 
 letter had got to be written first. With it I glide across, 
 away into the night, where the light goes out, where dust 
 
 * Here, following Frau Wesendonck's transcript, the German edition 
 prints those passages which I have transplanted as a separate letter to 
 pages 91-94 for reasons there stated. The whole remainder of this letter, 
 however, is so at variance with the "good humour" proclaimed in its 
 opening paragraph that it must be a compilation of various extracts, now 
 undeterminable of date. — Tr. 
 
108 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 and torment vanish. — Have thanks, child, for this convoy ! 
 could anybody grudge it me? — 
 
 And a thousand greetings, a thousand good, kind 
 greetings ! 
 
 R.W. 
 
 62. 
 
 Venice, March 10, 59. 
 
 My dear Myrrha* 
 
 That was quite a wonderfully pretty, really a copy- 
 book letter, you wrote me ! If anyone will not believe it, 
 let him look at it for himself. My child, I cannot write 
 so prettily ; I am far too old for that now ! So, if there is 
 anything you cannot understand in my answer, please 
 ask Mamma, who has given you such beautifully success- 
 ful writing lessons, to help you now in reading too. Of 
 course there is much you are able to read, even without 
 Mamma, — I do not doubt that for an instant ; but a letter 
 from me will be much harder, if only because I never yet 
 have taught a Myrrha writing. So I have got used to 
 writing all my own way, you see, which perhaps you will 
 find a little indistinct. But Mamma must kindly help. — 
 
 Well, I thank you ever so much, my dear Myrrha, and 
 it was very nice of you not to have doubted that I wept 
 with you all for dear Guido. When you make him a present 
 of flowers again, give him my love as well. It pleased 
 me much, to hear from you that Karl is growing up so 
 pretty. If he has not the same face as dear Guido, that 
 need not stop you from taking him for exactly Guido, all 
 the same. Believe me, he is every tiny bit Guido over 
 again ; only — he just has another face. As he has another 
 
 * The Wesendoncks' daughter, born August 7, 1851, at Zurich ; married 
 Freiherr von Bissing [a nephew of Frau Wille's], and died at Munich 
 July 20, 1888. 
 
VENICE LETTERS 109 
 
 face, perhaps he will also look at things in the world some 
 day a little otherwise than Guido would have looked at 
 them. But that is all the difference, and really does not 
 so much matter as most folk think, although it does cause 
 some confusion now and then — which mostly comes from 
 all men looking at each other with different faces, and there- 
 fore believing they all are something different, too, and each 
 of them the really only right one. However, that passes 
 off, and when it comes to the main affair, to crying 
 or laughing, why, one face is as good as another ; and 
 when we die some day, as may happen in the end too, 
 we shall all be right glad if we each have such a face 
 as Papa wrote me that dear Guido had. So stand 
 true to your looking upon Karl for Guido ; merely, he 
 wanted to bring his little features earlier to that beautiful 
 repose which most men can only make theirs after very 
 much crying and laughing and other wry faces. Still, each 
 one gets it there in time, the more so if he is very good 
 and kind. Now Karl wants first to laugh and cry a deal, 
 and has taken up that task for Guido ; that's why his face 
 still looks different. I wish him from my heart that he 
 may laugh his fill with it ; for crying comes soon enough, 
 quite of itself, and to be able to do a good laugh helps over 
 many a stile, take my word for it !— 
 
 Now, think all this out for yourself, my dear Myrrha ; and 
 as you invite me so sweetly to visit you, I really will come 
 one day soon, to talk more about these things with you. — 
 And give Papa and Mamma my best regards. To Mamma, 
 who is always so good as to write what goes on in your 
 house, give the letter enclosed, and beg her very prettily 
 to be cheerful and calm ; in return for which you can promise 
 her to be quite diligent at reading too, so that you may 
 soon read my untidy characters without assistance. Then 
 we two will keep a regular correspondence ! — 
 
T IO WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 And now goodbye, dear Myrrha. Accept my thanks 
 once more, and give Karl, too, best love from your 
 
 Friend and Uncle 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
 62a. 
 
 Venice, March 10, 59.* 
 
 To Mamma. 
 
 Yesterday I got finished with my second act at last, 
 the big (musical) problem so dubious to all, and know 
 it solved in a manner like nothing before ; it is the acme 
 of my art till now. I still have a week to employ on the 
 manuscript, then to attend to my awful correspondence ; 
 whereupon I think of honouring Verona and Milan with 
 a few days, and crossing my old Gotthardt vi& Como and 
 Lugano. Rejoice me ere that with one more account of 
 yourself ! — 
 
 Best thanks, too, for the punctual execution of my 
 " business ; " f God knows what will come of all these follies ! 
 If only / know what I will, I am fairly phlegmatic as to 
 what the world wills with me, so we'll wait and see ; mean- 
 time I turn dizzy at the thought of having to spend any 
 sort of pains on my existence ! For my art I feel less 
 and less need of the world ; so long as health permits 
 I could keep working on, even tho' I never heard a scrap 
 thereof performed. — 
 
 Yesterday Winterberger, who is going to Rome, took 
 leave of me ; whereat he wept and sobbed convulsively. 
 Karl, too, when he left me last November, was incredibly 
 moved. They really are all very fond of me, and I must 
 have something — I almost fancy venerable, in their eyes. 
 Karl I leave behind me ; he is miserable about it, quite 
 dreads my departure. — 
 
 * The original is missing. 
 
 t The American offer? see pp. 105 and 128. — Tr. 
 
VENICE LETTERS 1 1 1 
 
 With the fairy-tale I've already made it up, though 
 I sometimes am dense, as you have often learnt before. 
 You weave so deftly out of Nature, that all one needs is 
 to have leant over your terrace with wits alert, to perceive 
 whence you mould that fairy-world whose every strand 
 of life so beautifully conflows. — Fare you well. Kindest 
 regards to Wesendonck, and thanks for his practical fore- 
 thought ! — Fare you well ! — 
 
 Your 
 R. W. 
 
 63, 
 
 Milan, March 25, 59. 
 
 So I have taken leave in your name, Lady-friend, 
 of my dreamy Venice. Like a new world the hum of 
 streets surrounds me, a world of dust and dryness, and 
 Venice already seems a fairy dream. — 
 
 Some day you'll hear a dream I brought to chiming 
 there ! A few nights ere my departure, though, in reality 
 I had another wondrous pretty dream ; so sweet that I must 
 tell it you, albeit it was much too beautiful to bear the 
 telling. All I can describe of it, was somewhat as follows : — 
 A scene I witnessed in your garden (which looked, however, 
 a trifle otherwise). Two doves passed over the mountains ; 
 I had despatched them to announce to you my coming, 
 and there were two of them : why two, I cannot tell, but 
 pair-wise they flew, close together. When you espied them, 
 of a sudden you soared aloft in the air to meet them : 
 in your hand you were swaying a mighty bushy laurel- 
 wreath ; with that you caught the pair of doves, and drew 
 it fluttering toward you, playfully waving the wreath and 
 its prisoners to and fro. Then suddenly, somewhat as the 
 sun bursts forth after a storm, so blinding a radiance fell 
 upon you that it woke me up. — Now, you may say what 
 
112 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 you like, I really dreamed that, only infinitely more 
 beautiful and exquisite than it can be described : my 
 poor brain could never have invented such a thing of set 
 purpose ! — 
 
 Else, I am tired, and, presumably from the onrush of 
 Spring, had of late been very agitated, with thumping 
 heart and boiling blood. When I took your violet in my 
 hand, to wish myself something, the poor thing trembled so 
 between my hot fingers that the wish came to me quick : 
 Quiet blood ! Quiet heart ! And now I confide in the violet, 
 for it has heard my wish. — I was in the Brera to-day, and 
 gave S. Anthony your greeting ; it is a glorious picture. 
 Not far from it I saw the S. Stephen of Crespi, the splendid 
 martyr between two churls who stone him — realism and 
 idealism directly side by side : of profound significance ! 
 I cannot understand how these subjects, in such wonderful 
 execution, have not always been recognised by everyone 
 as the sublimest pinnacle of art ; whereas many, and Goethe 
 himself, have regarded them as oppugnant to painting. It 
 is certainly the supreme glory of the newer art, that, what 
 philosophy can only conceive in the negative — as world- 
 renunciation — this has been able to give us in such positive, 
 appealing truth, and so beautiful withal, that I hold as 
 poverty-stricken every image of the joy of life and every 
 Venus, against these sacred transports of the martyr-death 
 such as van Dyck, Crespi, Raphael, and so on, portray 
 them. I can find nothing higher, more deeply satisfying, 
 more beautifully ennobling. — 
 
 I have also been into, and on to the roof of, the marble 
 cathedral ; but really that is imposing to tediousness ! — 
 
 And now tho' I shall get no more letters at Venice, 
 the weather is favouring me, the snow of the Gotthard 
 about to revive me, and I soon shall no longer be far from 
 you. I'm uncommonly glad at the thought of Lucerne, 
 
VENICE LETTERS 1*3 
 
 and promise myself great refreshment from weekly rides 
 on the Rigi, Pilatus, Seelisberg etc. I mean to beat up 
 glorious quarters there, and some day you must .come over 
 to see me with all the Wesen-hood of Wesen-home — friend 
 Swan [pfte] is already en route, — 
 
 If you give a great big party soon, in memory of our 
 house-concert, bear myself in mind a little too. — 
 
 Bless Antonio and Stefano, and all the saints. Hearty 
 greetings to Wesendonck and my little girl-correspondent. 
 I cannot rightly bid farewell, as I'm coming so near you 
 that almost nothing but " Ave ! " seems fit. 
 
 To-morrow ahead to the Alps ! Adieu, Lady-friend ! 
 
 Your 
 R.W. 
 
 " Luzern, Poste Restante." 
 
LUCERNE 
 
 APRIL TO AUGUST 
 1859 
 
 "5 
 
64. 
 
 Lucerne, April 7, 59. 
 Things old and new for my dear Saint Mathilde ! — 
 No letter can I manage — to-day. But by and by. — 
 The piano has come ; it crossed the Gothard safely, 
 and without getting in the least out of tune. 
 
 The weather is heavenly ! This solitude is very bene- 
 ficial to me. I have rediscovered some favourite walks. 
 The finches are warbling more blithely than I have heard 
 them for long ; they touch me much, these ever-hopeful 
 voices of Nature. — 
 
 Adieu ! More news soon. I hope to be at the Tristan 
 tomorrow ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 65. 
 
 Lucerne, April 10, 59. 
 
 So the child is teaching the master! — This one thing, 
 that was only to be won by experience, was new to me too 
 through its startling veracity, and triumphantly leavened 
 each pang at the last: — only because there is no such thing 
 as severance, for us, could we go through this re-meeting! 
 I, too, was almost amazed at the feeling of absence of all 
 surprise ; it was as if we had parted but an hour since. — 
 
 That is a miraculous soil, from which some glorious 
 thing must flourish yet. Ay, I foretell it : — we yet may 
 yield much happiness ! — This noble, heavenly feeling will 
 ever prompt my Lady-friend more actively, strengthen- 
 ing her, and giving her that inflexible serenity which 
 
 117 
 
1 18 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 preserves to us eternal youth. — Let her repose ! I also am 
 reposing, as a man just recovered from death ! — 
 
 The third act is begun [yesterday]. It shews me distinctly 
 that I shall invent no new thing any more : that one 
 supreme blossom-tide awoke within me such a multitude 
 of buds, that I now have merely to stretch back my hand, 
 to rear the flower with easy tilth. — It also is to me as if 
 this seemingly most sorrow-burdened act will not so sorely 
 harass me as one might think. The second act still taxed 
 me severely ; Life's utmost fire flamed up in it with such 
 unspeakable fervour, that it burned and consumed me almost 
 personally. The more it quenched toward the close of the 
 act, and the soft radiance of death's transfigurement emerged 
 from the glow, the calmer I myself became. That portion 
 I will play you, when you come. — Now all I hope for, is 
 a good ending ! — 
 
 But I can hardly wait much longer for your visit. 
 Imagine it ! a Kobold brought me yesterday a whole tea- 
 service, and with the best of will I cannot inaugurate it all 
 by myself. Perhaps you're not aware that I brought away 
 with me a very fine big cup which another Koboldchen 
 had sent to me at Venice, and out of which I always drink ? 
 So what am I to do with all these lovely new, delicate cups ? 
 O do come soon, to install them ; I promise you, you 
 shall be pleased with my quarters already. — But — seriously, 
 was not the gift too rich ? I almost thought so. What say 
 you? — Wasn't it too much? — You'll be astonished at all 
 the tokens of you you'll find with me ! — 
 
 Now, write me when Wesendonck is coming back ; then 
 I'll present myself one afternoon again, — if I didn't weary 
 both of you too much the last time. — 
 
 My love to Myrrha — also to Karl, who gave me an 
 uncommonly prepossessing surprise. I called him Siegfried 
 at his birth, and thus became his uninvited sponsor in my 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 119 
 
 brain. And truly that christening has brought him luck : 
 see what a splendid urchin he is growing ! — 
 Are you not glad ? — 
 
 Adieu ! All's well and beautiful ! To the noble heart 
 the world is fashioned from within ; only to the common 
 dolt does it arise from without. 
 Life is ours ! — 
 
 A thousand greetings ! 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 
 66. 
 
 Child ! This Tristan is becoming something terrible. 
 
 This last act ! ! ! 
 
 I fear the opera will be forbidden — unless the whole 
 is turned into a parody by bad production — : nothing but 
 indifferent performances can save me ! Completely good 
 ones are bound to send folk crazy, — I can see nothing 
 else for it. To this length has it had to come with me ! 
 Heigho ! — 
 
 I was just in full blast ! 
 
 Adieu ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 67. 
 
 Child ! Child ! Tears have just been streaming from me 
 while composing — : Kurwenal : 
 
 " Auf eig'ner Weid' und Wonne 
 im Schein der alten Sonne, 
 darin von Tod und Wunden — 
 du selig sollst gesunden." — 
 That will be very harrowing— especially as it makes no 
 impression at all upon Tristan, but passes o'er him like a 
 hollow sound. 
 
 There's immense tragedy in it ! Overwhelming ! 
 
120 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 68. 
 
 April 15. 
 
 Child, the weather is abominable. For two days work 
 has been suspended ; the brain stubbornly refuses its service. 
 — What's to be done? — I snatched at the Tasso to-day, 
 and read it through right off. Indeed it is a unique poem, 
 and I know absolutely nothing to compare with it. How 
 could Goethe have ever written it ! — Who is in the right 
 here? who in the wrong? Each sees as he sees, and can- 
 not see otherwise ; what seems to the one a gnat, to the 
 other is a giant. In the end, however, our heart is captured 
 by the one who suffers most, and a voice tells us also 
 that he looks the deepest. Just because he sees in each 
 case every case, does the smallest seem to him so huge, and 
 his sorrow, shews us what is really in a case if one but 
 probes it to its deepest bottom. The mere fact of this 
 process being so terribly swift with the poet, since his eye 
 takes everything in at a glance, makes him unintelligible 
 to the others. — 
 
 But the mistress of Sorrow is manifestly the Princess. 
 For him who looks deep enough, there virtually is but one 
 antithesis here, that between Tasso and the Princess : Tasso 
 and Antonio are lesser contrasts, and their conflict interests 
 the thinker less, since it admits of adjustment. Antonio 
 will never understand Tasso, and only occasionally — by way 
 of relaxation — will the latter hold the former worth the 
 pains of understanding. Everything at stake between these 
 two men is altogether inessential, simply a means of bring- 
 ing Sorrow into play for Tasso so soon as ever he vehemently 
 desires a thing. If we look beyond the piece, however, 
 nothing remains to us but the Princess and Tasso : how 
 will these two antitheses get balanced? As it here is a 
 question of suffering, the lady has the advantage ; will 
 Tasso learn of her? With his vehemence, I should rather 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 121 
 
 fear madness for him. That the poet has foretokened 
 marvellously. — 
 
 This set me also thinking, tho', that it was rash of 
 me to publish the Tristan thus early. Between a poem 
 altogether built for music and a purely poetic stage-play 
 the difference in plan and execution must be so fundamental, 
 that, if the former is viewed with the same eye as the latter, 
 its true import must stay almost entirely lost, — that is, until 
 completed by its music. Recall what I wrote in the letter 
 on Liszt {Prose Works ui.\ apropos of Berlioz' Romeo and Juliet 
 scene, about the binding difference here. It is precisely 
 those many little touches whereby the poet must bring his 
 ideal object quite close to the common experience of life 
 that the musician leaves out, laying hand instead on the 
 infinite detail of music, thereby to present the ideally 
 distant object convincingly to men's emotional experience. 
 But that makes an immense alteration in the form of the 
 poetic work itself. Without the mass of small, nay, trifling 
 details from the common wont of life, from politics, society, 
 eh, the home and its needs, which Goethe employs in his 
 Tasso, he would be unable to clothe his idea in pure-poetic 
 guise at all. Here is the point, moreover, where everyone 
 is with him, where each may fasten on a notion, an experience, 
 and at last feels so at home that he can be imperceptibly 
 led to what the poet really wills. Naturally, it always ends 
 with each man's being left exactly where his feet will carry 
 him no farther ; still, each has an understanding of it 
 after his kind. And the same thing happens when the 
 music is furnished to my work : then melodic phrases enter 
 into play and inter-play, engross and incite ; one holds 
 to this theme, another to that: they hear and guess, and 
 provided they're able, they also grasp the object, the idea, 
 at last. But without the music, that handle still lacks ; 
 unless we're to suppose a reader so gifted as to feel out 
 
122 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 the convincing trend from the uncommonly simplified plot 
 itself. 
 
 Now you may imagine how I feel when bad weather 
 and a heavy head pull me up in my music ! If I knew 
 that Wesendonck were back and had no objection, I 
 would come to you tomorrow, if the weather continues 
 so bad. Just fancy : I am still without my box of music 
 and ruled paper ! The military escort have detained it in 
 Italy [see pp. 128, 136]. If I cannot work again tomorrow, 
 I would far rather be up and about ; even the railroad 
 would give me a chance then. So we'll arrange it so : if 
 Wesendonck isn't back yet, you will telegraph to me at 
 once ; if I receive no telegram in the forenoon, and the 
 weather remains equally bad, I will telegraph him, begging 
 him at the same time to send the coup6 to the station 
 at 9 P.M. (if that is not asking too much). Then we'll see 
 how we can kill the bad weather together on Sunday. — Will 
 that suit you? 
 
 Kindest regards. 
 
 R. W. 
 
 If you were able to send me a telegram time enough, 
 I should prefer to leave here in the morning (arriving 
 at Zurich 2.30), I'm so afraid of my bad-weather idle- 
 ness ! 
 
 But the telegram would have to be here by 9 A.M. 
 
 69. 
 
 Good Friday. [April 22, 1859.] 
 Ere going to bed. 
 I have just finished reading the Egmont. Really, the 
 last act is very fine. Otherwise I was put out, this time, 
 by the prose in the piece : after the Tasso, a thing like 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 
 
 123 
 
 that strikes one as nothing but an undeveloped sketch, — 
 many animated features, yet no true life-filled whole. It 
 does not reach the level of a work of art, and in this 
 respect I also think the Tasso is unique. However, I have 
 been much moved by it again, but principally by the 
 last act. — Has the child nothing nice for the master to 
 read ? Something soft, poetical — relaxing. How glad I 
 should be of an unknown masterpiece of poetry. Can I 
 really know them all already? Have you by any chance 
 a translation of Tasso — Jerusalem Delivered ? — 
 
 To-day has been another day of downpour : I never 
 went out at all. Still, my work has gone fairly. I require 
 time for it, however. Do you know this ? — 
 
 [See note to next example. — Tr.] 
 
 Very animated,. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 -l^ 
 
 diz. 
 
 ~ jL T t = 
 
 —2 r 
 
 forte. 
 
 
 -i — — 
 
 1= — 
 
 1 — 
 
 -r- 1 
 
 £*z 
 
 
 F*= 
 
 
 
 
 
 Slower. 
 
 
 
 Slow. 
 
 
 
 ^F^= 
 
 j — 
 
 h j» 
 
 J ^ h h -' 
 
 — 1 -„ 
 
 dim. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 -^g- , tjg 
 
 T>h 
 
 
 Scarcely yet ? — 
 
 I'm looking indescribably forward to your [plural] visit ! 
 Everything is arranged already, and shall go as by clock- 
 work. Making music will do me thorough good for once, 
 and I still owe you a glimpse of the Erard. Things are 
 turning nicely green already. If only the weather is fine— 
 
124 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 eh ? I also promise Wesendonck to put plenty of closes 
 into my playing ; every 8 bars a small gratification. 
 My best blessing on your house ! 
 
 Many good wishes ! — To our meeting soon ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 70. 
 
 Easter Tuesday [April 26, 1859]. 
 
 Here's a reliable morning at last ! We must see how 
 the day keeps it up ; what with your note, and the fine 
 weather, it has made a very good beginning. I thank 
 you ! On the whole I'm somewhat fretful and inert. I 
 have really been too long about this work, and feel too 
 keenly that my productive-force is simply feeding on the 
 buds and blossoms which a brief-lived season, like a fer- 
 tilising thunder-storm, awoke in me. At actual creation I 
 can rightly arrive no more with it ; but the longer it lasts, 
 the more happily attuned must I constantly feel, if the 
 inner store is to come to full wakening ; and such attune- 
 ments are compellable by no reflection, — like so much else, 
 as far as that goes, in face of the world. True, I do some 
 work each day, but brief and little, just as are the intervals 
 of light ; I often would rather do none, if the horror of a 
 day left thus entirely bare did not goad me on. 
 
 An odd case is that of a man like me. One doesn't 
 lead a natural life at all ; yet, to make it semi-natural, it 
 would have to be much more artificial ; somewhat as my 
 artwork itself, which also finds no parallel in Nature and 
 Experience, yet receives its new, its higher life precisely 
 through the most consummate application of Art. 
 
 But imagine it : I have been unable to persuade myself 
 to look through my 2nd act again ever since I've been here ; 
 so that it already lies behind me like a shadowy dream. I 
 feel no craving for it : the element in which alone I still 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 1 25 
 
 could live, I lack entirely. If I'm to prosper, my art and 
 its reactions on me would have to enfold me to the point 
 of intoxication, of complete forgetfulness of self. But before 
 me, of all men, lies nothing but life ; life, in which I play 
 so unnatural, so doleful a r61e. That really is not as it 
 should be ; and to stay true to my will, wellnigh a species 
 of wilfulness will have to help me in the end. Nothing goes 
 naturally and of itself, with me, not even my artistic creation. 
 To me it is as if I took no genuine pleasure even in the 
 Tristan any more: at the least it ought to have been 
 finished last year. Well, the gods vetoed that ! And now 
 my sole feeling about it, is that it has got to be finished 
 somehow, as otherwise just everything would suddenly come 
 to an end. It's a case of main force. — 
 
 That sounds pitiful, does it not? — Perhaps the bad 
 weather must bear much of the blame. Perhaps also a 
 share of that attribute we found so unalloyedly developed 
 in Tasso. Still, it always is a last relief to me to be quite 
 candid, and especially to make up my mind to hide nothing 
 from myself; then I take that sad insight also into account, 
 and if after that I still intend a thing, I see that it probably 
 must be. And that, in turn, gives me renewal of courage ; 
 just as it already revives in me now that I've told you 
 this, since I know that I'm even more candid toward you 
 than toward myself. — But— perhaps I ought to leave a thing 
 like that untold you. It might distress you ; and why 
 should you be distressed? Were it not splendid for me, 
 to know you unconcerned in any case? — But, by dint of 
 illusions ? Then all indeed were null and void again : how 
 
 could your unconcern profit me then ? There's no help 
 
 fork; one must be able to avow all to oneself, the whole 
 misery of the world and existence, fully and entirely to 
 gain the power to taste the only thing that lifts above it. — 
 
 That is my whole philosophy, in face of those also 
 
126 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 who labour to make life endurable by declining to admit 
 its badness, or wilfully shutting their eyes to it. What . 
 they then feign to enjoy, still stays just nothing save the 
 self-sufficiency of their illusion : but the otherwise-minded 
 well knows what he has to rejoice at, namely the over- 
 coming of grief; which alone yields strength, and pride, 
 and — happiness. 
 
 Best thanks for the brother's letter ; I'm returning it with 
 hearty greetings to Uncle Wesendonck [see p. 128]. May he 
 give marching-orders for Lucerne as soon as possible ! Then 
 we'll have a famous dispute about the war ; which one can 
 do to one's heart's content, since it absolutely doesn't con- 
 cern one at all, and there one can make absolutely nothing 
 depend on one ; but where it is otherwise — where decision 
 and crisis depend on our innermost will, then that will itself 
 should speak for us, in deed, in mode of dealing. So we'll 
 stick to that ! 
 
 You scarcely need have troubled Herr " von Heiligen " 
 (German translation of "de Sanctis") : "Gries"* — that's how 
 "Tasso" is called in German. — Am I not quite shameless ? 
 
 And now I come on you for something more ; only, for 
 Heaven's sake don't breathe a word of it to Wesendonck. — 
 I carry my blankets and bedding about with me — pampered 
 mortal that I am ! The silk coverings look so terribly dirty, 
 however, that I'm ashamed of the chambermaid seeing them. 
 Could you spend a spare moment on trying if you can find 
 the material in Zurich ; they were green, but could be red at 
 a pinch, as the leaf turns in autumn. But I should require a 
 good quantity. If you found something, you should give the 
 order quite secretly (not Heim-ly ! f) to forward the whole 
 piece to me here ; then I would take what I want of it, and 
 settle the account without your further intervention. 
 
 * Translator of Tasso's poems. 
 
 t For the pun (heimlicK) see p. 72. — Tr. 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 
 
 127 
 
 For the rest, you'll find everything spruce here. The big 
 
 marquee [" Marquise "—apparently an awning] is ready J Only the SUn 
 
 for it to protect from is missing. Stay, though : we have 
 some to-day, so perhaps things will go somewhat better. 
 About that one may rightly say — : Heaven grant it ! 
 
 And now my felicitation to the " Others " and " Rockly's " * 
 — and for an absolute close something new and silky t 
 
 Animated. 
 
 from 
 
 Your 
 
 71 
 
 Mid-day Saturday [Apr. 30, 59]. 
 The timorous sun gives me no heart for the Rigi ; wan 
 
 * " Und nun noch meinen Gluckwunsch zu den 'Andren' und 
 ' Rockly's.' " Dr. Golther tells me that " Rockly " is Swiss patois for 
 " Rocklein," i.e. a little coat ; but I rather suspect it to be meant for 
 " Kochly," the name of a Zurich professor (cf. p. 344).— Tr. 
 
 t It is rather curious that this excerpt should be given as " something 
 new," just four days after the passage which in Tristan it directly precedes. 
 It will be recognised, with a faint difference, as the accompaniment to the 
 hero's words, " Wen ich gehasst, den hasstest du ; wen ich geminnt, den 
 minntest du " (vocal score p. 204), thus proving that nearly a third of the 
 music of act iii had already been sketched within a fortnight, for all the 
 composer's self-reproaches of " inertness."— Tr. 
 
128 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 vapours cloud the sky, and I now shall save myself the 
 witches' expedition for the 1st of May. 
 
 I'm very sorry for Wesendonck's telegraphic headache ; 
 as it fares so ill with him, it's only fair that the Rigi should 
 vanish into smoke, this time, for me as well. I hold firm to 
 his acceptance for next week, however, and beg to be given 
 a word of notice the day before. 
 
 Best thanks for the Tasso ; it shall compensate me for 
 the Rigi. — I also owe thanks for the American letters, 
 and beg you for the present to convey to Herr Luckemaier 
 my heartiest recognition of his efforts. For that matter, 
 I feel somewhat Londonish again about it ; I have deter- 
 mined nothing, and at bottom could almost have wished 
 Herr Ullmann's counter-offer had relieved me of all doubt 
 I really am to get a sight of this man, however, and there- 
 fore will not split my head till then.* 
 
 The war's a nuisance to me ; I still lack that box from 
 Venice ; strangely enough, I have been unable to obtain 
 any news of Ritter either. In hypochondriacal fits I often 
 think I ought to have gone to Paris sooner, to avoid getting 
 the war between me and my future quarters. On the whole 
 it is interesting that, upon an outbreak between Germany 
 and France, I should be seeking refuge in the enemy's 
 
 * As long ago as Dec. .24, 58, Wagner had replied to a Dr. Hartenfels 
 of Frankfort, theatrical agent, concerning a vague invitation to go to 
 New York and conduct his operas under " Herr Direktor Ullmann " ; 
 and on the 1st of February, 59, to Klindworth,_ "I'm keeping it 
 open, but have a good mind to recommend you — as my substitute." 
 May 26, immediately after a reference to the Austro-Italian-French war, 
 he writes Otto, " My projected American alliance is therefore becoming 
 of more and more weight to me ; " but, probably owing to the " counter- 
 offer '' proving too meagre, the scheme fell through. — Bernhard Ullmann 
 was partner for a few years with Strakosch in the management of an Italian 
 operatic company which toured the States, in 1859 including Adelina 
 Patti as a member for the first time. " Herr Luckemaier," of course, is 
 "the brother" of Frau Mathilde mentioned p. 126; cf. p. no. — Tr. 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 1 29 
 
 capital ; I'm much afraid of losing all my patriotism and 
 being secretly delighted if the Germans received another 
 sound thrashing. Bonapartism is an acute, a passing ail- 
 ment for the world, — but German-Austrian reactionism a 
 chronic, an abiding one. Yet more : of late I've felt a 
 longing to give some newspaper an " unpolitical view '' of 
 Italy, which is criticised by our politicians with a stupidity 
 verging on impudence, — as soon as the weather improved 
 a bit, though, those notions took flight. If only I were well 
 into my work again ! But that " well into," I fear, will never 
 return : 'tis a memory of youth ! 
 
 Apropos, if you leave me in the lurch much longer, I 
 shall get Kirchner to come to me.* 
 
 Your sending me the Schiller [to Lotte] letters was a 
 very happy thought of yours. Converse with that sort of 
 people is what I like best, even better than politics. Their 
 tiniest billets I read with interest ; they are just what make 
 one enter the dear creatures' life. And that's the very thing 
 one seeks; one wants to be quite intimate with such people. — 
 
 I have absolutely nothing new to tell you ; from nowhere 
 have I had a letter all the week. — 
 
 Farewell ! The month of May will help, and refresh 
 
 yourself too ! 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 
 72. 
 
 [Monday, May 9, 1859.] 
 
 Child, child ! The Zwieback [a kind of rusk] has done the 
 trick : with one tug it landed me over an awkward passage 
 where I had been sticking for a week, unable to move any 
 farther. Yesterday's attempt at work was execrable. My 
 temper was awful, and I gave vent to it in a long letter 
 to Liszt, in which I informed him that it was all up with 
 
 Pianist, etc. ; see p. 13 and Life iv, 135.— Tr. 
 
 9 
 
130 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 my composing, and Carlsruhe must think of something else. 
 Neither has the sun helped, and I've had to confess to myself 
 that its shining on Friday morning was a mere gallantry of 
 mine; it was the candle I set to light you home. To-day 
 I stared with utter cheerlessness into the grey vault of the 
 sky, and simply sought a target for some bitter word. As 
 8 days since I could get no farther with the actual com- 
 position (at the transition, in fact, from " vor Sehnsucht 
 nicht zu sterben" to the sick man's voyage), I had then 
 let it be, and taken up instead the working-out of the com- 
 mencement, which I played to you. To-day, however, I 
 could get no farther with that either, because it seemed to 
 me as if I had done it all much better once before, but no 
 longer could remember exactly how. — 
 
 As soon as the Zwieback arrived, I knew what the matter 
 was : my rusks were much too sour here, so that nothing 
 decent could occur to me ; but the sweet familiar Zwieback, 
 dipped in milk, at once put all into its groove again. So 
 I cast the working-out aside, and went on with the com- 
 posing, at the story of " der fernen Aerztin." And now I'm 
 perfectly happy : the transition has succeeded beyond belief, 
 with a quite wonderful concord of two themes. God, what 
 the proper rusk can do ! — Zwieback ! Zwieback ! thou'rt 
 the only medicine for lamed composers, — but it must be 
 the right sort ! — Now I have a fine provision of it ; when 
 you notice that it's running short, please think of a fresh 
 supply : I observe it is a potent drug ! — 
 
 Friday evening I had to laugh a lot again with Schiller ; 
 he has that absolutely unique humour, which I don't find 
 in this lovableness with Goethe. The laurel-wreath* (his 
 landlady, I believe), the chambers in whose heart are in- 
 finitely cheaper than in her house — though there would be 
 
 * Schiller had conferred this title on his motherly Jena friend, the 
 wife of Professor Griesbach. 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 131 
 
 more likelihood of damage there — is capital. I thank you 
 very much for these letters ; I should like to read simply 
 nothing but such intimacies. 
 
 Yesterday was detestable ; I could think of nothing all 
 day long, but the political nonsense. God, how heaven-high 
 one is lifted above these " most momentous questions of the 
 now-time," as soon as one's in one's right senses ! Whoever 
 can occupy himself incessantly with politics, proves incon- 
 trovertibly that even He doesn't know what to do with 
 himself: so the outer world must come in, and the broader 
 that stretches, the sublimer he deems the stew. — 
 
 I wrote Frau Ritter again the day before yesterday, and 
 I believe — for all forbearance — very plainly, helpfully and to 
 the point. Let's hope ! — 
 
 Just fancy : the letter about the bass-clarinet {Lohen- 
 grin ?~\ I only read yesterday. — 
 
 Literally nothing has happened. While you were being 
 entrained again " vers les Wille's " I amused myself from 
 the balcony with my Lucerne pit, which makes a regular 
 fanaticism of the advantage it enjoys over you — namely, of 
 being able to admire my new dressing-gown daily. It really 
 must be very beautiful ! — 
 
 Now let me soon hear, not merely taste, from you. Give 
 my kindest regards to the Excited, and thank him again in 
 my name for the visit, also for the champagne to which he 
 treated me ! Zwieback it was not, however — Good Lord ! 
 Zwieback ! ! — 
 
 A happy week with some sun is wished you by one 
 who has to put up with Sunday without sun. — Adieu ! 
 
 73. 
 
 Lucerne, May 21, 59. 
 
 I really must let you into a most comical discovery 
 which I have only just made. It suddenly appears to me 
 
132 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 as if all the trouble with my work reposed on hypochondria. 
 Everything I have dashed off looks so shockingly bad to me, 
 that I lose all zest, and refuse to go farther. To-day I forced 
 myself to work clean out a passage from the sketch which 
 had so displeased me of late that I believed I must wholly 
 recast it. Nothing better had occurred to me, however, and 
 I was so wretched about it that I thought of giving up, and 
 so on. Finally — in my despair — I fair-copied the passage 
 out to-day, leaving it precisely as in the sketch, save for 
 correction of a few small trifles here and there ; I try it over 
 to myself, and — behold you, I find it so good, that I was 
 unable to improve it for that very reason. — Isn't that laugh- 
 able ? — And yet it's ill, for the very happening of this 
 hypochondria is proof enough that something isn't as it 
 should be. I simply cannot prevail on myself to take a 
 thing I have rapidly sketched and render it to myself with 
 warmth and expression. God knows, I'm so entirely the 
 reverse of frugal reserve, that in communication I gladly go 
 beyond all bounds. Yet I also know that I've often had 
 to rue my precipitance in imparting my sketches to out- 
 siders with whom I had no sympathy, and whence I con- 
 sequently never drew the proper warmth for my own lively 
 grasp of my subject ; wherefore I have frequently sworn to 
 do it no more. Now that is avenging itself, and I no longer 
 arrive at making friends with my inspirations at all. How- 
 ever, I'll take a lesson from to-day's experience, and see 
 that I'm not so mistrustful of my drafts another time. That 
 way I shall end by becoming quite flighty, and carrying 
 out the first thing that crops up in my head ! — 
 
 Enough : for to-day I would rather say no more to 
 you. I'll write you a sensible letter by and by, when I can 
 get hold of other paper than this coquettish pink which 
 the elegant Schweizerhof has purveyed to me. — Even if the 
 weather were quite propitious, I couldn't go up the Rigi 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 1 33 
 
 tomorrow, as I have had to resort to a medical conference, 
 in result whereof I am Rigi-unfit for some days. 
 
 Kindest regards. Keep my birthday for me ; I make you 
 a present of it. Consequently — I congratulate ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 After work ! 
 
 74. 
 
 Lucerne, May 23, 59. 
 Your war-song, Lady-friend, was quite admirable, and by 
 all means a good inspiration. There's something in it like 
 the storm-spell of my Donner in Rheingold, which pleased 
 Liszt so much. By the music for it, though, there hangs a 
 curious tale, which you'll hardly credit when I tell it you. 
 On my last journey home to Lucerne the rhythm of the 
 railway-carriage made music for me again, and brought me 
 to Beethoven's music for Egmont. I ran that through my 
 memory once more, closely scanned the " Leidvoll und 
 freudvoll," and found that this was not a success. The 
 Soldier-song stood the . test all the better, and I had to 
 find it so thoroughly original and excellent that I sang it 
 through twice over, in my head. I hadn't an inkling of 
 purpose about it, but simply tumbled on this song out of 
 comparison with the other. So you may judge my surprise 
 when I found your song awaiting me at home, built on pre- 
 cisely that melody in favour of which I had just rejected 
 the " freudvoll und leidvoll " — whose text, by the way, I had 
 also amended while criticising the music ; viz., the false 
 rhyme 
 
 " himmelhoch jauchzend, 
 
 zum Tode betriibt : 
 
 gliicklich allein 
 
 ist die Seele die liebt" 
 I altered into 
 
134 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 "gliicklich allein 
 ist wer Redlichkeit iibt" 
 
 [" happy alone is who honestly deals" — Goethe having written, "happy 
 alone is the spirit that loves." — Tr.] 
 
 which obviously sounds better. 
 
 So that matter of the Soldier's song and its music has 
 succeeded completely. Heavens, though! Supposing you 
 were to run away from us one day, and join the military ! 
 Already I can see you serving in the Engineers ( " Genie "). 
 
 And how goes everything else? Was Myrrha able to 
 decipher my yesterday's despatch? I wrote it very neatly. 
 But Myki's handwriting is growing lovelier every day; if 
 she goes on at this rate, she'll arrive in due course at the 
 hand of her mother, beyond which, of course, 'twere useless 
 to aspire. 
 
 Besides yourself, Liszt also congratulated me, telegraphi- 
 cally ; for which I promptly thanked him by telegraph, in 
 my turn. Apart from that, one of my hopes has been 
 dashed : you know how I hoped that Karl Ritter would not 
 permit himself to leave me without a greeting on that day, 
 which would also have given me tidings of his whereabouts ; 
 nothing having arrived, however, I am much concerned, as 
 he evidently doesn't want to compromise me in the eyes 
 of his family. I was luckier with Frau Ritter (the mother), 
 from whom I likewise found a letter on my last return 
 home, which shewed me that I had to some extent succeeded 
 in enlightening, and consequently even in reassuring her. 
 Remarkable — she replied to certain hints of mine: "good 
 Karl often acts too imprudently ; when he suddenly resolved 
 on one of the most momentous steps in life, all my pleadings 
 to give himself a little time, and not bind himself by an 
 engagement so quickly, were in vain." O Fatum ! [cf. p. 45.] 
 
 Who is right, and who wrong, in this world? It is a 
 jumble of likes and dislikes, attraction and repulsion : if a 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 135 
 
 man wants peace of life, at last he plants a boundary-post, — 
 here shall things stop, and not change any further! And 
 the post stands exactly where the craving meant to stop : — 
 but it did not stop, and then? — 
 
 "Who then is happy?" [Goethe's Tasso] — 
 
 After all, that's the best quietive ; — and one can always 
 answer it with : 
 
 "wer Redlichkeit ubt "— 
 or, if you like : 
 
 "die Trommel geriihrt, 
 das Pfeifchen gespielt."* 
 
 Do you think me crazy?? 
 
 Just a wee bit out of my senses I probably shall go in 
 time. Such a random life as mine has assuredly never been 
 led. Everything that might resemble a plan in me, falls 
 to pieces the instant I look at it fixedly ; nothing holds 
 water. I positively don't know where to deposit myself 
 four weeks hence, and as not a single plan is good, I am 
 yielding myself with true fanaticism to hazard, drink Kissin- 
 ger water since yesterday, force myself to nothing, in par- 
 ticular not to my work, look out on how it threatens rain 
 each day again, don't answer Hartels, who worry me for 
 " manuscript " (!), let children give me cushions, and grown- 
 ups Zwieback, and reflect " who leaves the issue in the hands 
 of God ! " So it jogs along quite passably at last, and I 
 simply leave it to a miracle ; who knows ? maybe one will 
 occur ! — Indeed, it isn't worth the pains of fretting ; the 
 best things come to one " unbidden, unbesought — the 
 readiest," as sleep to Egmont. — 
 
 See, I could go on chattering with you by the hour, if 
 Wesendonck didn't start a discussion on one point or other, 
 
 * " The drums are rolling, fifes shrill clear '' — the opening lines of the 
 aforesaid Soldier-song in Egmont. — Tr. 
 
136 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 and thus give more precision to the chatter [such as] : — It's 
 warm in the world, these days ; Heavens, what lovely 
 weather ! Stay, though : one may go about lightly clad, — 
 which ought really not to be, you know, for it's better when 
 the weather's cold and one can go warmly clad against it 
 Over that a nice little dispute could be raised at once! 
 
 — Still no news of my box from Venice ! But that also 
 is becoming indifferent to me, even whether the Siegfried 
 gets lost. What more can I do for it, save at utmost to 
 harass myself unsuccessfully? On the other hand, I have 
 made another altogether new invention for the Parzival, 
 notwithstanding that I haven't read your book yet* Neither 
 am I reading anything else whatsoever, except the Allgemeine 
 of an evening, which I mean to throw aside soon, however, 
 and that for good cause. I'm not particularly keen on any- 
 thing, but will take a turn at the Plato ; a dip into it did 
 me much good. One ought never to associate with aught 
 but the noblest ; everything else is debasement, a thousand- 
 fold dilution of the primal fount. (Well, is that at least a 
 rational maxim?) 
 
 Perhaps Tausig will come to me presently : he's to be 
 had, and would like it. 
 
 To-day I've worked a little, which passed off once more 
 
 as the day before yesterday. What will you say to me, 
 
 you bellicose person? — me so peaceable that I don't even 
 
 wage war with myself any more ! 
 
 But one thing is good and enduring : — 
 
 thousand thanks for your wishes. Write me soon again, 
 
 how I appear to you ; it will shew me what to think of 
 
 myself! Kindest greetings — and hearty thanks. 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 
 * San Matte's " Parzival, Rittergedicht von Wolfram von Eschenbach," 
 1836, second edition 1858 ; see next letter. 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 137 
 
 75. 
 
 Lucerne, May 29, 59. 
 
 So May is drawing to a close, and I am not to get up 
 the Rigi? Everything was ordered yesterday, when the 
 Lord of the Sky put in his veto once more. Luckily it 
 had gone fairly well with the work: which helps. 
 
 Meanwhile we have buried the good soldier also [her poem] ! 
 I rather think he must have stood with Garibaldi, who is 
 reputed not to spare his men ; for which reason I'm right 
 glad de Sanctis did not join him. I'm rejoiced at your 
 being in such high spirits. I am in neither good nor bad ; 
 the vile weather is teaching me submission. After all, one 
 has only got oneself to live on : fair weather in the heavens 
 and upon earth may help one to live on oneself better and 
 easier ; but there too in the long run, as in every circum- 
 stance, one must bear the costs oneself. Nothing enters 
 into us that isn't already inside us by sympathy, and when 
 one has consumed one's whole self there's an end of it, let 
 one stick as much plaister as one likes upon it from out- 
 side. — So — patience, as long as aught's left to consume ! — 
 
 Let that pass for a little philosophy. Regarding poetry, 
 my change in Goethe's "freudvoll und leidvoll" has falsely 
 alarmed you : you should simply have laughed at it, — nothing 
 more ! Among all vaunted things, unfortunately this 
 " honesty " has been turned to something risible for me ; 
 and that springs perhaps from 
 
 " Ueb' immer Treu' und Redlichkeit," 
 which was the first little piece I learnt on the piano ; then 
 came " God save the King," and then the " Maiden's wreath." 
 Heine also once poked some neat fun at it, describing the 
 Hamburg Exchange, "where our fathers dealt as honestly 
 as possible with one another." It will ever be the same, 
 where one converts an accidence, a symptom, into the 
 actual substance of a line of conduct. The genuine man, 
 
138 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 concerned for nothing save the genuine, cannot help being 
 honest: and what were honesty without genuineness? 
 
 And — Karl Ritter did write me, after all, only his letter 
 got delayed in the post. That has made me very glad. 
 He has drifted to Rome, met Winterberger in front of 
 S. Peter's, fallen in love with the flat dome of the Pantheon, 
 and writes me excruciatingly naively about his interesting 
 affairs. He is and remains a most original fellow. It was 
 by no means for fear of compromising me in the eyes of 
 his people, that he had not written me earlier, but simply 
 because he fancied I was in receipt of far too many letters 
 already, and didn't want to bore me. I have paid him 
 well out for that! — 
 
 May 30. 
 
 After work I generally lie down awhile, to shut my 
 eyes for a quarter of an hour. Yesterday I wouldn't 
 give way, but tried to write to you instead. It avenged 
 itself, however : a regular faintness came over me ; I was 
 obliged to stop. — Now you see how things stand with me. — 
 To-day I'm sitting down before work, for a moment, and 
 also have the pleasure of being able to reply to a kind 
 couple of lines this lovely morning brought me from you. 
 For — lovely it is to-day ! — : whether it will last, remains 
 doubtful. At present the early morning is the important 
 weather-point for me, and the afternoon may look after 
 itself at a pinch. Only think : I've been on my legs at 
 6 o'clock each morning since my birthday, drinking my 
 Kissinger and promenading withal till about 8. Luckily 
 the mornings have at least been bearable till now. Dear 
 child, I could wish you also the refreshment of these 
 morning promenades : I find myself quite perceptibly better 
 since taking them ; the slight fatigue of the unaccustomed 
 early walk soon wears away, after a little rest, and has all 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 1 39 
 
 the more freeing and lightening an effect. Of course you 
 know that yourself, from your various bath-cures. One 
 is liable to forget it though, and yet should maintain this 
 regime all the summer, as it is a true nerve-strengthener 
 and blood-restorer. In summer one really can't pass the 
 real day out-of-doors : the mornings are the actual fortifiers, 
 whereas the evenings merely calm. Throughout the day- 
 time one had better take a good siesta ; at evening, too, 
 not go to bed too late. But the whole thing fits hand in 
 glove. For my part, I mean to stick to it the summer 
 through, wherever I may be, perhaps even rise still earlier, 
 later on ; so vividly has the effect of these early morning- 
 walks impressed itself upon me this time. Do follow my 
 example ! Wesendonck will certainly have nothing against 
 it ; on the contrary, he'll praise you. What you lose on 
 such a morning, the whole day, even including the evening, 
 can never make good to you : 'tis the fair rosebud of the 
 day, the quick of summer's joy, and as we're always so 
 wishing for sun and for slimmer, one ought also to know 
 the real cream of them. — 
 
 For my work, too, I'm exceedingly fond of the sun ; 
 but the kept-off sun, the sun one seeks to shade to pleasant 
 coolness. It then has the effect of fame and honours, which 
 one despises, yet which kindle a comfortable feeling of our 
 leaving them outside for very wealth. In the opposite event 
 we're reminded of ©ur poverty ; for whoso has to seek for 
 light and warmth, is badly off. 
 
 I'm busy working out the first half of my act now. It 
 always costs me a deal of time to get through the suffering 
 passages ; there, even in a good vein, I can finish very 
 little at a sitting : but the brisk, swift, fiery parts get 
 reeled off infinitely quicker. Thus with the technical com- 
 pletion, too, I'm living it " leidvoll und freudvoll " all through, 
 and hang entirely from my subject's thread. And this 
 
140 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 last act is a veritable ague — profoundest, most unheard-of 
 suffering and pining, and immediately thereon the most 
 turbulent exultation. God knows, no one yet has taken 
 the thing in such earnest, and Semper is right. Which 
 itself has set me once again against the Parzival. For it 
 has struck me again, only quite recently, that this is bound 
 to be another very nasty job. Considered strictly, Anfortas 
 is the centre and principal subject. There you have a pretty 
 tale at once. Imagine, I ask you, what is up ! To 
 myself of a sudden it has grown too appallingly clear : 
 it is my Tristan of the third act with an inconceivable 
 increase. The spear-wound — haply yet another — in his 
 heart, the poor man knows but one longing in his fearful 
 anguish, that for death ; to win to that uttermost cordial, 
 again and again he craves the aspect of the Grail, if that 
 at least might close his wound, since every other aid is 
 impotent, nothing — nothing serves ! — Yet again and again 
 does the Grail but renew him this one thing, that he cannot 
 die ; its sight but multiplies his torments, adding undying- 
 ness to them. Now, the Grail, after my reading, is the 
 cup of the Last Supper, wherein Joseph of Arimathea 
 gathered the blood of the Saviour on the cross. Now see 
 what a terrible import is gained by Anfortas' relation to 
 this wonder-cup ; he, stricken with the selfsame wound, 
 dealt him by the spear of a rival in a passionate love- 
 adventure, — for his only sustenance must yearn for the 
 boon of that blood which erst flowed from the Saviour's 
 like spear-wound, when, world-renouncing, world-redeeming, 
 He pined world-suffering on the cross! Blood for blood, 
 wound for wound — but from here to there what a gulf 
 between this blood, this wound ! All transport, worship, 
 ecstasy, at the wondrous presence of the chalice which 
 reddens into soft entrancing radiance, new life is poured 
 through all his veins — and death can not draw nigh him ! 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 141 
 
 He lives, re-lives, and more fiercely than ever the fatal 
 wound ravens him, his wound ! Devotion itself becomes 
 a torture ! Where is an end to it, where redemption ? 
 Suff'ring of mankind through all eternity ! — In the frenzy 
 of despair might he turn entirely from the Grail, shut fast 
 his eyes thereto ? Fain would he, for a possibility of death, 
 but — he has been appointed Guardian of the Grail himself. 
 And no blind outer; power appointed him, — no! but since 
 he was so worthy, since none had wist the marvel of the 
 Grail so deeply and so inwardly as he ; as even now his 
 whole soul ever turns again towards that sight which 
 withers him in adoration, blends heavenly unction with 
 eternal ban ! — 
 
 And I'm to execute a thing like that, to boot ? make 
 music for it too ? — Declined with thanks ! Let him do it 
 who likes ; Til keep it fairly off my neck ! — 
 
 Someone may do it, who will manage just a la Wolfram ; 
 that won't much matter, and after all may sound like some- 
 thing, perhaps even something quite pretty ; but / take 
 such things far too seriously. Look, if you please, on the 
 other hand, how easy even Meister Wolfram made it for 
 himself! Never mind his understanding simply nothing of 
 the inner content ; he strings incident to incident, adven- 
 ture to adventure, turns the Grail-motive into rare and 
 curious happenings and pictures, fumbles around, and leaves 
 the earnest seeker with the question what he really meant. 
 To which his answer would have to be : Hm, I really don't 
 know that myself, any more than the priest his Christianity, 
 which he also mumbles at the altar without a notion what 
 it is. — And that's the truth. Wolfram is an utterly unripe 
 appearance, the blame for which must largely be laid on 
 his barbaric, altogether mongrel era, hovering between 
 primitive Christendom and the newer State. Nothing in 
 that age could be carried right through; poetic depth 
 
142 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 immediately is merged in insubstantial fantastries. I am 
 almost coming to agree with Frederick the Great, who, 
 upon the Wolfram being handed him, told the publisher 
 he mustn't bother him with such rubbish ! — Seriously, one 
 must have so lived into the heart of a subject like this 
 through its legend's sterling features, as I now have done 
 with this Gralssage, and then taken a bird's-eye glance at 
 the way in which Wolfram represents the same thing to 
 himself — which I also have done in skimming through your 
 book [cf. p. 136] — to be repelled at once by the poet's in- 
 capacity (with Gottfried v. Strassburg's Tristan it already 
 had gone much the same with me). Take merely one point : 
 among all the meanings given by the legends to the Grail, 
 this superficial "penetrator" selects the one that has the 
 very least to say. Certainly the identification of this marvel 
 with a precious stone occurs in the earliest sources one 
 can trace, namely in the Arabic of the Spanish Moors; for 
 one observes, alas ! that all our Christian legends have a 
 foreign, pagan origin. In this case our onlooking Christians 
 were amazed to learn that the Moors in the Caaba at 
 Mecca (dating from the pras-Mohammedan religion) paid 
 reverence to a wondrous stone (sun-stone — or meteoric 
 stone — indubitably fallen from the sky). The Christians, 
 however, soon framed the legends of its miraculous power 
 their own way, and brought it into rapport with the Christian 
 mythos ; a proceeding simplified by the persistence of an 
 ancient legend in the south of France, that Joseph of 
 Arimathea once fled there with the sacred bowl of the 
 Last Supper — which harmonises perfectly with the enthu- 
 siasm of the early Christian age for relics. Sense and meaning 
 thus entered at once, and with true rapture do I marvel at 
 this splendid trait of Christian myth-development which 
 devised the most pregnant symbol ever yet invented as 
 physical garb for the spiritual core of a religion J Whom 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 1 43 
 
 does it not thrill with the most affecting and sublimest 
 feelings, to hear that that goblet whence the Saviour pledged 
 his last farewell to his disciples — and wherein the Redeemer's 
 deathless blood itself was gathered and preserved — is still 
 extant, and the elect, the pure, may gaze at and adore 
 its very self? How incomparable ! And then the doubled 
 meaning of one vessel, as chalice also at the holy eucharist— 
 unquestionably the Christian cult's most lovely sacrament! 
 Thence, too, the legend that the Grail (Sang Rdal— hence 
 San(ct) Gral) alone sustained its pious knighthood, and 
 gave them food and drink at meal-times. — And all this 
 so senselessly passed over by our poet, who merely took 
 his subject from the sorry French Ritter-romances of his 
 age and chattered gaily after, like a starling ! Conclude 
 from that to all the rest ! Fine are none but single 
 descriptions, the strong point of all the medieval poets : 
 there visuality reigns finely-felt, but their whole remains 
 ever invertebrate. Then think of all I should have to 
 set about with Parzival himself! For with him, too, Wolfram 
 knows not what to do : his despair of God is absurd and 
 unmotived, still more unsatisfying his conversion ; that 
 matter of the " question " is too entirely flat and meaningless. 
 Here, accordingly, I should have to invent just everything. 
 Added to that is one more difficulty .with Parzival. As 
 the longed-for saviour of Anfortas, he is wholly indis- 
 pensable : but if Anfortas is to be set in the true light 
 due him, he acquires such intensely tragic interest that it 
 becomes wellnigh more than hard to let a second main- 
 interest crop up beside him ; yet Parzival must be accorded 
 that main-interest, unless he is merely to come on at the 
 end as a damping deus ex machina. Consequently Parzival's 
 evolution, his sublimest purification, albeit predestined by 
 his whole pensive, profoundly compassionate nature, has 
 to be placed in the foreground once more. And for that 
 
144 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 I can choose no spacious outline, such as Wolfram had at 
 disposal : I must so compress the whole into three main 
 situations of drastic intent, that the deep and branching 
 contents yet may stand forth sharp and clear ; for, to operate 
 and represent thus, when all's said, is my art. And — I'm 
 still to undertake a task like that ? Heaven preserve me ! 
 To-day I bid farewell to this insensate project ; let Geibel 
 write, and Liszt compose it! — When my old friend Briinnhilde 
 leaps into the pyre, I'll make my plunge beside her and 
 hope for a blessed end ! You have my word on it. Amen ! 
 
 Eh ! haven't I nicely de-grailed myself? Take it as a 
 lecture, for which you have not needed to go to the Zurich 
 Rathhaus ! You will get no more to-day, despite the last 
 fine Zwieback ! — I'll see if I can do a little music now ! 
 Farewell, keep Whitsuntide in view, and — promenade right 
 early in the garden. A thousand greetings. 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 
 76. 
 
 Lucerne, June 3, 59. 
 
 Lady-friend, I feel as if I shouldn't find the frame of mind 
 to please yourself and myself in the Willes' house next Sunday. 
 Therefore I enclose for Frau Wille a few lines of apology — 
 dated direct from Kissingen [!]. Sometimes I suffer so 
 much from my friends' cowardice [cf. p. 74], that it becomes 
 better to help oneself without friends — at least for a while, 
 till the power of illusion sprouts out of one's heart again, 
 and the whole world contains naught but dear friends. 
 That also will return : until then, please convey my best 
 compliments. — 
 
 And kindest thanks for the still kinder letter. More 
 about that by word of mouth. — 
 
 Hearty greeting to your house ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 1 45 
 
 77. 
 
 Child ! Child, dearest child, 
 
 Here comes a terrible tale ! The master has made 
 something good once again ! 
 
 I have just been playing through the finished worked-out 
 first half of my act, and had to tell myself what dear God 
 once told himself when he found that All was good ! I 
 have nobody to praise me, any more than dear God had 
 then — circa 6000 years back — and so, among other things, 
 I told myself: Richard, you're a d — 1 of a fellow ! — 
 
 Eh, I can understand now, why the lumber gave me 
 such attacks of hypochondria ! One has to keep reaching 
 out God knows where, you see, to fetch the smallest pebble 
 for one's building ; and for all its grief and misery, it has 
 to sound fine in the end, and insinuate itself in such a fashion 
 that one gets a trouble round the heart without ever marking 
 what poor stuff it is ! It all goes off capitally : I have found 
 no lengths and no monotonies ; quite the opposite, passionate 
 life up to arrogance, to laughter of jest ! — No : such a thing 
 I haven't made before ; you'll marvel, for once, when you 
 hear it. — " 
 
 Now for quiet, peace and some smiling of fate, soon to 
 complete the second half as well ! Then I must be as 
 new-born! — Help me, yourself! else no one helps me. 
 Outside there all of them are dolts, all, all ! — 
 
 Adieu for to-day! 
 
 It really was my Rigi day again to-day, so of course 
 it's sweetly raining ! 
 
 What says Wesendonck to Garibaldi ? 
 
 A thousand blessings on you ! 
 Lucerne R. W. 
 
 June 5, 59. 
 
 10 
 
I4 6 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 78. 
 
 Lucerne, June 17, 59. 
 
 A couple of hasty lines before meat, and after work ! 
 Best thanks for the restored bijou. I have just despatched 
 the first manuscript of the 3rd act to Leipzig [Hartels]. 
 
 An old tale : — it's raining ! 
 
 A new one : — for 3 days past I ride ! 
 
 Ride ! ! — It's continued every morning. My doctorkin 
 insisted on it. I hope for much good from it. Don't tell 
 Wesendonck, or he'll lock up all his horses next time I come 
 to Zurich! 
 
 Absolutely nothing befallen — barring much rain ! — To- 
 morrow, if the sun shines, I'll try and set about composing 
 again. The visit of you two did me good. It was very 
 kind of you. I am calm and fairly cheerful. Be it your- 
 self! Soon more : — for to-day a mere trifle of a thousand 
 greetings. 
 
 R. W. 
 
 79. 
 
 Lucerne, June 21, 59. 
 
 Good spirits are evidently not to be kept on end by 
 the best of will ! How goes it with yours ? 
 
 The day before yesterday I resumed composition with 
 relish, yesterday it halted, and to-day I cannot even make 
 a start : this godforsaken weather checks all spirits, rain- 
 clouds and rain weigh like lead ! I was really hoping the 
 Prussian mobilisation would send us some wind from the 
 north, but it still adheres to south and west ; it's enough 
 to make one desperate. And to endure it for 3 months 
 at a place where fine weather is the conditio sine qua non 
 of any chance of holding out ! What annoys me most, 
 is when the rain prevents my morning ride now. I have 
 developed a regular mania for riding: there I have so 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 1 47 
 
 direct an association with my steed, which becomes quite 
 a part of me during the motion, demands my whole attention 
 and engrossment, and thus provides a wholly pleasurable 
 company, with the quite distinctive feature of its all being 
 one continuous contact. 
 
 I could write you much more about riding. I must 
 guard against allowing a passion for the horse to rise, because 
 I might again be learning something that I must forgo. Many 
 a thing and oft have I renounced already, and the wanderings 
 of the immortal Jew should be doubled by no steed. 
 
 Nothing has occurred. My discreet friends preserve a 
 reverential silence. Even the music-journal \Neue Zeitschrift\ 
 serves up the celebrated Future-feast in snippets.* Now I 
 almost wish to have no visitors from over there this summer ; 
 before the finishing of Tristan, such a noisy incursion could 
 scarcely do aught but disturb me. Indeed they all mean 
 something so totally other than I ; one must admit that 
 to oneself, without any bitterness. It is only with a positive 
 shudder, that I can think back to the goings-on of autumn 
 1856 ;f and when I remember what torments the visits 
 of last summer caused me, when I simply counted the hours 
 at last to people's departure, I cannot rightly conceive how 
 I'm to look forward to those visits now with any feeling 
 save dismay. And yet they can have been inspired by 
 nothing but affection for me. A queer state of affairs ! 
 What a crank I must be growing! Perhaps it will be 
 different with me when the Tristan's finished. At present 
 it holds me : then I shall hold it. — 
 
 * First Leipzig " Tonkunstler-Versammlung," June 1 to 4, 1859, under 
 Liszt's auspices. The prelude to Tristan was played June 1, but the 
 N. Z. of the 17th cuts its report before reaching that item, and leaves it 
 till the 24th ! Cf. pp. 198 and 203.— Tr. 
 
 t The six-week visit of Liszt and Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein 
 to Zurich. — Tr. 
 
148 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 Many fine Zwiebacks came yesterday : they're increasing 
 my chattels prodigiously ; whatever's to be done with all 
 the boxes ? We shall have to think out some use for 
 them. 
 
 The other day I was amused by a supplement to the 
 Intelligenzblatt [a Zurich newspaper] ; I guessed Herwegh as the 
 author, and asked him in a couple of lines [17th]. He 
 confessed with delight. Such zeal's a good joke to me. The 
 article was rather high-faluting here and there, bu& really 
 written with much wit — with more than I had suspected in 
 Herwegh — and that is enough in itself to call for hopeful 
 recognition. The subject [the war— see, p. 128] is so gruesome that 
 wit and irony, in truth, alone can make the aspect of the 
 world endurable to one ; they constitute at once a frank 
 admission of the world's atrocity, whilst our feebleness in 
 its despite is not concealed, but equally admitted. Whoso 
 can treat it with a serious face, and hope and will, himself 
 is still stuck deep in the illusion. Well, that indeed's the case 
 with H. as yet ; but it hides itself behind the zeal of his 
 denunciation of the mistakenness of others' efforts : and just 
 in that game he turns witty. With Shakespeare, whom he 
 cites in passing, I had to have a good long laugh again ; 
 which brought me back to my favourite theme, of company 
 with the great being ever the best, in the long run, to help 
 us across the world. That curiously witty smile of Shake- 
 speare's ! That godlike contempt for the world ! It really 
 is the summit to which man can soar from this misery: 
 the Genius can mount no higher, — only the Saint! The 
 latter, however, has need of wit no more. 
 
 Myself, I first feel quite restored from pain, when this 
 smile steals once more through my spirit ; a smile that under 
 circumstances, and if an undeception as to special big 
 illusions aids it, may grow into a hearty laugh. With politics I 
 catch myself taking things too seriously at times : the faintest 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 1 49 
 
 hope of good-sense and good-will among men is a snare ; 
 it lures us still to by-ways whence one cannot come quick 
 enough back, since that road also but ends in one's doing 
 men injustice. One should repeat to oneself again and again, 
 that good-sense and good-will are never the factors of history, 
 and only so much of them dwells in the nature of men as to 
 prevent the race from going altogether under ; whereas they 
 may help the individual out from life, indeed, but not within 
 it. How many hopes are being smashed again now ! How 
 plainly also will the issue of this present war shew the 
 magnanimous that he has not to seek his redemption where 
 every battlefield can teach him who is ruler of the world. 
 Yet, who will understand it ? Comes a new generation, and 
 the old game begins afresh ! Thus at the aspect even of a 
 battlefield a smile may take one, over the eternal mock we 
 make of ourselves. However — that leads far, so we'll drop 
 it to-day — ! One mustn't take even that in too much earnest, 
 but close our eye ! — A thousand greetings. — 
 
 R. W. 
 
 80 
 
 Lucerne, June 23, 59. 
 
 Many thanks, Lady-friend, 
 
 I'm in the vein, and have made up my mind — if God 
 does not forsake me altogether — not to come and see you 
 before I can hand you over the red portfolio completely 
 full. That is my wish ; whether it can be fulfilled, I don't 
 know. For I am aware enough how easily one may be 
 put out of tune with such fastidious plans, and believe I 
 owe my present good working-mood merely to the most 
 desperate dudgeon that directly preceded it. What I wrote 
 you about Herwegh, on that occasion, must have been very 
 confused : I had a suspicion of it when I sent the letter 
 off, and have since read H.'s article once more through ; 
 
15° WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 which has shewn me that in my letter I must really have 
 meant someone other than H. Let's drop that, and return 
 to Shakespeare's " wagging of beards " [Coriol. ii. i ]. This 
 and the " not so much brain as ear-wax " \Troil. & Cres. v. i] 
 are the kind of quips I find so drastic in Sh. ; and only 
 a man to whom the hollowness of the world is so omnipresent 
 could coin them so originally. 
 
 Yet we'll drop that too, for even there our own subjective 
 frame of mind may be too strong a co-efficient. The main 
 thing I wanted to tell you, is that I flatter myself I shall 
 be able to end the composition of my act as if by storm 
 now ; the whole vivid thing was revealed to me yesterday 
 as in a lightning-flash. I'm sure you will be pleased at 
 this cause of my staying at home, and wish me good luck 
 on my courageous disobedience to your invitation. There 
 is also a morsel of gourmandry in it: for I feel as if I 
 must be unutterably well of a sudden, once the Tristan is 
 finished : so, perceiving that I can arrive at a feeling of 
 wellbeing no other way, I mean to ensure it by this sleight 
 of hand. Everything eggs me on. My abode is growing 
 more and more impossible. Pianos are closing in around me, 
 strangers on strangers, shoulder-shruggings of mine host : 
 already I've bid sum upon sum to guarantee myself the 
 needful non-disturbance, and still my anxious spirit sees 
 itself once more a wandering Latona ; who nowhere found 
 a spot to bear Apollo on, till Zeus bade the island of Delos 
 arise from the sea for her. (In parenthesis : fables have 
 this advantage, that one always comes to something in 
 their end ; in real life the island stays snugly tucked under 
 the sea, — or at Mariafeld [the wuies' place] — in short, somewhere 
 away !) Yes, my child, folk make things hard for me, 
 and I've no easy time ; in return, there's but one being I 
 can so much as allow to praise my Tristan to me, and that 
 one — doesn't need to. Therefore no one shall even say me 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 1 5 1 
 
 " Bravo ! " And — you are right : it really is a worthier life, 
 in this exile of mine, than over there [at Leipzig ?] ; merely 
 you are wrong about the 7-8 years, since it already has 
 entered the nth. I didn't mean to brag of that, however, 
 but simply to cite Hartels as another cogent reason for 
 my work. Their pouts would have left me indifferent, but 
 their instant joy over the first manuscript instalment of the 
 3rd act has moved me so — it had come to their ears that 
 I meant to break off for a long while again [cf. pp. 129-30] — 
 so ! — so that if you see me come to you, it will only be with 
 the red portfolio, or — in despair. Choose you ! — I hope for 
 the red portfolio — : but I still require a little patience ; it 
 won't go fast. If it but goes ! 
 
 This morning bon Dieu made a personal tour of the 
 streets. It was Corpus Christi day ; the whole town pro- 
 cessed before the empty houses, led by the priests, who 
 had gone the length of donning golden nightgowns. How- 
 ever, the file of Capuchin monks had a most moving effect : 
 in the midst of that unspeakably repulsive tinsel-comedy of 
 religion, all at once this earnest-melancholy file. By good 
 luck, I did not see them too close ; yet I had come across 
 a pair of plain but reverend physiognomies under the 
 capuchin here before ; and the crucifix always enthrals_me. 
 Last evening, so soon as the sly-boots knew by the wind that 
 to-day we should have fine weather, all the children in the 
 churches had to pray for it ; so this wonderful cloudless 
 -morn itself was nothing but a comedy. I drank my fill 
 of it, all the same, and knew well that the weather had 
 strictly been made for myself: I also know who made it. 
 Many thanks ! — 
 
 Are you cross at my not coming ? Rather ought you not 
 to see Lucerne for once yourself at last in lovely weather ? 
 To come hither, is forbidden to nobody! — 
 
 Many kind greetings to Cousin Wesendonck, Auntkin 
 
152 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 and Unclekin ! Keep me in all of your hearts, and I'll be 
 
 right industrious. — Adio ! 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 
 Do, please, look in at the art-shop opposite the Post: 
 they had a stock of those big gold pens years ago ; perhaps 
 there's still one left. 
 
 81. 
 
 Lucerne, July 1, 59. 
 
 And how goes it, Lady-friend ? — My mood has been a 
 little oppressed by the weather these last few days : still, it 
 keeps aloft on the whole. The work is thriving, and I've 
 a very odd feeling about it. Once I mentioned to you 
 those Hindu women who leap into the odorous sea of 
 flames [see p. 81, and cf. Isolde's last words]. Surprising, how odours 
 recall the past so vividly. On my walk the other day a 
 sudden gush of rose-scent burst upon me : sideways stood 
 a little garden, where the roses were just in full bloom. That 
 recalled my last enjoying of the Asyl garden : never, as then, 
 have I so concerned myself with roses. Every morning I 
 plucked one, and set it in a glass beside my work : I knew 
 I was taking farewell of the garden. With that feeling this 
 odour has wholly inwoven : summer-heat, summer-sun, scent 
 of roses, and — parting. Thus I then sketched the music 
 for my second act. 
 
 What surrounded me then with such presence, such all 
 but intoxicant presence, now lives anew as if in dream, — 
 summer, sun, rose-scent, and — parting. Yet the heartache, 
 the anguish is gone : all is transfigured. That is the mood 
 in which I hope to bring my third act to a close now. 
 Nothing can sorely afflict me, nothing cast me down: my 
 existence is so utterly un-chained by Space and Time. I 
 know that I shall live as long as I have work to do : so I 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 1 53 
 
 don't worry my head about life, but go on working. When 
 that comes to end, I shall know myself safe indeed ; so 
 I really am cheerful. — 
 
 Would that you also were ! 
 
 May I count on a line soon? 
 
 82. 
 
 Lucerne, July 9, 59. 
 
 It was truly kind of you, dear Child, to send me your 
 news for once, and I'll see what I can find to tell you in 
 reply. The return of the cousin [Otto] by now will certainly 
 have also brought you many a piece of news, and gladly 
 would I profit a little myself of his reports on my birthplace 
 and youthful home [Leipzig], No doubt he went to Dresden 
 too ? Lohengrin he would miss there : it is not to come 
 out, as I hear, till the second half of this month. 
 
 Meanwhile I have gone through much. First and fore- 
 most : — a week ago to-day I moved, i.e. they had me moved, 
 and transported me to No. 7 on the 2nd floor of the 
 " Ur-Hotel," in the " Independence " — Ind^pendance. I feel 
 somewhat degraded, pretty much as Count Giulay after 
 Magenta ; to my agreeable big salon in the " Dependence " 
 even my thoughts dare fly no more. The unkindest cut 
 of all, though, was my having to renounce my Margravine 
 [the " marquee," see p. 127] : the republican monster of a landlord 
 forbade my further intercourse with her. So it's all up 
 with my beautiful morning hour at the open window : a 
 closed shutter bars me from the sun, and at a pinch I can 
 imagine myself sitting in gaol. There you see that I'm 
 not so spoilt and pampered yet, as some folk would like 
 to cry out. I take it in good part, however, as my fellow- 
 prisoners, Tristan and Isolde, are soon to feel quite free; 
 and so I now renounce together with them, together with 
 them to get free. Mostly every other day I am at least 
 
154 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 happy in my work : in between I usually have a less good 
 day, as the good day always makes me overweening, and 
 then I overtax myself. — This time I don't feel that old dread 
 lest I should die before the last note : on the contrary, 
 I'm so certain of finishing, that the day before yesterday 
 I even made a folk-song of it on my ride : 
 " Im Schweizerhof zu Luzern, 
 
 von Heim und Haus weit und fern — 
 
 da starben Tristan und Isolde, 
 
 so traurig er, und sie so holde : 
 
 sie starben frei, sie starben gern, 
 
 im Schweizerhof zu Luzern — 
 gehalten von Herrn 
 Oberst Seegessern " — 
 Sung to a folk-tune, I assure you it goes quite well : 
 in the evening I sang it to'Vreneli* I'd make it a present 
 to mine host if he hadn't forbidden me the Margravine. — 
 But Vreneli is my guardian angel ; she leaves no crafty 
 stone unturned, to keep unquiet neighbours off me ; children 
 are not allowed in all the 6tage. Joseph, also, has padded 
 the door to the adjoining chamber with a mattress, and 
 hung one of my curtains over it; which gives my room 
 quite a stately theatrical air. As soon as I've finished my 
 work, though, the heaviest ground of my claims on Abode 
 will have vanished. In Paris I shall hide my diminished 
 head in a chambre garni, and calmly let Fate pass over me ; 
 only when I have my travails in view, do I trouble for 
 a superfine cradle. Moreover, I am growing more and more 
 conscious of my position in life, and the greatest retrench- 
 ment now becomes a duty. Perhaps I shall sell my lovely 
 indoor-clothes as well then : you can let me know, if you 
 
 * Verena Weitmann, who entered Wagner's service hereafter at 
 Munich and Tribschen. [The naive flavour of the lines would be 
 destroyed by a needless attempt to translate them. — Tr.] 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 155 
 
 want to have any of them for your future cabinet of 
 curiosities.— Such are the reductive thoughts, you see, that 
 come to me in my present house of degradation ! — Never 
 mind : it's nearly all over with Tristan, and Isolde, I fancy, 
 will also have given up the ghost this month. Then I 
 shall throw the pair of them and myself into Hartel's arms. 
 
 Otherwise I know absolutely nothing of the world ! Not 
 a creature bothers about me, and that's really beginning to 
 put me in good humour. God, how incredibly much one 
 can do without ! Only your company, my child, I forgo most 
 unwillingly : once and for all, I know nobody to whom I 
 unbosom myself so gladly. With men it can't even be 
 attempted : at bottom, their only concern — for all their 
 friendship — is never to come out of their shell, to stick to 
 their private opinion, and let themselves be touched as little 
 as possible. It strictly is so: the male lives on himself. 
 But when I think how many good things you have enticed 
 from me already, I can only rejoice at your having never 
 had the least intention to, yet drawing out the best that 
 was in me. How it delighted me, that I introduced S. 
 Bach to you the other day ! Never had he given such 
 delight to myself, and never had I felt so nigh him. But 
 a thing like that doesn't occur to me when alone. When 
 I have music-ed with Liszt, it has been something quite 
 different ; it was music-ing, and technique and Art with 
 a capital played a big r61e : there's always some hitch 
 between men. But, dull as I perhaps appeared to you the 
 last time at Lucerne, yet our being together has borne me 
 good fruit — as you now may gather from my imperturbable 
 mood for work. Is that no proof that I am grateful to you ? 
 and that as a genuine friend ? Don't be surprised, if you 
 don't get rid of me so soon yet ! True, the fine weather 
 is helping too. Even if one has to stay shut indoors the 
 whole day, one knows that it's bright and fair outside, and 
 
156 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 the evening pertains to enjoyment. If it is hot, still the 
 very breeze that sets the sky so clear, is sweet and comforting. 
 Upon me it has quite a directly perceptible influence : a 
 little agitating, but agreeable. Moreover, it's so beautiful 
 to have the body's needs grow less and less ; I'm living 
 on next to nothing but air now, and merely my heart bleeds 
 at having to pay my landlord just as much for " board " 
 as if I had to stock an English stomach. — 
 
 For all that, my relish for the gay preponderates. Just 
 think : while working out the herdsman's merry welcome 
 of Isolde's ship the other day, there suddenly occurs to 
 me a still more jubilant melodic strain, almost heroically 
 jubilant, and yet quite popular in cut. I was on the point 
 of turning the whole thing inside out, when I at last 
 discovered that this melody does not belong to Tristan's 
 herdsman, but is Siegfried's to the life. I at once looked 
 up the closing verses of Siegfried with Briinnhilde, and saw 
 that my melody belongs to the words : 
 "Sie ist mir ewig, 
 
 ist mir immer, 
 
 Erb' und Eigen, 
 
 Ein' und All'"— etc. 
 That will have an incredibly dauntless and jubilant air. — 
 If at a whiff I was back in my Siegfried, ought I not 
 still to believe in my life, then, in my — holding out? — 
 
 Your having found such pleasure in Koppen's book 
 [cf. p. 53] shews me how well you know how to read : / 
 was provoked by so much in the book because I could not 
 stop myself from reflecting how difficult it must make a 
 clear knowledge of Buddha's doctrine to others ; so I'm 
 glad you were not thrown off the scent. Yes, child, that is 
 a view of the world compared wherewith all other dogmas 
 must surely look parochial and petty ! The philosopher 
 with his broadest thought, the explorer of Nature with 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 157 
 
 his most extensive deductions, the artist with his most 
 transcendent fantasies, the man with the widest heart for 
 all that breathes and suffers, — all find in this wondrous, 
 this quite incomparable world-myth a home the least con- 
 fined, and in it their whole full selves again. — 
 
 Tell me, now that you have been dwelling there, how 
 our lordly European New-world looks to you ? Do you 
 not find in it either the crudest running to seed, or — the 
 very crudest rudiments of an evolution which blossomed 
 with that noble ur-folk long ago? — Railroads, — civic moralisa- 
 tion ! O ! O ! 
 
 The repellent effects of our historic Present I can mostly 
 ward off me in no other way than by a quickening drink 
 at that sacred wellspring of the Ganges : one draught there- 
 out, and the whole thing shrivels to the traffic of an ant- 
 hill. Within there, deep within there, is the world : not 
 there outside, where only madness reigns ! — Well done, 
 then, even Koppen has not harmed you ! — 
 
 And so we are soon to have peace, after all. Surely 
 the Cousin at Leipzig brought the armistice about ? Perhaps 
 this peace may prove somewhat rotten — but : " who, then, 
 is happy?" — one must remind oneself of that again. In 
 any case Hartels will have helped much towards it, so as 
 to be able to pay me twice the fee \Ring ?~] upon prospects 
 improving. I really meant to charge the Cousin with some 
 such commission for Leipzig ; now he seems to have guessed 
 it. Compliment him on that. — 
 
 And next time we three are together, I still have a 
 number of tales from my youth to relate to you ; but they 
 won't work loose until we are together. Till then, have 
 all of you good cheer ; praise the Most-gloriously-perfect 
 [p. 103], and keep a corner in your hearts for — my 
 Insignificance. 
 
158 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 83. 
 
 [Mid-July 1859.] 
 Worse than in my work now, it can never have gone 
 at Solferino ; now that those folk are putting a stop to 
 the bloodshed, I'm pushing it on. I'm making a terrible 
 clearance ; to-day I've struck Melot and Kurwenal dead, 
 too. If you wish for a sight of the battle-field, you'd best 
 come before everyone's buried. 
 A thousand greetings. 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 
 84. 
 
 Lucerne, July 24, evening. 
 
 I've read the beautiful fairy-tale out to the Erard : * it 
 assured me by a doubly fine tone that it had understood 
 it well !— 
 
 The same day you received my sketches \Tristari\ ; so 
 it was a case of exchange-of-matter ! I am obsessed by 
 my work now, and regard it as a moral victory over myself 
 if I can pause and abandon one page for the day. How 
 ever shall I feel when I've ended? I have still some 35 
 pages of the full score to do : in 12 days I expect to get 
 through with them ; how ever shall I feel then ? I fancy, 
 somewhat fagged at first ; even to-day my head's quite 
 dizzy. And ah, how I depend on the weather ! If the 
 air is light and free, you can do anything with me, the 
 same as when one's fond of me ; contrariwise, if the atmo- 
 sphere weighs on me, I can stoutly rebel, at utmost, but 
 the beautiful comes hard. 
 
 I lack elbow-room. God, how the world is closing ever 
 
 * Presumably that called " The Swan " ; see pp. 57 and 334. — Tr. 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 1 59 
 
 tighter on me ! How much easier might everything be 
 made for me. 
 
 No matter, we'll console ourselves ; and after all, I know 
 no one with whom I'd exchange. 
 
 — My salutations to Cleobis and Biton ; those were the 
 names, if I mistake not, of your two good mother's-sons 
 in Argos? They're old acquaintances of mine. What a 
 pity the Greeks were such a long way behind us ! There's 
 absolutely nothing Abstract in their religion : 'tis nothing 
 but a matchlessly luxuriant world of myths, and all of 
 them so plastic and pregnant that one can never forget 
 their shapes again : and whoso fathoms them aright, finds 
 the deepest world-view sunk therein. But, they just made 
 no dogmatic system of them ; they poesied and portrayed. 
 Entire artists, profound and genial ! Glorious folk ! — 
 
 Ah, how it revolts me when I look thence to our 
 Europe ! And Paris ? — It will be a clear case of taking 
 good care — to isolate oneself and keep alone ! — 
 
 About the finished Tristan [July 16] another day. 
 
 It would be fine if we still could combine a Pilatus 
 ascent ; farther than that I suppose I shan't get, with 
 my " recreation-trips." I'll write you two best children of 
 man exactly when I think to put the last stroke of my 
 pen to the partitur. If it's possible then, do come : alone 
 I won't go up Pilatus. And then we'll also plan our 
 farewell dinner at the Villa (Franca) Wesendonck. I 
 expect to have finished — as said — the end of the first week 
 in August. 
 
 And now, good God protect you, and all your house, 
 and the ddpendance [Asyl] into the bargain ! Best thanks 
 for all kindness and love, and especially for the fir-tale [?]. 
 
 Hearty greetings to the cousin, niece and nephew ! 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 
160 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 85. 
 
 Lucerne, [Thursday,] Aug. 4, 59. 
 
 Before work a hurried pair of words to the dear students 
 of the Herr Professor : 
 
 I must and will finish by Saturday, out of sheer curiosity 
 to know how I feel then. Only, do not be cross if you find 
 me somewhat slack : that really can't be altered. But I 
 count on your rewarding me by arriving betimes Saturday 
 evening ; I've somebody here [Felix Draeseke] whom I play 
 nothing to, but keep consoling with that prospect. The 
 Pilatus shall depend on the weather then, and I fancy it will 
 be good, so that we can undertake the ascent Sunday after- 
 noon. For the rest, let things abide by my suggestion, which 
 you have so kindly adopted. Baumgartner won't slip 
 through our fingers ; he is visiting me here now, and will 
 be back in Zurich next week. — For my billeting I shall thank 
 the excellent Cousin with clarion tongue. Meantime I have 
 to worry around with the French envoy, who refuses to 
 viser my passport once more. My vexation at this shame- 
 fully defenceless plight towards the world, which people 
 leave me in so heedlessly, is only equalled by another, that 
 I still can vex myself at such a thing. — 
 
 In other ways, too, I have been somewhat agitated of 
 late, and therefore prevailed on myself — not to write to you 
 awhile, so as to leave you nicely undisturbed ! I may tell 
 you thus much, however, that I shall depart from Switzerland 
 with great, almost solemn emotion now. Yet, as Fate wills ! 
 I have lived through enough, to have left life behind me ; 
 I will neither ordain nor prepare for aught in it again : 
 nothing has sense any longer. — 
 
 But — three days more, and — Tristan und Isolde will be 
 ready. What would one more ? — 
 
 A thousand thanks to the tiny weeny lady-student for 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 161 
 
 her charming notions ; may it do her good hereafter, to 
 remember her girlhood's gardening! — 
 
 Fare you well, and give Wesendonck my very kindest 
 regards. If you don't mean to turn your backs upon me of 
 • a sudden, I shall hope to see you Saturday. 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 
 86. 
 
 Lucerne, [Monday,] Aug. 8, 59. 
 
 Silly man that I am, I forgot one petition.* Tell me, 
 best child, would you have the great kindness to procure 
 me a pretty present for Vreneli right speedily? I believe 
 it will afford her more delight than a gift of money. Perhaps 
 a gown — wool and silk ? I don't limit you in price : she 
 shall have a good present, cost what it may. — 
 
 But you would have to see to it at once, so that I might 
 receive it as early as Wednesday. If it's a nuisance to you, 
 as I shouldn't be surprised, merely tell me so. — 
 
 And the Willes, by all means invite them for Friday : 
 that is, if it will please them to come. I should like to see 
 Semper too ; but Herwegh would shoot himself then. 
 Wille . . . will make me a deal of commotion among my 
 acquaintances ; but what does that concern you two ? — Merely 
 try and reserve me a room above the envoy : your influence 
 will certainly settle that difficulty [about the pass ?— see p. 160]. It 
 is quite in keeping with the amiable character of the pair 
 of you, to offer me a sojourn in your house this time again ; 
 it is for me to be discreet, however, and keep from your 
 necks the burden and embarrassment that might arise from 
 a prolonged, stay. 
 
 * Evidently the Wesendoncks had been over to Lucerne on the 6th, 
 as invited, to celebrate the completion of the Tristan und Isolde full score— 
 with a little champagne, one might infer from the end of this letter. — Tr. 
 
 II 
 
1 62 WAGNER TO MATH1LDE WESENDONCK 
 
 Since the day before yesterday, I am very displeased 
 with myself; I have much to be ashamed of, and think 
 of chicaning myself a little for it. 
 
 One memory will abide with me, however, and that 
 will ever shew itself as heartiest and tenderest thanks ! 
 A thousand greetings. 
 
 R. W. 
 
 87. 
 
 Lucerne, Aug. II, 59. 
 
 Lady-friend, 
 
 Only in reliance on an indulgence possible almost to no 
 one but yourself, did I pluck up courage to cause you the 
 incredible upset, announcement whereof I committed to-day 
 to the telegraph. Listen, please ! A departure from your 
 house direct for Paris is not feasible to me ; much as I 
 dread it, I also have no reason to assume as yet that every 
 obstacle will be removed so quickly. Under various impres- 
 sions — why deny it ? — I'm out of humour ; the chief cause of 
 which, in any case, is bodily indisposition. Should I, then, 
 let the parting hours be spoilt for me? a parting whereto 
 nothing urges me for days to come ? I really was afraid of 
 it. And so I came by the resolve to refresh myself with 
 mountain-air first, for the next few days ; I mean to go aloft, 
 and think of arriving at Rigi-Kaltbad tomorrow (Friday) 
 evening, when I shall see if I can tolerate a few days there. 
 You shall hear from me thence. Then if I fix on a definite 
 date of departure, I will let you know ; and although I can- 
 not venture to insist on the former project being carried out, 
 yet I hope to bring you a somewhat better-mannered parting 
 guest into the house then, than you would have had to 
 entertain tomorrow. 
 
 You are too good to me, and I repay it with the constant 
 disturbance I cause you. I almost ought to have spared 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 1 63 
 
 you the trouble about the Riitli [farewell gathering?] from the 
 outset ; but my own trouble, about leaving you with a 
 good impression at parting, has also to be considered : I 
 sacrifice yours to mine. 
 
 If you remain friends with me, please send me the 
 Palleske [Schiller, cf. p. 102] too : sent as companion to me 
 by you, he ought to be a firstrate guide aloft. 
 
 A thousand hearty greetings. 
 
 Tell me if you forgive me ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 88. 
 
 Lucerne, Aug. 16, 59. 
 
 So ! after the tension of work I have reached a point of 
 recreation, at a glance to scrutinise the world that is to help 
 me farther. It has a strange enough look to me, and appears 
 to forbid me clean everything ; so that I ask myself seriously, 
 what I still am to do in it ? — 
 
 Lady-friend, I must be brief hereon ; and you yourself 
 lately made it my bounden duty to be a little careful in my 
 utterances* Will you take it as a sign of inner peace and 
 harmony, if I tell you that I'm now resolved to yield myself 
 quite passive to my destiny, lay my hands in my lap, and 
 simply wait sans bestirring myself till people fash their heads 
 about me ? — Enough ; I'm back in the Schweizerhof, as my 
 last sanctuary, and mean to sit here till — they throw me out. 
 My own free-will has nothing to do with it : there simply is 
 nothing else left for me. 
 
 I enjoy good repute here, and think of committing myself 
 to its agreeable shelter. — When congratulating Myrrha the 
 
 * See the dots after Francois Wille's name in the letter of August 8. 
 Presumably this allusion explains the sudden cancelling of the " farewell 
 dinner," on Wagner's side. No rupture, however, was caused thereby, for 
 we find him thanking Otto in his first letter from Paris (Sept. 17) for " the 
 four bright days on your hospitable hill " ; see Letters to Otto Wesendonck. 
 — Tr. 
 
164 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 day before yesterday, I telegraphed also to Liszt, telling 
 him that I should wait for him here. Instead of his 
 answer, I received a letter yesterday from Princess Marie 
 [Wittgenstein], in which she announced her betrothal to 
 a young Prince Hohenlohe, and — in her grief at having 
 to quit the Altenburg so soon — begged me to accord her 
 Liszt's unbroken presence till October (her wedding). So 
 I'm now even robbed of the pleasant excuse of waiting for 
 my friend here. — Ed. Devrient tells me, in his last letter, 
 that he has something else to do than make a rendezvous 
 with me. — 
 
 A peep into the Kaltbad on the Rigi convinced me 
 that a stay there was not to be dreamt of ; bad weather 
 made the Rigi revival complete. In endurable humour, 
 though semi-despair — since I found as good as no room here 
 at all — the day before yesterday I made up my mind to 
 go up, Pilatus instead, at least to be able to give you exact 
 information about this excursion in future. It is very 
 beautiful, very handy, and Pilatus himself merits great 
 propaganda. Returned here yesterday, I found letters that 
 reduced me to a condition of abandoning every step towards 
 self-help, and retiring for an unlimited period into a little 
 chamber of the Schweizerhof. My piano remains nicely 
 packed in the shed ; but they have unpacked the divan for 
 me, and also the child's cushion. So I'll follow your advice 
 for once, and wait to see what will turn up. — Will that 
 content you? — It ought to delight you, to hear that I'm 
 letting the halm lie around me so coolly ; my temper is 
 quite 1 excellent amid it all. 
 
 Tell me what the diplomats are doing. Accept a 
 thousand thanks for your last indulgence and the Zwieback 
 of to-day. 
 
 Many kind wishes from Your 
 
 R. W. 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 165 
 
 Lucerne, August 24, 59. 
 Whatever can have put it into your head, Child, to 
 see, or wish to see in me a " wise man " ? Am I not the 
 maddest subject one can possibly conceive? Meted with 
 the measure of a wise man, I must appear downright 
 criminal ; and just because I know so much and many a 
 thing, and in particular, that Wisdom is so excellent and 
 wishable. But that, in return, gives me Humour, which 
 helps me over abysses the wisest doesn't even espy. And 
 then, you see, I'm a poet, and — what is far worse — a 
 musician. Now think of my music, with its tenuous, 
 mysteriously-fluent juices, that soak through the subtilest 
 pores of sensation to the very marrow of life ; there to over- 
 whelm all that bears itself the least like prudence or timorous 
 self-preservation ; to flood away all savour of the feint 
 of Personality, and leave but a sublime wistful sigh of 
 avowal of syncope : — then say, how could I ever be a wise 
 man, if I'm entirely at home in nothing but such raving 
 madness ? 
 
 But I will tell you something. To the temple at Delphi 
 trooped princes and peoples from the uttermost ends of the 
 world, to get their fortunes told them. The priests were 
 the Wise who doled them out those revelations ; but the 
 priests themselves had first to gain them from the Pythia, 
 when she broke into a paroxysmal ecstasy on her tripod of 
 inspiration and wondrously groaned forth the god's own 
 oracles, which the wise priests merely had to transpose into 
 the world's vernacular. — I fancy, whoso once has sat upon 
 that tripod, can become a priest no more: he has stood in 
 the immediate presence of the god. — 
 
 Furthermore : reflect that Dante met his seldom-and- 
 soft-speaking wise men, not in Paradise, but at a shady 
 halfway place twixt Heaven and Hell. On the cross itself 
 
1 66 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 tho', the Redeemer cried to the poor thief : This day shalt 
 thou be with me in Paradise. — 
 
 You see, you can't get over me : I'm of an arrant cunning, 
 and terrible reserves of mythology are stowed in my head. 
 If you will grant me that, I'll also grant you, that you — are 
 right ; and still more : that it costs me no effort whatever 
 to grant that you're right, for whenever I catch myself in 
 that which you bring so concernedly home to me, I myself 
 am so cross and displeased with myself, that the only thing 
 I wince at then, is the having others rub my self-reproaches 
 into me as if they doubted my already feeling them. And 
 yet, you dear child, 'tis my - final and fairest refreshment, 
 when I learn that all these inner processes of mine are so 
 delicately sensed by another. — Won't you be content with 
 me ? Are you ? — 
 
 Only remember how rarely you so much as see me 
 now, and how hard it is at those infrequent epochs to 
 be exactly what one might be. Indeed it is difficult now, 
 for 
 
 So autumn has come down on us quickly ; after a raw 
 and ruined Spring a short-lived blast of summer, and now — . 
 How the days draw in already ! It all is truly like a dream. 
 A few days back the air was even nipping : every good 
 angel seemed flown. A little after-warmth has put in an 
 appearance, though : I enjoy it as a convalescent, yet as 
 one who must still take some care of himself. I'm boundlessly 
 idle, which perhaps may come — as I told my young friend 
 [F. Draeseke] the other day — from the great maturity at 
 which my talent has arrived.* I have received proofs for 
 correction [Tristan score], and stare at them aimlessly. 
 Possibly it is the catarrhal fever to which I last succumbed, 
 that has left me in this state : my nerves will not recover 
 
 * The little joke is not condensable in English, "faul" meaning both 
 " idle" and " rotten," therefore the next stage after ripeness of a fruit. — Tr. 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 167 
 
 quite, as yet ; perhaps it's the fault of the wind. Vreneli 
 tells me that 4 persons in the hotel are already down with 
 nervous fever. Well, I suppose I am safe against that. — 
 
 As for the rest, I've arranged my little room quite 
 skilfully, so that you would be surprised at it, if you were 
 to look in. I've even made it possible to find a place for 
 the piano : so it's on its legs once more. — 
 
 Moreover, I already feel a shade more upright and 
 respectable again : they sent me yesterday my passport 
 vise\ — Further, it's settled that I have no direct vertigo, 
 but merely a sympathetic. That I found out again on 
 Pilatus, where I looked quite calmly down into the deepest 
 chasm at my feet, but was suddenly seized with a frenzy 
 of terror when I looked at my guide, who had gone, like 
 myself, to the brink of the precipice ; thus I really am not 
 so concerned for myself, as for one who depends on me. 
 On the other hand, I never can think without positive 
 faintness of how my negligence was once to blame for the 
 death of that dear little parrot, so touchingly attached to me, 
 which I lost at Zurich before making your acquaintance.* — 
 
 Children ! Children ! I think the dear God will have 
 mercy upon me one day. — Beg Wesendonck, also, not to be 
 cross with me,t and think kindly yourself of 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 
 * See letter of February 1851 to Uhlig, also Life iii, 145-6. — Tr. 
 
 t Apparently for refusing the offer of a loan, as the German editor 
 of the Letters to Otto Wesendonck mentions (without otherwise specifying) 
 a letter of even date to that effect ; possibly the refusal was contained in 
 an enclosure to this letter itself, and may explain the aposiopesis on p. 166. 
 On the 28th Wagner changes his mind, however, in consequence of the 
 failure of his negotiations with the Hartels for sale of the Ring, and 
 writes to Otto that he is prepared " to do a little business with him " ; a 
 proposal willingly accepted by Herr Wesendonck, though with purely 
 friendly intent. — Tr. 
 
168 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 90. 
 
 Lucerne, Aug. 27, 59. 
 
 Herewith I send you Don Felix [Draeseke], who has kept 
 me faithful company till now. He's bringing you the Schiller, 
 much of which (as you may easily imagine) has deeply 
 affected me. Your note of to-day was very satirical {spottisdi) 
 to be sure, but still it rejoiced me, as testifying to your high 
 spirits. I feel in quite passable health these few days ; 
 the landlord at Brunnen declared he had never seen me 
 looking so well, as now. A pleasantly confident mood has 
 inspired me with projects,* about which I perhaps shall 
 soon give [you] to decide whether they're monstrous or 
 perfectly natural. We shall see. — Don Felix pronounces 
 the third act of the Tristan still finer than the second. I 
 entreat you to give him a good dressing for that. Am I to 
 tolerate that sort of thing ? 
 
 I have heard nothing new from the " world," and am 
 still in the thick of the "wood." There flit all kinds of 
 Nibelungs and sleeping Valkyries. I have promised Don 
 Felix some Wotan this morning, as a last farewell ; he 
 shall report to you how it turns outf 
 
 * Clearly those referred to in the last note and concerning a purchase 
 of the Ring by Otto.— Tr. 
 
 t It is just possible that this may imply the commencement of the 
 ' composition-draft ' of act iii Siegfried, the exact date whereof has not 
 as yet been ascertained. In favour of that supposition might be adduced 
 the allusion to "sleeping Valkyries," the inference that Frau Wesendonck 
 had not hitherto heard how this music " turned out," and the references to 
 act iii toward the end of the letter of Sept. 24 (p. 177) and in that of Oct. 25 
 to Otto. Against, we have " Wotan " where we should have expected " the 
 Wanderer," the " Nibelungs " who do appear in act ii (scoring of which 
 may alternatively have been commenced), and the contrast. of "world" 
 with "wood "so frequent in the first two acts. No doubt it is a great 
 temptation, to make that superb invocation of Erda directly succeed the 
 last touch to the Tristan score, i.e. after an interval of barely three 
 weeks ; but, all things considered, we must resist it until we have more 
 definite data to go upon. — Tr. 
 
LUCERNE LETTERS 1 69 
 
 To your cow you must soon add a lamb, and if possible, 
 a pretty goat as well. That absolutely must be.— Yesterday 
 I feared Vreneli was sickening for the nervous fever, and 
 wanted to take energetic steps against it ; but she's better 
 to-day. I think I shan't catch it myself, although it is 
 now epidemic here. — Greet your Elves-hill and all that live 
 thereon, and remember me ! 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 
 
 SEPTEMBER 1859 TO JANUARY 1862 
 {Including four from Vienna) 
 
 58 58 58 
 
 171 
 
91. 
 
 Paris, Sept. 23, 59* 
 
 " Ich sauge nur die Siissigkeit, 
 Das Gift, das lags' ich drin."t 
 
 A careless child thus bantered me some years ago : she 
 has tasted since the bane of Care. But the little bee 
 thrust in her sting, to boot ; 'twas the spur to the best and 
 noblest. She left it buried in my soul ; and was the bane 
 so bad? — 
 
 Lady-friend, it is the latest years of my life that really 
 have matured me to a man ; I feel at perfect harmony with 
 myself, and whenever the True is at stake my will stands 
 firm and fast. As for material life, I cheerfully allow myself 
 to be guided by my instinct : something higher is meant 
 with me, than the mere value of my personality. This 
 knowledge is so rooted in me, that with a smile I scarcely 
 ask myself at times an I will a thing or no ; that care is 
 taken by the curious genie whom I serve for this remainder 
 of my life, and who intends me to finish what only I can 
 bring about. 
 
 Deep calm, then, is within me : the surging of the surface 
 waves has nothing to do with my channel. I am — what I 
 can be ! — thanks, Lady-friend, to you. — 
 
 * Somewhere about a week after letter 90 Wagner had gone to the 
 Wesendoncks for those " four bright days " adduced in my note to p. 163, 
 and then set forth at once for Paris ; where he has arrived by Sept. 12, 
 and whence he writes to Otto Sept. 17 — see Letters to 0. Wk. — Tr. 
 
 t " I sip alone the honey, leave the bane behind."— Tr. 
 
 173 
 
174 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 Now what will you say, when you hear I'm hard at 
 work already? — 
 
 The young man who has made a translation of the 
 Tannhauser [Chaiiemei?] gave it me to look through. After 
 a fleeting glance I let it fall, and told myself: Impossible! 
 Therewith a heavy load was shaken off, namely the thought 
 of a French Tannhauser, and I breathed anew. Yet that was 
 only my person : the other, my daemon — my genius ? — said 
 to me : " Thou seest how incapable this Frenchman is — 
 or any one else, for that matter — of translating thy poem ; 
 consequently thou'lt simply prevent thy work being given 
 in France at all. But how when thou art dead, and thy 
 works at last commence to live? How, when one has not 
 to ask thy consent, but produces thy Tannhauser in just 
 such another translation |as lies before thee and has been 
 wreaked already on the noblest German poems (Faust for 
 instance) with just as little understanding ? " Ah, child ! 
 such a possible immortality in prospectu is a daemon of 
 peculiar sort, and lands us in the selfsame cares that fasten 
 a mother and father to the welfare of their children far 
 beyond their own term of life. I alone can contribute to 
 a perfectly good translation of my works : therefore a duty 
 lies in it I cannot forfend. So I seat myself with my young 
 poet every morning, go over verse by verse, word after word, 
 syllable by syllable ; seek with him, often by the hour, for 
 the best turn of speech, the right word ; sing it to him, 
 and make him thus clairvoyant to a world that hitherto was 
 wholly shut to him. Well, his zeal rejoices me, his rising 
 enthusiasm, his frank confession of his previous blindness, — 
 and — we shall see ! At least I know I'm providing for the 
 future of my child as well as I am able ! — 
 
 Otherwise I haven't gone much about as yet. My life 
 stays the same, at Lucerne or in Paris. The outer rind can 
 alter nothing in me : and just that pleases me. — 
 
PARIS LETTERS 175 
 
 Sept. 24. 
 My Frenchman came [i.e. where the letter broke off] ; in defiance 
 of a little feverishness, I worked somewhat too ardently with 
 him, and — he left me very tired : to-day I awoke to the 
 light with a strong catarrhal fever. Your and Wesendonck's 
 letter has delighted me ; give him my hearty thanks ! That 
 folk should be seeking me now that I've gone, is quite in 
 order : the world only seeks one when it suits it ; as soon 
 as I have gone completely, folk will probably seek me the 
 most. Father Heim must have made quite an excellent 
 Posa [Don Carlos] ; the kind-heartedness of such adherents 
 is always a joy, even though one can't suppress a smile at 
 indissoluble misunderstandings. I have seen nothing at all 
 of Biilow's letter on Tristan.* A Countess Charnacd, daughter 
 of Madame A., had received word from her mother, and 
 invited me to tea : I have been unable to go as yet ; now 
 the young lady is highly commended to me from Berlin 
 [by Biilow]. A more important point at present is that 
 of my abode ; for it was to " abide " somewhere again, that I 
 came to Paris. For the nonce I'm merely in a logis garni : 
 I still am seeking an unfurnished house. But, together with 
 the abode, I have yet another weighty " settlement " to think 
 of. Lady-friend, I have searched my heart, and determined 
 to carry out my resolution with the highest moral force that 
 I have gained ; yet I need a few easements towards it. 
 I am looking forward with delight to the uncommonly 
 clever, good and loving little dog [Fips] you once sent into 
 my home from your sickbed ; it will go for walks with me 
 once more, and when I come home after tiresome business 
 it will run like a friend to accost me. But please now 
 
 * Hans von Biilow had privately written to Brendel a most glowing 
 eulogy of the Tristan music ; Brendel indiscreetly published the letter in 
 the Neue Zeitschrift, and a Dr. Zeller maliciously pounced upon it for his 
 Bliitter fiir Musik—aM in September. — Tr. 
 
176 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 procure me another good house-sprite, select me a servant ; 
 you know what need I thus express. Your present porter's 
 kind face pleased me much : what has become of his 
 predecessor, who was such a favourite in the house ? Without 
 hurting your own interests too much, could you not effect 
 an arrangement in my favour there ? I want to make my 
 household as congenial to me as possible : I would rather 
 not fix anything about the female part of it, however ; 
 otherwise I should already have opened the Parisian colony 
 to Vreneli. I insist upon my wife's picking out and bringing 
 with her a girl of education, partly to attend to her, partly 
 to keep her company. Beyond that, I have a cook to engage, 
 for whom Madame Herold [widow of the composer] is going to look 
 out. Accordingly the man-servant would have as his duties 
 the tidying of the rooms (which the garcon always does in 
 Paris), cleaning of silver etc., waiting at table, running on 
 errands, and further, my valeting, especially at the bath ; 
 on journeys he would accompany me, and look after my 
 luggage. These attentions I greatly lack : looking after 
 such things myself I always bustle far too much, get uselessly 
 excited, catch cold, and so on. And above all : I so need 
 a pleasant, sympathetic human soul about me, were it only 
 as my servant. — 
 
 Now then : lend a kind ear to this plea. The man could 
 enter any moment. — So it's a case of providing a Zwieback 
 once more, and a big one this time ! — 
 
 As for my outward lot, I am sure it will shape quite 
 endurably. Upon that side I'm still on the ascending plane 
 now ; and latterly it seems as if the ascent would even be 
 fairly rapid, — at least, according to a conversation yesterday 
 with the director of the Theatre lyrique (a really pleasant, 
 decent sort of man), it lies in my own hands how soon I 
 will make even a Paris fortune. I shan't mind, though, if 
 everything will only serve to keep me in good trim this 
 
PARIS LETTERS 1 77 
 
 winter, so that I may visit my dear Switzerland next Spring ; 
 for there alone can Siegfried wake Briinnhilde, — in Paris 
 it would scarcely do, you know. — From Carlsruhe I'm 
 expecting a very circumstantial answer very soon, on many 
 points : I insist upon everything being taken very strictly 
 there. I may thereby place those gentry in embarrassment 
 enough; but it can't be helped,— the fruit of Tristan is 
 no easy one to pluck. 
 
 How good it would be of you, children, if you 
 sent me a photograph of the Green Hill : that was indeed 
 a capital idea ! I still regret not having sent you my 
 Venetian palace. 
 
 I have much more [to tell you] concerning what we lately 
 spoke about ; but I'll save it for another time. To Frau Wille 
 I really will write soon : we could not see each other this 
 time ; but I'll offer her amends. — Now let me exorcise my 
 fever for good and all by rest and reading (Plutarch). I 
 shall hear from you soon again, perhaps even through 
 Fridolin* Kindest wishes to cousin and children, deepest 
 obligation to Karl, and faithfulest love to Lady-friend ! — 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 92. 
 
 Paris, Oct. 10, 59. 
 
 In expectation of speedy good news of Karl's condition, t 
 I'll chatter all I can, dear Child, for your distraction. 
 
 To-day I've had a most astonishing adventure. I inquire 
 at a custom-office after my goods that have come from 
 Lucerne : the packages were on the books, but not my 
 name. I produce my letter of advice, and tell my name ; 
 then one of the officials rises : "Je connais bien Mr. Richard 
 
 * The man-servant above referred to, " der treue Knecht " [" faithful 
 hind"]. 
 
 + Oct. 5 : " You make me anxious too, with your news of Karl's 
 illness " — Letters to Otto Wesendonck. — Tr. 
 
 12 
 
178 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 Wagner, puisque j'ai son m^daillon suspendu sur mon piano 
 et je suis son plus ardent admirateur." " Quoi ? " " Ne 
 soyez pas surpris de rencontrer a. la douane de Paris un homme 
 capable de gouter les incomparables beaut^s de vos partitions, 
 que j'ai dtudi^es toutes " etc.* 
 
 It was all like a dream. An enthusiast at the Douane, 
 just as I was expecting such great difficulties with the 
 receipt of my furniture ! The good fellow leapt, and ran, 
 and helped me : he himself had to inspect. He has a wife 
 who plays the piano very well ; for himself, he has literary 
 aspirations, and meanwhile earns a living by his present 
 berth. He told me of a fairly wide circle which has formed 
 itself exclusively through spread of an acquaintance with 
 my works. As he doesn't understand German, I replied 
 that I could not conceive his taking pleasure in music 
 that depended so entirely on the poetry and expression of 
 the verse. He : Just because it tallied so precisely with the 
 diction, was he so easily able to argue out the poetry from 
 the sound, so that through the music the foreign tongue became 
 completely understandable. What next? I shall have to 
 begin to believe in miracles ! — And that at the douane ! I 
 begged my new friend, who much affected me (you may 
 imagine how happy I made him), to come and call. — 
 
 Do you know, my operas no longer really seem to me 
 such a paradoxical impossibility in Paris ? Biilow gave me 
 an introduction to an author-doctor of this place, a Dr. 
 Gasperini, who — with one of his friends, likewise a thorough 
 Frenchman — is in exactly the same case as my visitator at 
 
 * " I know Mr. Richard Wagner well, since his medallion hangs above 
 my piano, and I am his most ardent admirer." "Eh?'' "Do not be 
 surprised at meeting in the Paris Custom-house a man capable of 
 appreciating the incomparable beauties of your scores, all of which I 
 have studied" etc. — The young customs-officer was Edmond Roche, 
 subsequently joint translator of Tannh&user, who died of consumption 
 very soon after that work's performance at the Paris Grand Opera. — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 1 79 
 
 the douane. These people play Tannhauser and Lohengrin 
 to me, without my having a word to say to it ; their not 
 knowing German doesn't gene them in the least. — And then 
 the director of the Theatre lyrique [Carvalho] announced 
 himself, to hear my Tannhauser first-hand. They all as- 
 sembled, and so I had to victimise myself once more, first 
 with a minute French explanation of the text (what that 
 cost me ! ), then with singing and playing. That made light 
 dawn on them at last, however, and the impression seemed 
 quite extraordinary. To me it all is so unheard-of with 
 these Frenchmen ! 
 
 On the contrary, I receive none but dismal, sullen news 
 from Germany. Friend Devrient makes it his chief concern 
 to maintain his " institute " in smoothest equilibrium, and 
 keep all unhabitual, transient things aloof from it. A totally 
 voiceless high soprano, for whom Isolde's music lies too low 
 throughout, and who consequently can't even screw her mind 
 up to it yet, is the only one offered me for my heroine, 
 since she is said to be a good performer otherwise* And 
 not one spark of warmth in anything : the only pro in all 
 the enterprise, that I'm to be there myself; but even on 
 that no definite reply as yet to all my recent queries, as the 
 Grand Duke still is not get-at-able. So I feel strongly 
 inclined to break off short : it really is not a genuine article, 
 and I ought to be able to wait till the genuine trots to my 
 hand ; it's so odious to me, to have to hunt it ! — 
 
 Yes, children, had you Zurich people, out of thanks for 
 all the honest sweat I shed there, but gone the length of 
 building me a middling decent theatre, I should have had 
 what I want for all time, and need go courting nobody again. 
 Singers and orchestra, whenever required for the first pro- 
 
 * According to Dr. Altmann, this was a Frau Hewitz — not Malvina 
 Garrigues, wife of Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld, who ultimately 
 ' created ' the role of Isolde at Munich. — Tr. 
 
180 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 duction of a new work, I should always be able to procure 
 as I wanted them ; foreign conductors and singers would 
 have been bidden to these performances, to take a pattern 
 by the rendering, — and that once called into being, I should 
 have felt I had cared for all the rest, and might thenceforth 
 lead a quiet life, without troubling for the further fate of my 
 works. How fair, how fine, how quite befitting me, would 
 that have been ! I should have needed then no prince, no 
 amnesty, no good or evil word : free stood I there, bereft of 
 all cares for my progeny. And nothing more than a decent, 
 by no means luxurious stage-building : people ought to be 
 thoroughly ashamed of themselves ! Don't you think so, 
 too?! 
 
 Dear Heaven, one's mite of freedom still is all, to make 
 one's life endurable ! No otherwise can I hold out at all, 
 and every concession would gnaw at my heart as a deadly 
 worm. Genuine — or nothing ! — Thus too, despite my Parisian 
 enthusiasts, I continue to live in great and total stillness : 
 I'm alone indoors almost the whole day long, and positively 
 every evening. This month I have yet to undergo my 
 moving-in : there again I've slung much on my neck, and 
 strictly in quest of nothing but peace for my work. My little 
 house will be quite pretty, though ; L. is here, and I'll shew 
 it him tomorrow, so that he may describe it to you.* The 
 close air and altered mode of life do not agree with me as 
 yet; I expect I shall have to take to riding again. Once 
 more I've a terrible number of letters to write ; my best 
 remain in my head, however : those to you. There I should 
 find plenty to say, yet nothing but the same old song you've 
 heard so often, and nothing of which will alter. With 
 
 * The German edition has "Liszt," but that is quite impossible; 
 see Wagner's letters to him of Oct. 20 and Nov. 23 ("You couldn't come 
 to Paris"). Most probably the "L." stands for Luckemeyer, Frau 
 Wesendonck's brother. — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 181 
 
 Plutarch's great men I feel pretty much as Schiller (not 
 quite rightly, though) with Winkelried ; about these one 
 might rather say, Thank God I don't belong to them. Ugly, 
 small, violent natures, insatiable — because they have abso- 
 lutely nothing inside them, and therefore must be ever 
 gulping something from without : a fig for these Great men ! 
 I swear by Schopenhauer's dictum : Not the world-conqueror, 
 but the world-overcomer, is worthy admiration. Please 
 God to keep these " powerful " natures, these Napoleons etc., 
 off my neck ! — And what is Eddamiiller doing ? * Have you 
 poor Heinrich ? Are you cross with me ? Or do you still 
 retain a scrap of fondness for me ? Do tell me that ! And 
 greet me the cousin, — and fare you well ! A thousand 
 
 greetings from 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 
 From the 15th inst I shall be living at 16 Rue Newton, 
 Champs Elysees. 
 
 93. 
 
 Paris, Oct. 21, 59. 
 
 I found your letter, Lady-friend, at my new dwelling, 
 when I moved in yesterday to sleep my first night there ; 
 the beautiful aesthetic calm in your communications has 
 done me a power of good, although it wellnigh shamed me. 
 
 Now let me be silent awhile : 'tis the only consecration 
 open to me now; I know how much my silence may be 
 worth. Confide in it ! — 
 
 I am not to have you at the Tristan ! How shall that 
 be possible ? — Let me hear that you're tranquil and well on 
 the fortunate isle [Sicily]. — 
 
 * A characteristic nickname for Prof. E. M. L. EttmQller, translator of 
 the Eddas; see Life Hi, 271-2 and 323. The "poor Heinrich" must 
 be Hartmann von Aue's Der arme Heinrich (circa 1200).— Tr. 
 
1 82 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 When I write to you next, it shall be better. For the 
 rest, I'm alone, see no one, and have to do — alas ! ! — with 
 none but workmen. I am — housing myself once more ! — 
 Hearty greetings to Wesendonck. Thanks and fidelity ! 
 
 Your 
 R. W. 
 
 94. 
 
 Paris, Oct. 23, 59. 
 
 My precious Child ! 
 
 The master has seen Death once again since that All- 
 Souls night last year : this time as friend and benefactor. 
 
 A while ago I went to pay a call on Berlioz. I found 
 him just returning home in a lamentable condition ; he had 
 just been getting himself electrified, as a last expedient for 
 his ailing nerves. He depicted his torments to me, which, 
 beginning the moment he wakes, increase in mastery every 
 hour. I recognised my sufferings, to the life, and the 
 sources whence they feed to excess ; among which I reckon 
 in particular those incredible nervous exertions, entirely 
 foreign to all other men, while conducting or otherwise 
 eagerly rendering. I knew I should be a still greater sufferer 
 than Berlioz himself, were it not that I expose myself so 
 seldom to those exertions now ; for I feel that, even as it 
 is, they act more and more destructively upon me. In 
 Berlioz' case, unfortunately, the stomach already is seriously 
 affected ; and — trivial as it may sound — Schopenhauer is 
 perfectly right in naming among the chief physiological 
 requirements for Genius a good digestion. Through my 
 extraordinary moderation I have mostly kept that requisite 
 in serviceable order ; still, I foresaw in Berlioz' sufferings 
 those probably predestined for myself, and said goodbye 
 to the poor fellow in a frame of general awe. 
 
 I had to give my Frenchmen the other half of Tannhauser ; 
 
PARIS LETTERS 1 83 
 
 the strain was great, a moral bitterness preponderating 
 \vid. inf.] ; next day a small error of diet ( 1 glass of red 
 wine with my bouillon at lunch), and soon afterwards a 
 regular catastrophe, which laid me by the heels in a trice. 
 As I lay full length in utter prostration, seized at the 
 body's very citadel [see p. 190], of a sudden I felt heavenly 
 well. Gone was all chagrin, each trouble, every care, all 
 will and must : profoundest accord of my innermost self 
 with my physical condition ; silence of all life's passions ; 
 repose, entire dropping of the tight-clutched reins of 
 life- 
 Two hours did 1 taste this happiness. Then life re- 
 turned : the nerves twitched again ; pain, distress, desire, 
 will, came back ; dearth, discomfort — future, confronted me 
 once more. And so I gradually awoke completely, even 
 to troubling about my new — housing. — 
 
 Yes ! I am housing once more — without faith, without 
 love, without hope, on the bottomless basis of dreamlike 
 indifference ! — 
 
 So be it then ! One belongs not to oneself ; and whoso 
 thinks it, merely weens it. — 
 
 I am not quite well again yet (what people call well !) — 
 yet I'll add one latest piece of information. The dramatic 
 idyll at Carlsruhe has come to full stop and an ending ; 
 Devrient himself has relieved me of the pain of having 
 to refuse his songstress ; herself she has declared herself 
 unequal to Isolde. I suppose it's all for the best: in any 
 case, the whole Tristan adventure is postponed for a fairly 
 long time, and the door stands again wide open for other 
 good chances to throng through. Dream the time sweetly 
 away in your Sicily : you'll miss nothing by it. How I 
 wish you open weather, warmth, invigoration, recovery, from 
 the deepest bottom of my heart ! Your plan is excellent, 
 and cousin Wesendonck to be praised and extolled for it ! — • 
 
184 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 The Green Hill has arrived : — why to me now this 
 
 peaceful emblem of repose and innocence ? ! — 
 
 Adieu for to-day. You shall soon hear more. 
 
 A thousand greetings to the Lady-friend ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 95. 
 
 Paris, Oct. 29, 59. 
 
 Of one attribute that I have acquired in my art I am 
 now becoming more and more distinctly conscious, since it 
 influences me in life as well. It is inborn in my nature to 
 swing from one extreme of temper to another : the uttermost 
 rebounds, moreover, can hardly help but touch ; in fact, 
 life's safeguard often lies therein. At bottom, too, true art 
 has no other subject than the display of these extremes of 
 mood in their ultimate relations to each other : that which 
 alone is worth aiming at here, the weighty crisis {die wichtige 
 Entscheidung), can really be won from nothing but these 
 uttermost antitheses. For art, however, from a material use 
 of these extremes there may easily arise a vicious mannerism, 
 which may degenerate into snatching at outward effect. In 
 this snare have I seen caught, in particular, the modern 
 
 French school, with Victor Hugo at its head * 
 
 Now, I recognise that the peculiar tissue of my music 
 (naturally in exactest agreement with the poetic structure) — 
 what my friends now consider so new and significant t — owes 
 its texture in especial to that intensely touchy feeling which 
 prompts me to mediate and knit together all the nodes of 
 transition between extremes of mood. My subtlest and 
 deepest art I now might call the art of Transmutation, for 
 my whole artistic woof consists of such transitions : I have 
 
 * Judging by the next sentence, I take the omission to be that of a 
 reference to a certain someone else's music. — Tr. 
 
 t By this time he must have read that letter of Bulow's mentioned 
 p. I75--Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 1 85 
 
 taken a dislike to the abrupt and harsh ; often it is unavoid- 
 able and needful, but even then it should not enter without 
 the Stimmung being so definitely prepared for a sudden 
 change, as of itself to summon it. My greatest masterpiece 
 in this art of subtlest and most gradual transition is assuredly 
 the big scene in the second act of Tristan und Isolde. The 
 commencement of this scene offers the most overbrimming 
 life in its most passionate emotions, — its close the devoutest, 
 most consecrate desire of death. Those are the piers : now 
 see, child, how I've spanned them, how it all leads over from 
 the one abutment to the other! And that's the whole 
 secret of my musical form, as to which I make bold to assert 
 that it has never been so much as dreamt before in such clear 
 and extended coherence and such encompassing of every 
 detail. If you knew how that leading sense inspired me 
 here with musical contrivances — for rhythm, harmonic and 
 melodic development — such as I never could light on before, 
 you would grow aware how, even in the most specific branch 
 of art, there can be no true invention if it does not spring 
 from such main principles. — So much for Art ! But with me 
 this art is very close allied to Life. I suppose a strong con- 
 flict of extremes of mood will always remain part of my 
 character : it is painful to me, however, to have to measure 
 their effects on others : to be understood is so indispensably 
 important. Well, as Art has to bring to understanding those 
 extreme grand emotions of Life .which remain unknown to 
 the generality of mankind (except in rare epochs of war or 
 revolution), so this understanding is only to be compassed 
 through the most definite and cogent motivation of transi- 
 tions ; and my whole artistic work consists in nothing but 
 evoking the needful, willing mood of receptivity through 
 such a motivation.* Nothing has been more horrifying to 
 
 * " Wie nun in der Kunst die aussersten, grossen Lebensstimmungen 
 zum Verstandniss gebracht werden sollen, die eigentlich dem allgemeinen 
 
1 86 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 me, in this regard, than when skips are made in the perform- 
 ance of my operas ; for instance in the Tannhauser, where I 
 first went to work with a growing sense of this beautiful, 
 convincing need of Transmutation, and carried out a most 
 pregnantly-motived transition (even musically considered) 
 from the outburst of horror after Tannhauser's appalling 
 confession, to the reverence wherewith the intercession of 
 Elisabeth is heard at last ; a transition I always was proud 
 of, and that never failed of its convincing effect. You may 
 easily imagine how I felt, when I learnt that folk saw 
 ' lengths ' in this (as at Berlin) and positively struck out one 
 of the most essential portions of my artwork ! — 
 
 Thus does it fare in my art. And how in life ? Have 
 you not often been witness how people found my language 
 domineering, wearisome, interminable, when, led by an 
 identical instinct, I meant nothing else than to lead over 
 from excitement, or after an unusual expression, to a rational 
 conciliation ? — 
 
 Do you remember the last evening with Semper? I 
 had suddenly forsaken my calmness, and wounded my op- 
 ponent by a vigorous thrust : hardly had the words escaped 
 me, than I inwardly cooled down at once, and felt nothing 
 but the necessity — precisely to myself — of making amends, 
 and restoring the conversation to a seemly groove. At like 
 time, however, I had a definite feeling that this could never 
 
 Menschenleben (ausser in seltenen Kriegs- und Revolutionsepochen) 
 unbekannt bleiben, so ist diess Verstandniss eben nur durch die 
 bestimmteste und zwingendste Motivirung der Uebergange zu erreichen, 
 und mein ganzes Kunstwerk besteht eben darin, durch diese Motivirung 
 die nSthige, willige Gefiihlsstimmung hervorzubringen." — Even by a slight 
 paraphrase it is impossible to do justice to this pregnant sentence, as, 
 among other things, we have no single English equivalent for Stimmung — 
 the meaning of which may range from " key," or " pitch, 1 ' to " frame of 
 mind." — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 1 87 
 
 be done by sudden muting, but only through a gradual 
 and conscious leading-over. I remember that even while 
 still loudly championing my own opinion, I was already 
 handling it with a certain artistic deliberateness, which, if 
 people would only have let me go on, quite surely would 
 have led to a conclusion alike intellectually and morally 
 conciliating, and ended with agreement and appeasement 
 in one. I grant you that this is demanding too much ; for 
 when actual temper once is roused, then each man wants 
 to gain his point, and would far rather pass for insulted, 
 than be brought to agreement. So upon this, as on many 
 another occasion, I simply incurred the charge and rebuke of 
 loving to hear myself speak. You yourself, I believe, were 
 misled for a moment that evening, and feared that my 
 continuing at first in a loud tone of voice proceeded from 
 sustained excitement ; and yet I also remember having 
 answered you quite tranquilly, " Only let me lead back 
 again ; it really can't be done so quick ! " — 
 
 You will believe me, that such experiences have some- 
 thing very painful to me ? — Indeed I am companionable, and 
 it is no surly egoism that drives me more and more away 
 from all society. It isn't wounded vanity, if I'm sensitive 
 to charges of perpetual talking, but the doleful feeling — What 
 canst thou ever be to people, what can they be to thee, 
 if in your mutual intercourse it is no question of attaining 
 understanding, but just simply of retaining one's unaltered 
 opinion ? On subjects foreign to me, concerning which I 
 have neither experience nor a settled feeling, I certainly 
 never dilate any otherwise than with a view to gaining in- 
 formation : but when I feel that I have something rational 
 and coherent to say about a subject with which I am quite 
 familiar, then to have to let the thread of my argument be 
 snapped for mere sake of giving another the semblance of 
 right to an opposite opinion — that really makes it futile to 
 
1 88 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 speak a single word in company at all. I now decline all 
 so-called company, and — really feel better for it. 
 
 But there I go, talking too much again perhaps, and 
 bringing too much into conjunction that might as well be 
 left apart? Will you understand me, if my feeling toward 
 yourself impels me this time also to " transition " — to leading- 
 over ; if I try to adjust the rough ends of my moods, and 
 do not like to cease abruptly, just to blurt out that I'm 
 calm and cheerful ? Could that possibly seem natural to 
 you ? No : to-day as well, pursue the path I fain would 
 lead your sympathy along, to arrive at a reassured feeling 
 about me ! Nothing can be more painful to my heart, than 
 to rouse a grievous sympathy ; if such a cause has slipped 
 my lips, accord me the fair liberty of tranquillising gradually 
 and gently. Everything, with me, is so linked together: 
 that has its disadvantages, as it enables common and (under 
 circumstances) remediable grievances to exert a frequently 
 excessive influence on me ; yet it also has this advantage, 
 that I derive from that same inter- connection the means 
 of reassurance ; for, just as everything streams towards my 
 ultimate life-task, my art, so from it flows back the fount 
 that dews my arid paths of life. Through the heartfelt 
 wish to soothe and reassure your sense of sympathy, to-day 
 I've been able to make myself conscious of that highest 
 artistic attribute which I find more fruitfully developed in 
 each of my new works, and thus to speak to you as if 
 from the very sanctuary of my art without the least 
 constraint, the smallest self-deception, veraciously and sans 
 pretence. — 
 
 Thus, too, my whole situation is gradually clearing toward 
 a definite outlet, an outlet which faces a side of the world 
 whence friendship and noble will may operate composingly 
 upon me. — Everything will be arrangeable, and once I'm 
 quite at rest again, once full recourse to my art, my creating, 
 
PARIS LETTERS 1 89 
 
 is again made possible to me, all will soon lose its disturbing 
 influence on my mind : then shall I look tranquilly outwards, 
 and when I'm troubling least in that direction, perhaps 
 there'll soonest come from there as well a thing I have 
 to welcome.* — So — patience ! — 
 
 From my [box of] books I've picked out our dear Schiller. 
 Yesterday I read the Jungfrau [Maid of Orleans], and felt 
 so musically attuned that I could capitally have filled with 
 tones Johanna's silence, in particular, when she is publicly 
 accused : her offence, — the miraculous. To-day a speech 
 of Posa's about innocence and virtue (at close of the second 
 act [Don Carlos^ absolutely set me in amazement at the 
 incredible beauty of its poetic diction. How I regret my 
 inability to comply with an invitation that reached me lately 
 from the committee of the Schiller-festival at Berlin (to write 
 a chant for it). Bemoan me, but also rejoice when I tell 
 you that I've brought off this letter to-day amid countless 
 interruptions by workmen, under the hammering and rapping 
 of upholsterers, the instrument-maker, the wood-chopper, 
 and so on. Ere long I might have had leisure, perhaps, 
 to bring a Schiller chant about : but the term is too short, 
 and the Muse has no niche in my houselet as yet. — 
 
 * Without a key, this whole paragraph is enigmatic, and more 
 especially its commencement: — "So klart sich mir denn audi meine 
 ganze Lage allmahlich nach einem bestimmten Ausgange hin ab, der 
 ja einer Seite der Welt zugekehrt ist, von wo Freundschaft und edler 
 Wille beruhigend auf mich wirken konnen. Es wird sich Alles einrichten 
 lassen " etc. Perhaps such a key may be found in the letter of Oct. 25 
 to Otto : " The Dresden Intendant sends me word that he hopes to 
 persuade the King of Saxony to summon me to Dresden for a first 
 representation of the ' Tristan,' but that could not take place before July 
 next year. At least I should have singers with good voices there." 
 Moreover, Glasenapp informs us that on Nov. 4 Wagner wrote his old 
 friend the Dresden tenor Tichatschek, who had conveyed the intimation 
 begging him to try to get the production arranged for an earlier date ; 
 whilst Minna, on her side, had lately been doing her utmost in Dresden 
 to procure her husband's amnesty (Das Leben R. Wagner's II. ii, 227-8). 
 
190 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 Farewell ; be kind to me, and trust me ! All will have 
 
 to be endured a while longer. A thousand greetings and 
 
 hearty wishes ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 96. 
 
 Paris, Nov. n, 59. 
 My precious Child, 
 You give me great delight ! Yesterday I meant at last — 
 I had been so obstructed ! — to write yourself with the letter 
 to Wesendonck,* to tell you how much your last letter 
 rejoiced me : interrupted once again, this morning came 
 round and brought me, too, the Schiller dithyramb. Never 
 had I understood that so well, as to-day : you are always 
 teaching me to see new beauties. How gladly I judge from 
 it all, that you have recovered your health ! — 
 
 I also am slowly recovering, and that — I can tell it you 
 now — from a serious illness. Ten years ago — in Paris too — 
 I suffered from acute rheumatics ; the doctor particularly 
 cautioned me to do all I could to drive them outward, lest 
 the attacks should find their way to my heart. And so, 
 in fact, just now each ailment of my body coalesced, and 
 threatened one last exit through my heart. This time I 
 really believed I was done for. However, it has all got 
 to be thrust to the outside once more ; by some kind of 
 fitly distracting activity I shall try to foil the swarming 
 toward my heart. You will stand by me, both of you ; 
 won't you, good souls? — 
 
 My first good tidings reached me from myself. The 
 proofs of the third act of Tristan turned suddenly up. How 
 a glance into this last completed work revived, filled, 
 strengthened, and inspired me — you will be able to feel 
 
 * A letter not preserved, at least not included with the Letters to Otto. — 
 Somewhere about this date (the day before ?) Minna must have returned 
 to her husband. — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 191 
 
 with me. This joy, I should say, a father can scarcely 
 experience at sight of his child! Through a river of 
 tears — why mask the weakness ? — it cried to me : No ! 
 Thou shalt not end yet ; thou still must achieve ! A man 
 who has only just made such a thing, is full to overflowing 
 still !— 
 
 So be it then ! — 
 
 To return : Your letter, also, rejoiced me so much ; and 
 nothing in it more so, than when I see the child, now grown 
 so mightily sagacious, yet straying every now and then into 
 a small mistake about me. Then I say to myself: She 
 will have the additional pleasure of getting quite clear upon 
 this point as well ; for instance, that, when I dispute about 
 Politics, I have my eye on something other than the seeming 
 theme, etc. But how glad I am, to be in the wrong when 
 I argue with you : I always learn some new thing by it. — 
 
 For the next, a very melancholy work of love has fallen 
 to me. I suddenly learn that my dear fatherly friend Fischer 
 of Dresden is sick unto death (you will remember how 
 often I've spoken to you of his singular attachment and 
 fidelity) ; a complaint of the — heart at last had brought the 
 greybeard to death's door. As my wife goes in to visit him, 
 under the most terrible seizures he presses out the piteous 
 moan : " O Richard ! Richard has forgotten me, and cast 
 me off ! " I had expected him this summer at Lucerne, and 
 not written him since ; so I wrote to him at once. Then 
 I receive the tidings of his death ; he had been too weak 
 to have my letter read him. 
 
 So a few days since I penned a Homage to the dear 
 departed : * as soon as I get back a print of it, I will send 
 it on to you.— That also was a piece of work ! — 
 
 * First published in the Dresden Constitutionelle Zeitung Nov. 25, 
 then reprinted in the Neue Zeitschrift of Dec. 2, 1859, and finally in 
 vol. v of Wagner's Ges. Schriften—see Prose Works III.— Tr. 
 
192 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 And I still am not rid of the workmen : these Parisians 
 seem to think one's house their own. Only now, is my little 
 £tage in order at last : * were you to walk in, you would almost 
 think I hadn't left the Asyl ; the same furniture, the old 
 desk, the same green hangings, engravings, everything — just 
 as you knew it. Merely the rooms are still smaller, and 
 I have had to divide : my little salon holds the Erard, the 
 green sofa and two fauteuils that used to stand in the tea- 
 room ; on the walls the Kaulbach, Cornelius and the two 
 Murillos [former presents from Otto]. Next to it a little cabinet with 
 bookcase, work-table, and the well-known causeuse (of 
 Lucerne memory). I have had my bedroom papered in 
 plain pale violet, with a few green bands to frame it in ; 
 the Madonna della Sedia forms its decoration : quite a tiny 
 cabinet adjoining it is fitted as a bathroom. So this will 
 have been my final planting of a household foot. You know 
 I can abide by what I very seriously determine : so — : 
 never, never will I " set up house " again ! God only knows 
 what will put an end to this last settlement : but / know that 
 an end will come to myself, before I die ; and I know that 
 I shall trim myself no nest again then, but await entirely 
 devoid of goods that spot where somebody shall seal my eyes 
 at last. — 
 
 Once more I was seized, after all, by a ridiculous eager- 
 ness to get my things arranged as speedily as possible, that 
 I might find rest again. At such times I overdo it, not 
 out of pleasure in the thing itself, but simply to arrive more 
 quickly at a state where this and that requirement, satisfied 
 to the last inch perhaps, shall no longer act disturbingly 
 upon me. It must be so : for I cannot otherwise explain 
 this ridiculous zeal wherewith I set about a thing like that, 
 
 * In Paris the Asyl arrangement was reversed ; Wagner occupied 
 the ground-, his wife the first floor. — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 193 
 
 since I know on the other hand how little I cleave to it 
 all, and how recklessly I can throw it all behind me. Yes, 
 laugh at me, do ; I'll stand it again.— 
 
 A few days back I was invited to a musical soiree, where 
 sonatas, trios etc. from Beethoven's last period were 
 played. Alike reading and rendering put me very much 
 out, and they won't get hold of me so soon again, yet I had 
 a few experiences. I took a seat next Berlioz, who 
 presently introduced the composer Gounod to me — an 
 amiable-looking, upright-endeavouring, but it seems not 
 very highly-gifted artist — who was sitting on his other side. 
 Hardly had it become known who I was, than people 
 thronged round Berlioz from all sides, to be introduced 
 by him to me ; remarkable to say, a bevy of enthusiasts 
 who have studied my scores without knowing German : at 
 times that makes me quite bewildered. I'm dreading a 
 number of callers, in consequence, and must be a little on 
 my guard ; the young Charnace" lady I have disgracefully 
 neglected hitherto ; I don't quite see my way yet — as 
 regards Paris. However, on the whole I've a mind to under- 
 take something, purely to conduct— my "rheumatics" 
 outward. 
 
 I am reading Liszt's Music of the Gipsies.* Rather too 
 turgid and phrasy : still, the forcible portrayal of the Gipsy 
 nature (unmistakably the Tschandalas of India) took me 
 vividly back to Prakriti (alias Sawitri). About that another 
 time. 
 
 And now, for to-day — a thousand thanks ! Ah, what does 
 that not include ! I'll soon gossip again with the child. — 
 
 R. W. 
 
 * First French edition (orig.) Les Bohemiens, published in Paris 1859. 
 Evidently on this, as on similar occasions before, Wagner was unaware 
 that the work was largely the product of Princess Carolyne Sayn- 
 Wittgenstein.— Tr. 
 
 13 
 
194 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 97. 
 
 Paris, Nov. 29, 59.* 
 
 What great joy you again have given me, Lady-friend ! 
 Believe me, if I had to recognise myself in none but the 
 mirror held up to me by the world and all my friends there- 
 in, I soon should have to turn away with dread of any 
 looking back. Nor can I be quite open and true with any 
 one of them : there always remain spots and b^ind places, 
 which I know not how to fill up. But if You answer me 
 for once, how splendid I then appear ! Everything, including 
 myself, then seems to me noble : I know that I'm safe. 
 Children, that we are three, is really something wonderfully 
 grand ! It is incomparable, my and your greatest triumph ! 
 We stand inconceivably high above mankind, inconceivably 
 high ! The noblest had to come true for once : and the 
 true is so incomprehensible because so wholly for itself. 
 Let us revel in this high good-fortune : it has no uses, 
 and is here for naught — it can but be enjoyed, and but 
 by those who are it. — 
 
 Now be you finely welcomed to French soil : | herewith 
 the poet of the Nibelungen steps forth to meet you, and 
 stretches out his hand. I felicitate you joyfully on your roving 
 to Italy ; you go to meet a benefit that I am not to taste, 
 and which I therefore wish you doubly. Enjoy the balmy 
 heaven, the poetic land, the living past, for me as well, 
 and be you thereby twice made glad ! How inexpressibly 
 gladly would I be with you both ! — 
 
 Nothing remains for me now, but to make one final 
 energetic effort to rid myself of an eternal cumbrance of my 
 
 * The first two paragraphs, which by then had appeared in the 
 Allgemeine Musikzeitung 1898, I have already published with the 
 Letters to Otto.— Tr. 
 
 t Evidently taking the Marseilles route to Rome ; see letter of Dec. 
 12 to Otto.— Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 195 
 
 life for good and all. Ruined and devastated as my relations 
 to life are, yet I have come to see that much therein may 
 shape itself endurably and acceptably if only I can get 
 myself the needful outer means to dispose at all times of 
 my mode of life, my projects, doings and leavings-undone, 
 according to my need and judgment, without being forever 
 arrested by that single point which nowadays has power 
 over freedom, and whose settlement removes all scruples 
 as to what we do or leave undone. I now have learnt 
 more forcibly than ever — tho' strictly it was always so — 
 that I can bear each failure, every undeception, each closing 
 of all prospect, all, all, with great, contemptuous indifference ; 
 but those said troubles make me furiously impatient. Dis- 
 dain everything, let nothing turn me from the inner fount, 
 renounce all recognition, all success, even the possibility of 
 producing my own works myself — all this I can ; but with 
 gnashing of teeth to have to bruise my feet against the 
 clog that Fate has cast between my legs upon their quiet 
 journey — against that — I can't help it — I am and remain 
 most excessively sensitive ; and as I'm what I am, and 
 nothing can alter me in that respect — so long as I'm able 
 to hold out at all — I now am staking everything, in uttermost 
 impatience, on clearing my path of this clog once for all * 
 Luckily I can pretend to myself that it completely suits 
 my present inner situation, to direct my attention exclusively 
 outward awhile. I expect you won't allow yourself to be 
 altogether duped thereby ; and if you were to suppose I might 
 unhesitatingly prefer to cultivate my inner concentration 
 in some agreeable retirement, amid congenial surroundings, 
 
 * Unquestionably the " clog " can bear no other meaning than his 
 long-standing financial embarrassment ; all kinds of schemes for capital- 
 ising the labours of his brain are now his uppermost consideration, as 
 may be seen in the letter of Dec. 12 to Otto, and the next two or 
 three to Mathilde Wesendonck.— Tr. 
 
I96 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 as for instance with you two, and — finally indifferent toward 
 their outer fortunes — devote myself to the continual creation 
 of new works : if you were to suppose this, let me tell you, 
 you would be perfectly right (tho* it must not go beyond 
 ourselves, of course). But I believe, as said, it will now 
 become possible to delude myself into the other course ; 
 and that's assisted very much, nay, wellnigh determined, 
 by my latest relations with my whole world of so-called 
 friends in Germany. It really is incredible, how things 
 stand there ; so incredible that I gladly withhold it from 
 you, since you hardly could believe it in the end. Thus 
 I'm convinced, e.g., that you would tax me with exaggeration 
 and misconception if I tried to make it plain to you how 
 truly hostilely, or at least entirely unconscientiously, this 
 Ed. Devrient has behaved to me ; so I'll merely tell you 
 that I long had been prepared for it, and wasn't at all 
 surprised when at last I found it out. I gladly excuse him, 
 however : everybody has his hobby-horse, and his is a 
 normal well-regulated theatrical institute, without digressions 
 into a domain not to be trodden in the daily round. In this 
 sense he was instinctively against my work from the first, 
 and only the young Grand Duchess's enthusiastic wish 
 propelled him on — head-shaking and half sulky all the way. 
 Well, he has triumphed now ; he openly avers that I've 
 reached the point of the impossible. — Whether the young 
 enthusiastic woman's-heart will not retire into itself, cowed 
 by the experienced, calculating man — the " wise man," if you 
 will— what do you say ? I'm certain the young Grand Duke 
 will. — 
 
 But look you, child, it is this and its like that stirs my 
 old pugnacity again, a little : I'm foolish, but — the very 
 fact that I live is a folly; you cannot but admit it. The 
 Impossible itself might tempt me; and my committing 
 myself here to Paris, e.g., long seemed to me the last im- 
 
PARIS LETTERS 197 
 
 possibility of all. Yet I have a quite peculiar gauge for the 
 Impossible, and that points inwards : whether I carry it 
 through, I shall learn from nothing save my mood, my in- 
 clination to pursue ; and I therefore shall deem that impossible 
 for which I lose all zest at last. That may easily occur ; 
 disgust has a terrible sway with me, and once it plainly shews 
 itself, it is invincible ; wherefore I shall not strive against 
 it, and to it belongs the judgment of what may be possible 
 to me. Often do I detect it, and it casts me down for 
 wretched days : then it gets stilled again by this or that 
 surprising advance, sympathy, budding intelligence, where 
 I never had hoped for them. Then Maya weaves its veil 
 opaque once more, a lightning instant of full rayed-out truth 
 confronts me ; hindrances incite, risks enflame — and — we 
 shall see which keeps the field, disgust, or — lust of battle ? — 
 I cannot yet decide. But were I one of those fortunates 
 to whom Fate gave gold and silver also when it gave them 
 pride and talent, my fondest wish would bear me now to 
 you in Rome for 2 fair months ; I know it. Now go 
 you children well alone: I'll see how I can bend my fate, 
 then some day I'll come too. Good luck accompany you ! 
 A thousand heartfelt wishes ! — 
 
 R. W. 
 
 98. 
 
 Paris, Dec. 19, 59. 
 
 Best Birthday-child, 
 Do I arrive in good time? Is to-day the very 23rd? 
 Maybe the day is right, perhaps, but how about the present ? 
 What could I give the child ? I am so poor now, my well 
 of gifts has run quite dry ; it is as if I hadn't known for 
 ages what it feels like, to come by good ideas, put them on 
 paper, impart them ! — The only thing that would consent 
 to occur to me, was just a kind of last conclusion of my 
 
198 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 own last (?) work ; and truly that has been no bad idea. 
 Listen how it came about : — 
 
 You know Hans wanted to conduct the prelude last 
 winter, and begged me to make it a close* At that time no 
 inspiration could have come to me : it seemed so impossible, 
 that I flatly declined. Since then I have written the third 
 act, however, and found the full close for the whole : so, while 
 drawing up the programme for a Paris concert — the particular 
 temptation to which was my wish to get a hearing of this 
 Tristan-prelude — it occurred to me to outline that close in 
 advance, as glimmering presage of redemption. Well, it has 
 succeeded quite admirably, and to-day I send you this 
 mysteriously tranquillising close as the best gift I can make 
 for your birthday. I have written the piece out for you 
 pretty much as I play it on the piano to myself : there are 
 a few nasty stretches in it, and I expect you'll have to fish 
 up some Roman Baumgartner to play the thing to you, 
 unless you would rather play it with him a quatre mains ; 
 in which case you must adapt the right hand part for both 
 your hands. Now see what you can make of the onerous 
 present ! — Better will you understand what I have penned as 
 explanation of the whole prelude for my Paris audience : 
 it stands on the other side of the specimen of caligraphy. 
 
 * As a matter of fact, Hans von Billow was the first to give the 
 Tristan prelude, and that " with the composer's kind permission " (see 
 programme of Hans' Prague concert, March 12, 1859). According to the 
 New Zeitschrift's report on the second performance (Leipzig, June '59 — 
 see p. 147/2. sup.) Hans had provisionally supplied a needful close him- 
 self: it would seem that this has misled certain programme-compilers 
 into attributing to him the Close always played at concerts when the 
 so-called " Liebestod" is not tacked on; just as foolish and impossible 
 legends were current once, that von Bulow had helped in the general 
 instrumenting. Wagner's own Close is of course the only one published 
 (see full score of the separated Prelude, Breitkopf & Hartel), and it 
 is that reproduced on the lilac facsimile of the enclosure to this letter 98 
 together with the explanatory programme, a translation whereof the 
 reader will find in Prose Works VIII. pp. 386-7. — Tr. 
 
•#*--<»■,*>* 
 
 
 
 'W* 
 
 
 Qu.4^L*£a^jI ,,' dLUyCr, pit-Mi* ■t*,$ ( KfiJp^. T&JL 
 
^ 
 
 ^Se 
 
 t^Uutdz &*~^Ujl Kn?u**± fUb^.wL, ' 
 
PARIS LETTERS 1 99 
 
 Ivy and vine you will recognise in the music, though, 
 especially when you hear it on the orchestra, where strings 
 and wind alternate with each other ; it will come out quite 
 beautifully. I expect to hear it in the middle of January, 
 when I'll hear it for both of us. 
 
 And now, many hearty good wishes and greetings from 
 my cold Paris, where we're almost perished with snow, ice 
 and frost ! How is it in your part of the world ? Does Rome 
 come up to expectations ? Let me hear very soon ; I do 
 need a word from you ! — 
 
 Fare you well, be blest and deeply reverenced ! — 
 
 Your 
 R. W. 
 99. 
 
 January i, i860. 
 
 Lady-friend, I'm still alive ! The most notable news I 
 can give you for the New Year. 
 
 God knows how I came to flatter myself I should receive 
 a greeting from you to-day ; for our letters are very slow 
 now, and not to be reckoned on. From the date of your 
 letter I have made out to my sorrow that mine to you 
 can not have arrived on Dec. 23 ; consequently I can't 
 expect a greeting in return myself to-day. 
 
 But I am glad to know that you, and all of you, have 
 reached Rome happily and safely. Your letter shews me 
 that I can very well leave you to fend for yourself now ; 
 you have opened your eyes, and — see. Perhaps you had 
 made an oversight of that before. Now see and behold for 
 me as well : I need someone to do it for me, and no one 
 would I rather let see for me, than you. With me there's 
 something queer about it ; I have repeatedly found it so, 
 and most definitely at last in Italy : I'm uncommonly acutely 
 affected awhile by any considerable effect on my eye, but 
 — it does, not last long. It certainly doesnot cpme, fr#m my 
 
200 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 eye being insatiable ; but it seems that as sense for observing 
 the world it doesn't suffice me.* Perhaps it is going with 
 me as it went with the eye-loving Goethe when he exclaimed 
 in his Faust : " How grand a spectacle ! but ah ! — no 
 more ! " — 
 
 Perhaps it may come from my being too decidedly an 
 ear-man ; but I, of all people, pass such long periods entirely 
 without any sort or kind of sustenance for my hearing, that 
 neither would that appear to meet the case. There must 
 be some indescribable inner sense, which is altogether clear 
 and active only when the outward-facing senses are as if 
 a-dream. When I strictly neither see nor hear distinctly 
 any longer, this sense is at its keenest, and shews its function 
 as creative calm : I can call it by no other name. Whether 
 this calm is all one with that plastic repose which you 
 mean, I cannot say ; merely I know that this calm of mine 
 works from within to without, with it I am at the world's 
 centre ; whereas so-called plastic repose seems to me rather 
 the application of outward forms to the allaying of inner 
 unrest. If I feel myself in that inner unrest, no picture, 
 no work of plastic art can take effect on me : it rebounds 
 like a flimsy ball. Then nothing but a gaze beyond, will 
 serve me to see what can calm me. And this, too, is the 
 only gaze that affects me sympathetically in others — this 
 
 * Taken in conjunction with p. 138, this entirely bears out the con- 
 tention of Dr. Geo. M. Gould (Philadelphia) and myself, that a great 
 deal of Wagner's malaise proceeded from eye-strain. As hinted in 
 a footnote to Life iv, 151, though I still reserve details, one of the most 
 eminent ophthalmologists in London has lately informed me that he 
 tested Wagner's eyes in 1877, and found the patient to have long been 
 suffering from astigmatism — a defect of the lens then quite recently 
 discovered, but far more common than most of us suspect. In i860 
 Wagner would about have arrived at that critical period when the ocular 
 changes incidental to advancing middle-life are attended with more active 
 pain etc., such as we know from a letter of Minna's (see p. 2$4{inf.) to 
 have been the case. — Tr, 
 
PARIS LETTERS 201 
 
 gaze over the world and away. It also is the only one that 
 understands the world; thus Calderon gazed, and who 
 has turned life, and bloom, and beauty, to more wondrous 
 poetry than he? — 
 
 Goethe in Rome is a very delightful and most important 
 occurrence : what he garnered there, fell to everyone's good ; 
 and thereby he decidedly saved Schiller the need of seeing 
 for himself. The latter could thenceforth make excellent 
 shift, and shape his noblest works ; whereas Goethe pushed 
 his lust of the eye to a hobby, in time, and at last we find 
 him bitten with a mania for collecting coins. He was a 
 whole and utter eye-man. 
 
 If we let him lead us where are things to be seen, we 
 are sure to be splendidly led. In Rome you've done quite 
 right to go with him ; at his side may a feeling of gracious 
 repose descend on your eyes of a child ! See for me as 
 well ; and let me ever hear such exquisite reflections, 
 as this first time ! — 
 
 There isn't much to say about myself, child. A man 
 who is running from pillar to post, to get a fitting concert- 
 hall to open its doors to him, ought to be no concern of yours 
 in Rome : he oughtn't even to tell you how he feels about it. 
 
 But give Otto my kindest regards, and tell him that 
 much is soon likely to come to a head ; on the first of May 
 I think of opening my German Opera in the Salle Venta- 
 dour. All the best German singers are accepting with 
 enthusiasm ; Frau Ney, [Frau] Mayer-Dustmann (Vienna), 
 Tichatschek, Niemann and others, have sworn themselves 
 under my banner, even with readiness for financial sacrifices. 
 I've a notion I soon shall get everything fixed ; then 
 Tannhauser and Lohengrin to begin with, and practice of 
 Tristan meanwhile, so that it may be played somewhere 
 about from the ist to the 16th of June. Thus— I must 
 try to help myself, but it doesn't sound like Rome ! — 
 
202 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 You knew I had a mind to pass an interval in nothing 
 but some outward occupation like this : now I have been 
 compelled to, particularly through the miscarriage of the 
 Carlsruhe Tristan. My whole present scheme is directed 
 at nothing but the possibility of treating myself to my 
 Tristan : after that, I shall most likely let it drop again. 
 I have nothing further in view ; I've quite enough bother 
 with this — and were I Goethe, I'd come to you people in 
 Rome to-day, you may be perfectly sure ! — 
 
 And now for a beautiful, bright, sunny year ! I feel 
 uncommonly glad at your being in Rome, under Italy's 
 sky! A thousand heartfelt greetings to Otto and the 
 children. 
 
 With faithful love, 
 
 Your 
 R. W. 
 
 100. 
 
 Paris, January 28, i860. 
 
 I must make up my mind at last, Child, to give you 
 breathless news about myself. It has been my refreshment 
 in the thick of it all, to think how I would collect my thoughts 
 and give you a nice calm retrospect of all I have gone 
 through : but I am not at the end yet ; nor shall I ever 
 be, it seems. Wherefore no more fruitless dallying, and a 
 few lines of certainty instead. 
 
 All that I have experienced is as nothing against one 
 observation, one discovery, which I made at the first 
 orchestral rehearsal for my concert ; since it has determined 
 the whole remainder of my life, and its consequences will 
 henceforth tyrannise me. For the first time was I getting 
 my prelude to Tristan played ; and — scales as if fell from 
 my eyes in regard of the immeasurable distance I have 
 travelled from the world during these last 8 years.. This 
 
PARIS LETTERS 203 
 
 little prelude was so inscrutably new to the bandsmen, that 
 I positively had to lead my men from note to note as if 
 exploring for gems in a mine. 
 
 Biilow, who was present, confessed that the performances 
 attempted of this piece in Germany had been taken on 
 trust by the audience, but in themselves had stayed entirely 
 unintelligible* I succeeded indeed in making this prelude 
 understanded both of orchestra and audience — ay, people 
 assure me, it called forth the deepest impression of all ; but 
 don't ask me how I managed that ! Enough that it now 
 stands sharp before me, that I dare think of no further 
 creation until I've filled the fearful gap behind me. I 
 must present my works first, and what does that not 
 mean ? — 
 
 Child, it means my plunging into a slough of suffering 
 and of sacrifices, in which quite likely I shall go to ground. 
 All, all may become possible ; but only on condition that 
 I have ample time and leisure for all, that I may take my 
 singers and bandsmen forward step by step, have no reason 
 for hurry, need break off nowhere out of want of time, 
 and always have things well in hand. And what does 
 that mean ? The experiences of this concert, with its skimpy 
 time-allowance, have told me : I need to be rich ; I need 
 thousands on thousands [of francs] to sacrifice regardlessly, 
 to buy myself space, time, and willingness. As I am not 
 rich — well, I must endeavour to make myself so ; I must 
 let my older operas be given here in French, so as to devote 
 the considerable proceeds to disclosing my new works to 
 the world. — That's what stands before me ; I have no other 
 choice, so — here's to death and extinction ! 'Tis my one 
 
 * See pages 147 and 198. Hans had arrived in Paris Jan. 17 (en 
 garcon), to help in Wagner's concerts, chiefly with training the chorus,, 
 also to give pianoforte recitals of his own,— Tr, 
 
204 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 remaining task, and for it my dzemon holds me still to life. 
 Folly, would I think of aught beyond : I can look to nothing 
 but these awful travails of the world-birth of my latest 
 works. — 
 
 O stay in Rome ; how happy I am, to know you so 
 out of the world ! Behold, regard, consider, all beauteous 
 things and fair ; you are doing it for me, and my comfort 
 shall it be to gain those pregnant pictures through your 
 eyes ! 'Twill be both cooling-draught and cordial for a 
 man a-quake with fever ; thus, and now — you're my last 
 consolation ! — 
 
 Just two words more, anent rny outward happenings. 
 After the most unheard-of torment, stress and toil, I arrived 
 at my first concert-performance last Wednesday* The 
 evening was nothing more nor less than a festival ; I can 
 but say it. The orchestra was already fired to white 
 enthusiasm, and hung upon my eye, my finger-tip. I was 
 received both by it and the audience with endless cheers, 
 and each of my pieces bore me dclat, amaze, entrancement. 
 The sensation is quite immense ; strange experiences, con- 
 versions, feuilletonists (Patrie) rushing to kiss my hand. — I 
 myself was dead-beat. On that night I took my last 
 initiation into suffering : I must, I must trudge on, — it was 
 indeed my last remaining task. The flower [Tr. u. Is.] has 
 to open to the world, and pass away : keep you its stainless 
 buds ! — 
 
 Many sincere good wishes to Otto ; tell him I love 
 him ! Farewell, my precious, noble child ! Live softly 
 
 * January 25, i860. The main body of the programme was that of 
 the three Wagner-concerts at Zurich seven years before : it consisted 
 of the Hollander overture, the choral " march," introduction to act iii, 
 Pilgrims' chorus, and overture of Tannh&user ; then a pause, followed 
 by the prelude to Tristan und Isolde, the prelude. Bridal-procession 
 scene, introduction to act iii and Bridal chorus, from Lohengrin. — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 205 
 
 and inwardly on, and strengthen me thereby! With 
 loyal love 
 
 Your R. W. 
 
 101. 
 
 Paris, March 3, 60. 
 I mean to make to-day for once a feast-day : I will write 
 to you, Lady-friend ! Advisedly and with kind consideration 
 I have often dropped the pen which I repeatedly had taken 
 up of late to write you. My need is great, and I wish to 
 earn its fulfilment ; so I'll see what friendly scraps of news 
 I can scrape together for you. 
 
 First I'll describe what now stands on my chimney-piece 
 — in place of &pendule. 'Tis a singular object. On a mount 
 of red velvet is spread a silver shield, the length of its rim 
 filled up with emblems from my poems, from Rienzi to 
 Tristan u. Isolde. Upon this shield, within a silver wreath — 
 one bough of laurel, the other oak — lies a massive silver 
 sheet of music, half rolled up : on this roll leading themes 
 from my operas are carved in musical notation. A beautiful 
 silver pen rests in the twigs of the wreath, above the sheet 
 of music ; the boughs are bound together by a golden fillet, 
 on which stands written : 
 
 " Des rechten Mannes Herz muss uberstromen in 
 
 der Sonnenhohe grosser Manner," — and then : " Dem 
 
 hohen Meister gewidmet in aufrichtiger Verehrung von 
 
 Richard Weiland."* 
 
 This Richard Weiland is a simple citizen of Dresden, 
 
 * " A true man's heart must e'en brim over in the noontide of great 
 
 men " : " Dedicated to the exalted Master, in sincere veneration, by 
 
 Richard Weiland." Glasenapp informs us that the sender, son of the 
 historical painter Wilhelm Weiland, was born in 1829, and had devoted 
 himself to literature ; for a short time he appeared on the acting stage, 
 but, in view of his youth, that can scarcely have been until after Wagner 
 himself had left Dresden. - Tr. 
 
206 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 whom I never knew there, but who paid me a visit once 
 at Zurich — in the Asyl — and furnished me that droll criticism 
 of the Prague representation of Tannhauser with his simple 
 statement that the overture, which merely lasted 12 
 minutes under myself at Dresden, was 20 minutes long. 
 — I found his gift, with a most unassuming note, awaiting 
 me one evening when I came home fagged-out by coaching 
 my choruses. — So I now have the baton * and this piece of 
 plate. 
 
 Here my concerts f have gained me some very firstrate 
 devotees. 
 
 GASPfiRINl, a kind doctor of great skill and education, 
 but seemingly about to give up his profession for literary 
 and poetic work ; a man of fine, refined exterior and great 
 warmth of heart, only perhaps a shade wanting in energy, 
 —belonged to me even before my arrival, and is now the 
 most zealous and persistent champion of my cause. He 
 has got the " Courier du Dimanche " to open to him for 
 that— 
 
 In VlLLOT I have won an admirable brain, a clear and 
 delicate mind of unusual culture, emancipated from all 
 prejudice. This man (who married off a son the other day) 
 is Conservateur des Musees du Louvre, and as such has 
 entire custody of the [national] art-treasures. He has 
 written a history of the Louvre collections, a giant work 
 that cost him 15 years of unremitting toil. — Now imagine 
 it : this man had possessed all my scores long ere I made 
 his acquaintance, has studied them closely, and now is quite 
 happy at my being able to get Hartels to supply him with 
 a Tristan partitur already.^ He has quite surprised me 
 
 * A gift from Frau Wesendonck, after a design by Semper. 
 t See page 204 ; the second took place Feb. 1, the third Feb. 8. — Tr. 
 \ It is to Fr. Villot that Wagner dedicated the famous " Music of the 
 Future " a few months later — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 207 
 
 by the keenness of his judgment, especially anent the 
 capabilities of his own nation ; to which he belongs com- 
 pletely as regards expression, whereas he far transcends it 
 in his spirit : his is a very handsome and distinguished head. 
 I have not yet taken advantage of his offer of a minute 
 inspection of the treasures of the Louvre, with himself for 
 cicerone, and probably shall be unable to for a long, long 
 time. 
 
 Among several others, I may also mention the novelist 
 CHAMPFLEURY, whose brochure, outcome of a first impres- 
 sion, I have already sent you : he has a very pensive, sad, 
 appealing eye. His friend the poet BAUDELAIRE has written 
 me a couple of wonderful letters, but does not wish to be 
 presented to me till he has finished some verses with which 
 he proposes to honour me. — I have told you of FRANCK- 
 Marie : * he has written a good deal about me, but personally 
 remains a stranger yet. 
 
 Then there's a young painter, GUSTAVE Dor£, who 
 already has a great name here : he has made a drawing, 
 intended for the Illustration, representing me as conductor 
 of an orchestra of spirits in an Alpine landscape. Further, 
 there are numerous musicians and composers, who have 
 declared themselves for me enthusiastically ; among them 
 GOUNOD, a suave, good, purely but not deeply gifted man ; 
 Louis Lacombe, Leon Kreutzer, Stephan Heller. 
 Of importance as a really profound musician is Sensale.f 
 who will play me my scores by and by. 
 
 A Mr. PERRIN, of note as painter, past Director of the 
 Opera comique, and presumably future ditto of the Grand, 
 is most devoted to me, and has written very beautifully about 
 me in the Revue Europdenne. 
 
 BERLIOZ has fallen victim to envy ; my efforts to keep 
 
 * Another missing letter ?— Tr. t Obviously Saint-Saens. 
 
208 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 friends with him have been frustrated through the brilliant 
 reception, to him intolerable, of my music. As a fact, he 
 finds himself seriously crossed by my appearance in Paris 
 on the eve of a production of his Trojans ; moreover, his 
 unlucky star has given him a wicked wife, who lets herself 
 be bribed to influence her very weak and ailing husband. 
 His behaviour to me has been a constant hovering between 
 friendly inclination and repulsion of an object of envy. Very 
 late,* yet so as not to be obliged to record the impressions 
 of a repeated hearing of my music, did he publish his report, 
 which you will probably have read. I could but deem right 
 to reply to his ambiguous, nay, rancorous allusions to the 
 " Music of the Future " ; an answer you will find in the 
 Journal des D6bats of February 22.f 
 
 Rossini has behaved much better. A jest about my 
 unmelodiousness had been fathered upon him, and greedily 
 colported even into German papers. Well, he expressly 
 dictated a disclaimer, declaring that he knew nothing of 
 mine but the Tannhauser march, which had given him the 
 greatest pleasure, and moreover, that, from all he knew of me, 
 he held me in high esteem. Such seriousness in the old 
 Epicurean surprised me. — 
 
 Finally I have yet another conquest to announce, namely 
 of a Marshal, Magnan, who attended all 3 of my concerts, 
 and displayed the greatest interest. As I unfortunately am 
 bound to want such a man well-instructed about me, for 
 sake of certain circles, I paid him a call, and was really 
 astonished at his expressions : he had had to hit out left 
 and right, and couldn't conceive how people could hear 
 anything else in my music than just such music as Gluck 
 
 * Journal des Debats, Feb. 9 ; see " A travers Chants." — Tr. 
 t See Prose Works III. ; further, the passage about Rossini is, 
 developed in vol. IV. of the same collection. — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 209 
 
 and Beethoven had written, only with the special stamp of 
 genius "of a Wagner." — 
 
 I can't unearth a single copy of my concert-programmes 
 for you to-day ; but you shall have one yet. Then you 
 will see that they did not turn out too intime. I laid your 
 reflections to heart, and even the words upon Tristan [cf. 
 p. 198] contained nothing but a note about the subject. — 
 
 Now I'll tell you a little more about the concerts. The 
 string-instruments were capital, 32 violins, 12 violas, 12 
 violoncellos, 8 double-basses: an uncommonly sonorous mass, 
 the hearing of which would have caused you great joy, only 
 the rehearsals were still too inadequate, and I couldn't quite 
 extort the proper piano. The wind-instruments were merely 
 partly good ; none of them had energy. To specify : the 
 oboe remained pastoral all the time, never rising to passion ; 
 the horns were miserable, and cost me many a sigh (their 
 wretched blowers excused their repeated false entries by 
 the disconcerting effect of my signal) ; trombones and 
 trumpets had no brilliance. Everything was atoned in the 
 end, however, by the really great enthusiasm for me that 
 possessed the whole orchestra from first to last desk, and 
 proclaimed itself so openly throughout the performances 
 themselves that Berlioz is said to have been stupefied. 
 
 Thus the three nights turned out positive festivals, and 
 as far as demonstrations of enthusiasm go, the Zurich festivals 
 were a mere shadow compared with them ; the audience 
 was riveted from first to last. I had made a new close for 
 the overture of the " flying Dutchman," which pleases me 
 much, and also made an impression on my hearers [cf. 
 Life iv, 301]. But childlike shouts of joy broke out directly 
 after the natty melody in the Tannhauser-march, and as 
 often as that melody returned, the same explosion was 
 repeated ; a frank child-heartedness which put me in quite 
 a good humour, for never yet had I heard such immediate 
 
2IO WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 outbursts of delight. The Pilgrims' chorus was sung very 
 tamely and ineffectively the first time ; afterwards it went 
 better. The Tannhauser - overture, played with great 
 virtuosity, always earned me many a call. The prelude to 
 Tristan wasn't played to my liking before the third concert : 
 on that evening it much rejoiced me. The audience, also, 
 seemed thoroughly stirred by it ; for, when an opponent 
 ventured to hiss — after the applause — such a storm broke 
 forth, and so intense, protracted, and continually renewed, 
 that poor I hardly knew what to do on my platform, and 
 had to motion people to leave off, for God's sake, I was 
 satisfied ; but that sent the temperature up again, and once 
 more the storm broke loose. In short, I never passed 
 through such a thing before. — 
 
 All the pieces from Lohengrin produced an immense 
 effect from the beginning ; orchestra and audience almost 
 carried me on their hands after each. I can express it no 
 otherwise — they were festival-nights. — 
 
 And now the child will be asking in wonder, why I 
 am not content with such beautiful experiences, and look 
 so dolefully ahead ? — Eh, thereby hangs a tale,* but all 
 I can say, is : Festival-keeping is easy — and — I want no 
 feasts ; such nights remain something beyond me, they 
 are intoxicants, nothing else, and leave the after-effects of 
 all inebriation ; — if I only were differently built, tho', it 
 might pass. As a matter of fact, I have made a long stride ; 
 so I might take a good rest now, wait comfortably for what 
 is coming next, and what folk assure me is certain to come — 
 Fame, Honour, and all else ? A precious fool I should be ! 
 Think of it : I was distracted all the evening of my first 
 concert because a certain Receveur GdneVal had not arrived 
 yet from Marseilles ; and what about this individual ? — He 
 
 * The enormous pecuniary losses faintly hinted toward the letter's 
 close. — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 211 
 
 was the wealthy man who, Gasptrini had assured me, was 
 keenly interested in my proposal to get my operas performed 
 in France, and might easily be induced to give me his 
 energetic support in it. I had nothing in eye but the 
 possibility of a first production of the Tristan in May, in 
 Paris with German singers ; that was the solitary goal 
 toward which I was steering, on which I staked everything, 
 and in particular the frantic strain of these 3 concerts. My 
 wealthy man was to run over from Marseilles ; the success 
 of my music was to make him declare himself prepared to 
 give the needful guarantee for the said operatic adventure. 
 Finally the man arrives, for the third concert : he has a big 
 dinner on that night, at Mires' ; still — he does come to the 
 concert, for an hour, and — proves a magnificent Frenchman, 
 immensely delighted, but afterwards sceptical of a German 
 operatic enterprise, and so on. — 
 
 So I had again been a regular child ! Really, I always 
 know it beforehand ; and yet one hopes — and dares — because 
 a goal stands out before one, a goal one deems so requisite. 
 And all the use of me, all the sense remaining in my life, 
 is solely to look at that goal and overlook everything that 
 lies between myself and it. Only in sight of that goal, 
 indeed, can I still live ; how can I live, if I'm to turn my 
 eye from the goal and plunge it in the gulf that parts me 
 from it? 
 
 Maybe others should do that for me, and hold me in 
 the air ; but who has a right to ask that of anyone ? Does 
 not each of us live with a goal in his eye, only that it just 
 is not the goal of the eccentric? So it happens, child, 
 that once again the stupid master must look deep and 
 long into the gulf alone :— ah, how he feels in his heart 
 then ! No scene in Dante's Hell has ghastlier abysses ! — 
 Indication enough. — And the goal (?), for all that, remains 
 the only thing that keeps life in me !— But how to reach it ?-^ 
 
212 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 Yes, Lady-friend, 'tis the truth: once more all's night 
 around me ! Had I no more goals, it were easily otherwise ; 
 but now I have simply to climb out with untold toil and 
 trouble from the gulf in which I lately had to plunge again 
 with wellnigh deliberate blindness. Not yet can I so much 
 as see the plateau whence to fix my gaze upon the goal 
 again. — When I last perceived the ineluctable necessity of 
 staking all and everything at present on a first production 
 of my Tristan, I also told myself : With this goal in eye, 
 there can now be no abasement more for thee ; all and 
 aught thou doest to attain to means and power, can hold 
 nothing to shame thee, and whoso might not comprehend 
 thee if he saw thee treading unaccustomed paths, thou 
 might'st reply to him : " What know'st thou of my goal ? " 
 — For, he alone can comprehend me, who first has 
 comprehended that. — 
 
 Well, every day brings forth new plans ; now this, 
 now that contingence looms before me. I'm so indissolubly 
 banned to this work, that I would gladly bring my life as 
 sacrifice — in sober earnest — and swear to will to live not 
 one day longer, when once I have produced my work. 
 So perhaps it's not inconsequent, that I should now be 
 possessed with the notion — instead of all the labours and 
 humiliations I should have to undergo to arrive at the 
 required means through " Parisian successes " — just of taking 
 up the simplest cross and going to Dresden, getting myself 
 tried, passed sentence on, and — pardoned, for all I care ; 
 to be able, unmolested then, to seek on the spot for the 
 best German theatre, produce my Tristan there, and dis- 
 solve the spell which so holds me now that nothing else 
 seems worth an ounce of trouble. Indeed it appears 
 wellnigh the most rational course ; methinks it resembles 
 an unpardonable love of self, to refuse any manner of torture 
 or shame that might lead to my work's redemption ; for 
 
Paris letters 2J3 
 
 what am /, without my work?— And add to that this 
 other: I don't believe in my operas in French; all I do 
 toward that end is against the inner voice which I can 
 deaden but with levity or violence. I believe neither in 
 a French Tannhauser, nor in a French Lohengrin ; to say 
 nothing of a French Tristan. My every step towards it, 
 too, remains unblest: a demon — my daemon? — is at work 
 against me in it all. Only at command of a despot could 
 all the personal obstacles be beaten back, that rear 
 themselves against my advent to the Paris Opera-house ; 
 but I've no true zeal to compass that. Before all, what 
 concern of mine are my old works, grown all but indifferent 
 to me? Repeatedly I catch myself in the most utter lack 
 of interest in them. And then the French translations ! I'm 
 bound to think them clean impossible ; the few verses 
 translated for my concert cost unspeakable pains, and were 
 insufferable ; neither is a single whole act from my operas 
 translated as yet, in spite of endless labours, whilst what 
 thereof exists is odious to me. Moreover, the tongue itself 
 is one of the principal reasons why everything here remains 
 strange to me ; the torment of a conversation in French 
 fatigues me hugely, and I often break off in the midst of 
 an argument, like a castaway who tells himself : " Indeed 
 it isn't possible, and everything's in vain ! " Then I 
 feel too deplorably homeless, and ask myself: Where dost 
 thou, then, belong? A question I can answer with 
 no country's name, no town's, no hamlet's ; all, all are 
 foreign to me, and wistfully I often look towards the land 
 Nirvana. Nirvana in its turn, however, soon changes into 
 Tristan ; you know the Buddhist theory of the world's 
 creation : A breath perturbs the heaven's translucence : — 
 
 §J ^j p '^ - rtf*^ — f - ; it swells, condenses, and at last the 
 
 whole wide world stands forth, in prisoning solidity. 'Tis my 
 
214 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 old, old fate, so long as I've such unredeemed spirits still 
 about_ me ! — 
 
 I have something homelike still about me, tho', which 
 I'm soon to be deprived of — Bulow. The poor young man 
 is slaving himself to the bone here, and I get little enough 
 of him ; he cannot visit me often, yet it's a comfort even to 
 know that he's here. Dear Heaven, it does me so much 
 good, to be able to converse naturally ; and that I now can 
 do with him alone. He is and remains most attached to 
 me, and it often is touching to get behind the secret pains 
 he constantly is taking for me ; whereon he turns quite 
 mournful if I tell him that it all can not avail. But I want 
 to give him one. delight before he goes, and tell him : You 
 have sent him greetings through me. — 
 
 I have now to submit to a little business being done 
 with me, to try and clear a little of the fearful havoc the 
 expenses of my concerts have left behind them. One 
 [Belloni ?] proposes that I should give the identical concert 
 thrice at Brussels, under conditions which ensure me a small 
 profit. I suppose I shall have to ; so be prepared to hear 
 from me next from thence. Of London, too, one speaks to 
 me. It's sad enough ; but I cannot die as yet, you know. — 
 
 And now it will be well, Lady-friend, if I draw to a 
 close : I clearly see there's no more friendly tidings to 
 squeeze out, and already I've much overstepped the line. 
 However, my heart is somewhat lighter since at least I've 
 been able to write you again : thanks for affording me that ! 
 And many kind messages to Otto and the children ; let me 
 hear how you all are doing. With faithful love 
 
 Your 
 R. W. 
 102. 
 
 Paris, April 10, 60. 
 
 But dearest, precious Child, why so absolutely not a line ? 
 
PARIS LETTERS 21 5 
 
 Must I always ask first ; can't one so much as write to poor 
 me without waiting to have to answer? — I'm really quite 
 uneasy ; I wrote Otto not so long ago :* no reply from him 
 either ! So nothing is left me save dreaming. I eke things 
 out with that, dream much and often ; but even pleasant 
 dreams have something to alarm me, because one has to bear 
 in mind, according to the rules of dream-divining, that when 
 the object of solicitude appears to us well and serene, the 
 very slightest excess denotes the opposite. But what a 
 sorry aid are dreams ! If one remembers much of what one 
 dreams, itself that points to nothing but the vacancy of our 
 waking existence, and I always think of [Keller's] green 
 Henry, who finished by nothing but dreaming. — 
 
 you bad child ! Even your last letter — and that was 
 ages back — told me so little, all but nothing, of yourself: 
 is my silly fate to be ever the sole thing worth talking of ? I 
 almost doubt if these lines will catch you still in Rome : it 
 would be just like the pair of you, to start away without a 
 word of warning when or whither ! You see^ I scold : a few 
 days since I might have drawn it milder ; but I'm getting 
 crosser every day. — 
 
 Please write me reams on how you are, what you're 
 seeing, how you pass your time, what acquaintances you've 
 made, how it goes with your welfare, and everything of that 
 sort. Indeed you did promise to give me a peep into your 
 camera-obscura now and then ; and all at once totally ex- 
 communicated ? Oh, it's easy to see where you live ! 
 
 1 almost ought not to breathe a word about myself for 
 this once : but what do I know of your own news ? Nothing, 
 except that I don't know : true philosophic consciousness ! 
 And of myself?? Neither head nor tail is to be made 
 of that in my lifetime, dearest child, above all by a 
 
 * Not published ; perhaps lost in the post.— Tr. 
 
2l6 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 level-headed person. For instance, I am felicitated now by 
 all common-sense people, and all the world thinks me 
 swimming in bliss and delight since I've attained the quite 
 incredible, and one of my operas is to be produced at last 
 in Paris. " Can he possibly want more ? " they say. And 
 just think : I have never been more weary of the whole 
 affair, and to each of my congratulators I snarling shew 
 my teeth. — That's the man I am ! Nobody can satisfy, 
 and nothing suits me. So people let me be ; and with 
 that I must put up, in the end. — Toward yourself, tho', I'll 
 not behave so churlishly. — 
 
 You know, child, that our sort of folk look neither 
 right nor left, neither before nor behind ; that Time and 
 World are matters of indifference to us, and only one thing 
 sways us — the need to unburden our bosom : accordingly 
 you also know what alone in reality can lie at my heart. 
 But were it otherwise, — had I already finished with the 
 inner store, and henceforth durst merely look around and 
 keep in view my works' results, the conditions I call forth, 
 the service of which I may be, — then I might find enough 
 of serious and edifying entertainment if I looked around 
 me. I cannot contradict my new French friends when, 
 looking forward to! the possibility, nay rather, certainty of 
 a great effect even of my Tannhauser on the Paris public, 
 they see in it a factor of unprecedented weight, to which 
 they assign an importance to be compared with nothing else 
 conceivable. 
 
 A man who can look calmly at the life of so gifted 
 but incredibly wasted a nation as the French, and interest 
 himself in all that makes for its ennobling and develop- 
 ment, — I can't find fault with such a man, if he beholds 
 in the reception of a French Tannhauser an absolutely 
 vital question for these men's adaptability. Reflect how 
 starved is all French art ; that poesy, more strictly speaking, 
 
PARIS LETTERS 217 
 
 is altogether foreign to this folk, which knows nothing in 
 its place save rhetoric and eloquence. Owing to the ex- 
 clusiveness of the French language, and its inability to adopt 
 the poetic element foreign to itself by means of transference 
 from another, there remains but one way open to bring 
 Poesy to bear upon the French — the way of Music. But 
 then, you see, neither is the Frenchman constitutionally 
 musical, and all his music he has gotten from abroad. 
 From of old the French musical style has been formed by 
 mere contact with Italian and German music, and strictly 
 is nothing but a cross twixt these two styles. But Gluck, 
 if you look at him closer, taught the French nothing more, 
 than how to bring music into accord with the rhetorical 
 style of French Tragddie — at bottom there was no question 
 here of genuine poesy — wherefore the Italians have been 
 able to keep almost the whole of the field for themselves 
 even since his time. For it has ever been a matter of 
 mere manner in the rhetoric, but apart from that, as little 
 of music as of poesy. 
 
 Well, the havoc hence arisen, and increasing to this day, 
 is simply past belief. To find out the capacities of the 
 singers at the Op6ra, I was compelled a few nights since to 
 hear the new opus of a Prince Poniatowski ; oh, my 
 feelings ! ! What a longing seized me for the very simplest 
 mountain-vale in Switzerland ! ! As I came home it was 
 exactly as if I had been murdered, and every possibility had 
 vanished into air. Yet I have learnt how the very ghastli- 
 ness of an impression may simply add force to the counter- 
 effects, and make them of greater scope. " You see how it 
 stands," friends said to me, " and what we await and demand 
 of you ! " Those who tell me this, are men who have not 
 set foot within the opera-house for 20 years, had frequented 
 none but the Conservatoire and Quartet concerts, and finally 
 —before knowing me — had studied my scores; not mere 
 
218 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 musicians either, but painters, men of letters — even of the 
 State. They tell me, "What you bring, has never been 
 remotely offered us before ; for with music you bring us 
 full poesy ; you bring a whole, and wholly self-supported, 
 independent of every influence that hitherto has been ex- 
 erted by our institutes on the artist who wished to present 
 himself to us. Moreover, you bring it in perfection of form, 
 and with the greatest power of expression : the most 
 ignorant Frenchman himself could wish to alter nothing of 
 it ; he must receive it entire, or reject it in the lump. And 
 there resides the great significance we attach to the coming 
 event : if your work is repulsed, we shall know what's the 
 matter with us, and give up hope ; if it's welcomed, and that 
 at one blow (for a Frenchman can be influenced no other 
 way), we all shall breathe once more ; for it is not literature 
 and science, but only the directest art of the Theatre, the 
 most universal in its operations, that can stamp itself deep 
 on the views of our national spirit. However, — we feel 
 sure of the greatest and most abiding impression." — 
 
 In fact the Director himself, now that he knows the 
 subject better, is boasting to everybody that with Tann- 
 hauser he can reckon at last on a real " succes d'argent." 
 
 In Brussels, too, I had many a talk with a remarkable 
 old man, a very witty, shrewd and seasoned diplomat 
 [" Papa " Klindworth], yet who recommends me from his 
 heart not to lose sight of the French : let one think and 
 say what one likes, it remains undeniable (according to him) 
 that at present the French are the actual prototype of 
 European civilisation, and to produce a decided effect upon 
 them is to operate upon the whole of Europe. — 
 
 It really all sounds most encouraging, and I suppose I 
 cannot get away from the importance I'm to be of to the 
 world. But strange to say, I don't care much for Europe 
 or the world, and at bottom of my heart I tell myself: 
 
PARIS LETTERS 219 
 
 What business of thine is it all ? As said, however, I per- 
 ceive that I shan't get away from it : oh, my daemon takes 
 good care of that ; the surest guarantee for my indefeasible 
 effect upon Europe is — my want ! 
 
 I tell it you quite candidly, so that you may form no 
 false notions about me, — may not believe, for example, 
 that the said vain assumption is driving me to anything 
 which strictly lies beyond me. Those Paris concerts have 
 brought me to an incalculable plight : even Brussels I 
 undertook for nothing but to help myself out of the hole, 
 and that also turned out the opposite ; so that on my 
 departure (much as Rossini once said after the fiasco of a 
 " carefully " wrought opera, " Si jamais on me prend a 
 soigner ma partition ") I told myself, " Si jamais on me 
 prend a faire de 1' argent ! " Germany stays mum to me, and 
 if ever I'm to meet with Tristan and the Nibelungen in my 
 lifetime, I must contrive veritable miracles now, to keep my 
 head above the waters of this blessed life. So I accept the 
 hopes of my Paris friends, in particular of my Opera-director ; 
 and as every grand chance has an unfortunate knack of 
 being a trifle behindhand, for the present I'm not half 
 disinclined to sell myself to a Russian general, who is shortly 
 to arrive here to acquire me for a S. Petersburg Tannhauser 
 expedition.* I pray you to join in my laughter : indeed 
 there is no other way to help me out of the ridiculous 
 contradictions in which this redemption-craving world leaves 
 its anticipated saviour! 
 
 Meanwhile I must gather my wits, to write a— grand 
 ballet What do you say to that? Have you doubts of 
 me? You shall beg my pardon for them by-and-by, when 
 
 * Though the S. Petersburg offer (a bona fide one) would have placed 
 ;£l,ooo in Wagner's pocket on the spot, and an equal amount later on, 
 he honourably declined it for sake of the Paris Grand Opera — which 
 eventually brought him worse than nothing; see letter of June 5 to 
 Otto.— Tr. 
 
220 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 you hear and see it. Thus much to go on with : not a note, 
 not a word of my Tannhauser will be altered ; but a ballet 
 there imperatively had to be, and that ballet was to occur 
 in the second act because of the Optra's abonn6s always 
 reaching the theatre somewhat late, after a heavy dinner, 
 never at the commencement. Well, I have declared I could 
 accept no dictates from the Jockey Club, and should'withdraw 
 my work ; I mean to help them [the authorities] out of their 
 straits, however: the opera needn't begin before 8 o'clock, 
 and then I'll add a decent culmination to the unhallowed 
 Venusberg. 
 
 This Court of Frau Venus was the palpable weak spot 
 in my work : without a good ballet in its day, I had to 
 manage with a few coarse brush-strokes, and thereby ruined 
 much ; for I left this Venusberg with an altogether tame 
 and ill-defined impression, consequently depriving myself of 
 the momentous background against which the ensuing tragedy 
 is to upbuild its harrowing tale. All later reminiscences 
 and warnings, whose grave significance should send a shudder 
 through us (the only explanation of the plot), lost wellnigh 
 all effect and meaning : dread and instant trepidation kept 
 aloof from our minds. But I also recognise that, when I 
 wrote my Tannhauser, I could not have made anything like 
 what is needed here ; it required a greater mastery, by far, 
 which only now have I attained : now that I have written 
 Isolde's last transfiguration, at last I could find alike the 
 right close for the Fliegender-Hollander overture, and also — 
 the horrors of this Venusberg. One becomes omnipotent, 
 you see, when the World but exists as one's plaything. 
 Naturally I shall have to invent the whole thing for myself, 
 to be able to prescribe the smallest nuance to the ballet- 
 master ; it is certain, however, that nothing save Dance can 
 lend effect and execution here : but what a dance ! The 
 good people shall stare in amazement at all I'll have hatched 
 
PARIS LETTERS 221 
 
 there. I haven't arrived at jotting anything down as yet : 
 I will here make my first attempt with a few indications ; 
 don't be surprised at its occurring in a letter to Elisabeth ! 
 
 VENUS and TANNHAUSER remain as in the original 
 directions : but — the three GRACES lie couched at their feet, 
 locked picturesquely in each other's arms. A whole tangle 
 of children's limbs surrounds the couch ; these are the 
 slumbering Amoretti, who have fallen atop of one another 
 in their childlike romps, and then asleep. 
 
 All around pairs of lovers are resting on projections of 
 the grotto. In the middle only Nymphs are dancing, teased 
 by Fauns whom they seek to elude. The movement of this 
 group increases : the Fauns become more boisterous, the 
 Nymphs' coy flight incites the males of the reclining pairs 
 to their protection. Jealousy of the forsaken females : 
 waxing effrontery of the Fauns. Tumult. The Graces rise 
 and intervene, enjoining seemliness and order : they in turn 
 are accosted, but the young men chase the Fauns away : 
 the Graces reconcile the couples. — Voices of Sirens are 
 heard. — Then a tumult from the distance. The Fauns, bent 
 on vengeance, have summoned the Bacchantes to their aid. 
 The Wild Hunt storms on, after the Graces have reclined 
 once more in front of Venus. The yelling retinue brings 
 with it every kind of animal monster : from these a black 
 ram is selected, and diligently examined to see that it has 
 no white spot : amid cheers it is dragged to a waterfall ; 
 a priest fells it and offers it up, with dreadful gestures. 
 
 Suddenly, amid wild huzzaings of the throng, the northern 
 Stromkarl (known to you *) emerges from the foaming water 
 with his marvellous big fiddle. He plays up for a dance, 
 and you may imagine all I must invent to give this dance 
 
 * Among Mathilde Wesendonck's poems is a ballad on the Nicker. 
 [Neither this incident, nor that at end of the preceding paragraph, is 
 embodied in the final version.— Tr.J 
 
222 WAGNER TO MATH1LDE WESENDONCK 
 
 its fitting character. More and more mythological freaks 
 are brought on, all the beasties sacred to the gods; even 
 centaurs at last, who stamp among the rioters. The Graces 
 are afraid to quell the hubbub ; then in utter despair they 
 fling themselves upon the mob : in vain ! Turning to Venus, 
 they look around for help: with a wave of her hand she 
 now awakes the Amoretti, who rain a perfect hail of darts 
 upon the rioters ; more and yet more, their quivers are 
 ever replenished. Then all form more definite pairs ; the 
 wounded reel into each other's arms ; a general frenzy of 
 desire. The arrows, whirring wild of aim, have hit the very 
 Graces ; no longer are they mistress of themselves. 
 
 Fauns paired with Bacchantes rush forth ; the Graces are 
 borne off on the Centaurs' backs ; all stagger toward the 
 background : the [young] couples lie down : the Amoretti, 
 shooting still, have gone in pursuit of their quarry. 
 Approaching lassitude. A mist descends. From greater 
 and still greater distance sounds the Sirens' cry. All be- 
 comes hid. Deep quiet. — 
 
 Finally Tannhauser awakes from his dream.* — 
 
 Something of that sort. What do you say to it? — It 
 tickles me, to have been able to bring in the eleventh varia- 
 tion of my Stromkarl, for that explains why Venus and her 
 court have moved off north : only there could one find the 
 fiddler meet for these old gods to dance to. The black ram 
 also pleases me, tho' it I could replace : shouting Msenads 
 would merely have to carry in the murdered ORPHEUS ; his 
 head they would cast in the waterfall, — whereon my Stromkarl 
 would spring up. Only, without words that's less intelligible ; 
 what is your opinion ? — I wish I had Genelli aquarelles to go 
 
 * It will be observed that the two cloud-tableaux of the ultimate 
 version are not even suggested here. Some seven weeks hence, however, 
 they are introduced into a more detailed draft, together with a third 
 tableau — Diana and Endymion; see the "Wagner number" of Die. 
 Musik, Feb. 1905. — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 223 
 
 by : he used to make these mythologic orgies very plausible. 
 I suppose, however, I shall have' to help myself again, tho' I 
 still have several details to devise. — 
 
 So I've been and written you another Kapellmeister 
 letter, don't you think ? And a ballet-master's letter into 
 the bargain this time. Won't it put you in a good humour ? 
 
 And yet you do not write to me ? Nor Otto either ? O 
 you bad, bad people ! Wherever am I to get letters from, to 
 give me joy, then ? And you know perfectly well that no- 
 thing else can give me proper joy ! Yes, one thing — when I 
 give myself something to do with you. 
 
 Only yesterday the Brussels people sent my photographic 
 portrait after me, which to me appears highly successful ; so 
 of course I thought at once of you. If you will write me 
 very nicely soon, and tell me about when you're returning to 
 Zurich, I'll send to Herr Stiinzig, or whomever you name, 
 this picture that will tell you how I look now ; and let it be 
 hung above the piano in the picture-gallery. As you've 
 taken all your house to Rome with you, there won't be a 
 single friend to welcome you on your return if I don't put in 
 an appearance, at least in the picture-room. 
 
 Only imagine my having clean forgotten Otto's birthday 
 this time ! I knew quite well what March brings round, but 
 the day, the day I couldn't think of [16th]. Moreover, I had 
 absolutely nothing fit to give him, so you must ask him to 
 wait till next March : evidently I shall be a rich man by 
 then, throwing millions all round me. — Apart from that, 
 remember, my dear child, that I still have nothing upon 
 earth but you ; that for you, through you, with you, do I 
 live, and all my pastime has for me this only charm — that 
 I can make it voice to you my lack, and you give ear to it 
 so fondly. Adieu, my child ! A thousand heartfelt wishes : 
 if they're too many for yourself, then give of them to your 
 good man and children. R, W, 
 
224 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 103. 
 
 Paris, May 2, 60. 
 
 I really can't let May come in, best Child, without 
 sending you another sign-of-life to Rome, as I presume 
 you will not stay there much longer. Could anything 
 withhold my hand from writing you to-day, 'twere only 
 that I have so absolutely nothing right to tell you ; how- 
 ever, you already know that it isn't what I write about 
 to you, that possibly can count, but the mood in which I 
 write it. According to that the topic would be a matter 
 of indifference, were it not that my mood itself, to be 
 exact, is my only topic that can interest you ; and just 
 about that there isn't much to say. How could I be in 
 brilliant mood now ? — Let that pass. — Is my mood quite 
 worthy of your sympathy ? Neither about that can I clear 
 my mind ; but the voice deep down within me says : It 
 should be otherwise ! 
 
 God knows for what I still exist ! So far as it's a 
 matter of my will, I have no reason to congratulate myself 
 on my endurance : the lucid intervals are far too rare. 
 Perhaps even they will vanish altogether some day ; and 
 yet — I still await them — hold out, wait — and drag my life 
 on in the night ! — 
 
 Your recollections moved me very much. It is in- 
 credible, what devastations of one's being one can bear ; 
 the overplus would prove a lamentable fraction, might it 
 not also be a thing sublimely great. In good moments 
 I venture to flatter myself with the latter : what is greater 
 than complete abandonment of happiness for the whole 
 breadth of existence, and restriction to unique instants? 
 Of a surety, the vulgar alone is broad of life and insistent, 
 the noble but strength of resistance ; affirmation nothing, 
 negation all. — And the artist ? — Poor fool, he's dupe enough 
 of his own consciousness ; but he's very cunningly con- 
 
PARIS LETTERS 225 
 
 trived to weather the eternal conflict. Yes, to be in 
 perpetual conflict, never to arrive at full inner repose, ever 
 to be hunted, lured, and hurled aside, — indeed that is the 
 life of seething whence his inspiration blossoms like a flower 
 of despair. — Oh, I know it, and you can but feel it with 
 me : who would fain be other than he is ? 
 
 Well, my mind has grown clear as to the choice which 
 now faces me, but not yet as to how I ought to choose, — 
 nor will that choice, apparently, depend at all on me ; but 
 It will choose, the Brakm, the neuter. And the choice 
 is this : — either to reproduce my works, [ or produce new 
 ones.* 
 
 The first is tantamount to shouldering all the con- 
 sequences of the affirmation of life, until they crush one. 
 If I mean to disclose my finished works to the world for 
 virtually the first time, and make it feel all that it owns 
 in them through wholly adequate performances, in that 
 alone I have an undertaking which must utterly consume 
 the very strongest dose of vital force. Then all else is a 
 by-road, every plunge within an act of treason, — then, ho 
 for without, everything outward, subjecting of the world to 
 me, belonging of myself to it alone, letting myself be 
 betrayed, humiliated, racked, destroyed by it, to pass into 
 its conscience. Then will I say to it, as Jesus to His 
 disciples at the Last Supper : " Ye know but the milk of my 
 doctrine ; now shall ye taste of its blood ; come and drink, 
 that I may be within you ! " — t 
 
 * "Entweder meine Werke auffiihren, oder neue atisfilhren." As a 
 rule I prefer to restrict the term " produce," in this connection, to the 
 first performance of a work, but an exception is demanded here by 
 Wagner's deliberate play on words.— Tr. 
 
 \ There is no text in the Bible exactly corresponding to this allusion (the 
 nearest being Cor. I. iii, 2, and Heb. v, 12-14) ; but in the working-out section 
 of Wagner's own Jesus of Nazareth (1849) we find the following assigned 
 to act iv, which includes the Last Supper: "Jesus, 'Ye have tasted but 
 
226 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 Or the second : — I renounce all possibility of ever hearing 
 my works, and consequently of disclosing them completely 
 to the world. Tis a sacrifice, and yet — so far as my own 
 pleasure is concerned — perhaps a mere alluring dream ; for 
 the voice distinctly tells me, I shall never reach enjoyment 
 or satisfaction through performance of my works, and there 
 will always be left a secret pang that tortures me the more 
 as I must conceal and deny it, no doubt, not to rank as 
 utter madman. And if I renounced that : — oh, the vision 
 of bliss that dawns on me then ! In the first place, total 
 personal poverty ; not another care for the least possession. 
 A family that adopts me, stills my very modest needs, 
 to which in exchange I transfer all that ever may be mine ; 
 there to do and follow naught beyond the writing of my 
 final works, everything I still have in my head. Then I 
 also leave it calmly to my saving daemon, to summon him 
 who shall disclose my works to the world some day — it 
 being left to my good pleasure to have him presented 
 to me, or to let things pass without a murmur if I thought 
 the man impossible. That — that were my wish, my settled 
 choice — had T a voice in it! — 
 
 The choice's settlement will indicate which was more 
 needful. If none but / can reproduce my works, it will 
 happen ; I'm certain of that ! — If none but / can write the 
 works I have still in my head, — then that will happen. 
 Now, which would be the harder task? Or — which would 
 be of greater moment? I rather incline to the former. 
 Probably it is more indifferent to the World-spirit, whether 
 a few extra new works of this kind shall be bestowed on 
 the world, than that the essence of this kind of work should 
 be disclosed to the world wholly intelligibly. Oh, it is 
 
 the milk, not the gall of my doctrine. My death shall give to you the 
 gall, that ye may be steadfast in doing the work that is needful ' (See Eph. 
 iv, 13 and i/f),"^-Prose Works VIII, 308.— Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 227 
 
 obvious : with the essence of a thing one never reckons 
 quantity ; that's inessential, but the main affair is the inner 
 capacity of the entire kind. If I completely disclose this, 
 I thereby fire the consciousness of other units, who will 
 then be able to multiply the spark. Thus may we also 
 account for the uncommon individuality and multiplicity 
 of the Italian school of painting, the Spanish school of 
 poetry, and so on. Consequently (I believe I am safe in 
 assuming) it is of the greater moment to the World-spirit 
 that I should disclose my finished works to the world 
 through perfect performances ; and on the widest possible 
 terrain, since the few on whom the spark can fall to use 
 are very rare, very dispersed alike in time and space. 
 With new works, on the other hand, in a certain very deep 
 sense — intelligible to the World-spirit alone — I now can but 
 repeat myself, no other essentiality can I reveal any more. 
 
 So a choice would come off very badly, and it will 
 be impossible to consult my wish thereon. Yet a middle 
 course may be found even here, and a mocking mirage floats 
 before me: namely, that I might perhaps combine the 
 two by turns, or find sweet rest again the battle over, and 
 finish my works in the end. Oh, It is never at a loss for 
 snares ! But I know my daemon ; and there are serious 
 hours when I know everything, no snare can trap me, 
 and yet — I resolve to bear all. To-day I'm writing you in 
 such a mood ; be good to me, respect and love me ! I de- 
 serve it — for my sorrows' sake! — 
 
 Many thousand greetings. Let me hear soon, when I 
 am to begin addressing to Venice. I shall answer Otto 
 presently in Latin, since that has become his pet tongue. 
 And he's right ; what was sung to him yonder in Latin 
 is glorious [Sixtine chapel— Palestrina ?] : I know it well ! 
 
228 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 104. 
 
 May 23, 60, Paris. 
 I broke open your last Roman letter this morning in 
 
 bed, and viewed what it Contained [her portrait and Otto's as birthday 
 
 gift, see p. 232]. Maurice came back to tell me my bath was 
 ready ; he found me bathed in tears, and silently with- 
 drew. 
 
 My child, the gods honoured me yesterday with the 
 finest day of this year. It had never been entirely bright 
 and fair before : on my early-morning walk of yesterday 
 for the first time I was greeted by an absolute clear sky, 
 with an invigorating easterly wind to boot ; everything 
 green and gleaming. Without the faintest cause for gladness 
 at my individual lot, living from one day to the next in 
 the most tottering uncertainty, daily compelled to defend 
 myself, as if besieged, against continual attacks upon my 
 quiet — yet it was well and bright with me ; the gods loved 
 me, and that made me smile. Nothing approached me, 
 nothing met me with a greeting, except the heavens and 
 the lovely breeze, which had shunned me so long ; but that 
 sufficed, and fairest visions filed before my soul. For sure, 
 I pondered, everywhere 'tis fine to-day, and what tho' 
 I receive no greetings, full many a someone will be thinking 
 of me and saying : See, the gods do love him ! — How 
 childish I still am, how easy to be coaxed ! The sky and 
 zephyrs, sunshine and green of May, relieved you of the 
 trouble, this time, of scaring dull care from my brow. Please 
 thank them a little ! — 
 
 What I else have only known in bouts of exaltation, 
 turned this time to a quiet calm resolve — to delight myself 
 by some good deed addressed to others. At home I found 
 the latest number of the Journal des Debats ; in it an 
 article by Berlioz on Fidelio. I had not seen Berlioz since 
 my concerts : thereafter he had let himself be enticed into 
 
PARIS LETTERS 229 
 
 greater and greater animosities and ill-Concealed attacks ; 
 I had been the more obliged to give the unhappy man up, 
 as any contrary attempt would inevitably have appeared to 
 him an insult. However, I was much delighted by this 
 article on Fidelio, and braving every possibility, nay, pro- 
 bability of his totally misunderstanding me, I wrote him 
 somewhat as follows : " I have this moment read your 
 article on Fidelio. Accept a thousand thanks for it ! It 
 is quite a special joy to me, to hear these pure and noble 
 accents of expression of a soul, an intellect, which so 
 completely understands and makes its own the inner secrets 
 of a creation by another hero of art. There are moments 
 when the witnessing of such an act of estimation transports 
 me almost to a higher pitch than the appreciated work 
 itself ; because that testifies so plainly that an endless chain 
 connects great spirits, which through this solitary link are 
 saved from ever falling to incomprehension."* 
 
 How rejoiced I shall be, if he takes that in good part. 
 To be sure, upon reading the article through a second time 
 I remarked how infinitely remote from mine is Berlioz' 
 standpoint, even in this valuation of Beethoven ; he still 
 pays far too much regard to the artwork's outward features, 
 and consequently an attention beyond my comprehension 
 to the manifestations of applause wherewith it is received. 
 Nevertheless I could see how solitary is Berlioz' station 
 even on that step, and how foolish he is to deprive himself 
 
 * The passage in quotation-marks is an almost literal translation of 
 the "pigeon-French" note to Berlioz which Wagner had transcribed 
 for Liszt the day before, save that the address " Cher Maitre '' and the 
 concluding sentence, " Si je m'exprime mal, j'espere pourtant, que vous 
 me ne comprendrez pas mal," are omitted above. — N.B. The letter to 
 Liszt of May 22, 60, does not appear in the English edition of the 
 Wagner-Liszt Correspondence, as the original, evidently buried among 
 the papers of Princess Wittgenstein, was not published until 1900 
 (Bayreuther Blatter, pages 3-4 for that year).— Tr. 
 
230 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 of the sole refreshment possible in such a situation, un- 
 grudging welcome of his next-of-kin. But envy — : good 
 God ! ! 
 
 — So my thoughts roamed tranquilly ahead, and lit on 
 Liszt. Of him I know truly nothing that has not shewn 
 him to me in a strictly amiable light ; his shadows do not 
 lie in his character, but solely in his intellect here and there : 
 on that side he is easily influenced, and gets lost in 
 weaknesses. It was long since I had written him ; * even 
 my great grief at the loss of his son [Dec. 15, 59] was 
 expressed to him merely through others [Biilows ?]. Business 
 there is none between us, and to so dear a friend I can't 
 write otherwise than intimately ; but, to be certain that one's 
 confidences are always being made to two [i.e. Liszt and Pss 
 Wittgenstein] is really past abiding, — it turns the whole thing 
 into pose and jugglery. And that's the fact : Liszt has 
 become a man without a single secret to himself ; neither is 
 it a union of hearts, but his plainly abused weakness, that 
 has reduced him to an unlovely dependence. At last I 
 
 * As a matter of fact, Wagner had written him from Brussels on the 
 29th of March, but apparently without receiving any answer either to that 
 letter or to its predecessor of Nov. 23, 1859. Similarly, when Wagner 
 reproaches himself in his letter of May 22, 60 (see last footnote), " On 
 the 22nd of October I thought of you, of course, but did not write you. 
 Why ? I can no longer remember," his memory really is at fault ; for 
 letter 298 in the W.-L. Corr., dated " Paris, Oct. 20, 59," begins thus : 
 " I hope, dear Franz, these lines will reach you punctually on the 22nd. 
 Accept my hearty congratulations on your birthday,'' etc., etc., fully half 
 a page being devoted to the warmest utterances of affection, by side 
 of which Liszt's meagre " Herzensgruss zum heutigen Geburtstag von 
 Deinem Franz Liszt " — the telegram referred to at end of this paragraph 
 as " the most ardent felicitation " — quite pales to insignificance, making 
 one realise how very thankful Wagner was for such small mercies. 
 Similarly, the metaphorical "hand-squeezes" would seem to have been 
 strangely one-sided at this epoch, for Wagner's gift of the Tristan full 
 score itself (through Hartels) roused no Weimar echo until many weeks 
 after.— Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 231" 
 
 Regretfully, tut definitely declared to him— or rather to the 
 pair, alas ! — that I could write to him (or them !) no more. 
 So the poor fellow sacrifices all in silence, and suffers all 
 as if he could see nothing else for it ; yet he goes on loving 
 me as heretofore, just as he remains a noble, precious creature 
 in my sight. Imagine then, how touchingly a greeting steals 
 to us from time to time ; from time to time we find the 
 means of giving each other's hand a hidden squeeze, like 
 a pair of lovers severed by the world. Thus only yesterday 
 the most ardent felicitation on my birthday arrived for me 
 by telegraph ; * how I smile and rejoice then ! — 
 
 And so the day passed : I remained in unruffled good 
 spirits, mentally enjoying, almost for the first time, that 
 sense of ease and happiness of the bodily robust who is 
 conscious of no reason for his well-being just because it 
 proceeds from a harmonious balance of his vital forces. 
 To you I've little need to name the source whence this 
 feeling wells for me ; 'tis that itself which gives this health, 
 and so exquisite it is, that still I feel how very seldom 
 can a fine day bring me such untroubled harmony again. 
 At evening, Jupiter shone wondrous bright on me — 
 he's standing at full brilliance now — according to our 
 Schopenhauer's conceit he is the star of the fifty years old, 
 and I still lack three of that ; but I shall live to see them : 
 will Jupiter stay true to me, and shine upon me then ? Oh, 
 there still are starless nights to come, I know them all, the 
 dread and dreary through the which I have to steer : — Shall 
 I then espy the star again ; will Jupiter shine for me when 
 
 * As may be seen in the letter already twice referred-to in these notes, 
 the telegram arrived just as Wagner was concluding that letter itself. — 
 N.B. The princess had set out for Rome just four days previously; 
 nevertheless the "lettre pleine d'effusion de Wagner" is despatched 
 to her three days before its writer himself is answered : " Je vais lui 
 recrire et m'imbiber aussi de son Tristan" writes Liszt to Carolyne 
 May 28.— Tr. 
 
232 WAGNER TO MATHlLDE WESENDCfiSTCK 
 
 my need of a lodestar is direst? — I asked. The wondrous 
 evening answered me with balmy breath, and cooled my 
 eye.^ — 
 
 A couple of young Germans, whom I chose entirely at 
 random, came round at night. Before leaving, they gave 
 me no peace till I played them the prelude to Tristan again, 
 over which all the young-folks have gone completely mad, 
 particularly when it comes to the new close. That close, 
 in fact, I had to play them a couple of times more : then 
 I bundled them off, and laid me down. To-day I awake, 
 and your letter is brought to my bedside. But there, child, 
 there I can narrate no more — wherefore not a word about 
 the portraits of you both ! — You shall have mine as soon 
 as ever I know when I'm to address it to Zurich. It's the 
 best of my portraits, quite remarkable to myself for having 
 succeeded so well in very unpropitious circumstances, and 
 especially for having caught so calm and unconstrained a 
 facial expression. I was very much out of sorts, yet plagued 
 by the Brussels bandsmen to leave them my photograph 
 as souvenir ; it rained (Otto knows how it can rain at 
 Brussels), and I didn't want to go to the studio. Finally, 
 late in the day, behold me called for once more : I had 
 no umbrella, was to conduct again that evening, had to 
 mount five flights of stairs, and expressed to the artist my 
 utter indignation at being expected to bring off anything 
 endurable under such conditions. The aplomb with which 
 the artist (an extremely good one) treated me, put me in 
 a really good humour, and with the remark : " Well, all 
 things are possible if you can do anything with me," I 
 took my stand in complete amazement, thinking to myself : 
 " I daresay it will turn out quite good enough for the 
 Brusselers." I now remember realising, also, how incredibly 
 rapidly the functions of the brain obey the passing mood, 
 and can link the nearest with the most remote. I had 
 
PARIS LETTERS 233 
 
 been photographed before in Paris, and, without my being 
 aware of it, the brute of an artist had thought fit to pose 
 me in a most affected attitude, my eyes cocked sideways : 
 the resulting portrait is an abomination to me, making me 
 look, as I've protested, just like a sentimental Marat.* That 
 wretched effigy has been used for the Illustration, and — still 
 more hideously distorted — since gone the round of like 
 illustrated journals (even in England now). — Well, my 
 abhorrence of it instinctively led me at the Brussels operation 
 to try for a more seemly expression, to give myself without 
 a grain of affectation a tranquil, reasonable look. And the 
 very irony of this whole process brought me to the right 
 frame of mind in a twinkling : all my surroundings vanished, 
 and quietly I gazed across the world as if it weren't the 
 least concern of mine. Merely a wish remained, mayhap, 
 to see my Jupiter : perchance it may strike you that he 
 really did ray down a glimmer on me. 
 
 Now I've told you all about my birthday, and everything 
 connected with it. Yesterday you dipped your goblet in the 
 fountain [of Trevi], and drained a cup for me as well : O my 
 child, how fair a thing you wished me then ! Believe me, 
 no fonder aspiration could the gods fulfil me, than to let you 
 drink me welcome to that fount ; through you to learn 
 Rome's fairest mysteries, the which I have to thank already 
 for so great a happiness, since they have been so dear and 
 salutary to yourself. So let us set our hopes on Jupiter !— 
 
 * Plainly this is the portrait facsimiled on page 73 of Mr. Chamberlain's 
 Richard Wagner, notwithstanding that at first sight there the signature 
 appears to be "Paris. 6 Mai 1861"; the last cypher, however, is so 
 imperfectly inked that it might equally be an " o." Even supposing that 
 date to be really " 1867," there would be nothing to prevent Wagner 
 from bestowing the Paris likeness on an importunate acquaintance over 
 a twelvemonth after it had been taken ; whereas the above description 
 fits it to a tee.— Tr. 
 
234 WAGNER TO MATrHLDE? WESENDONCK 
 
 105. 
 
 Paris, July 22, 6o, 
 Am I really to write at last on this dark page I so 
 repeatedly have squared to hand? Am I to despatch you 
 another account of myself? Or shall I wait until at least 
 a day of sunshine gives pure sky to animate me with a 
 breath of cheerfulness that I might gratefully devote to 
 you? — Not even that boon will shew itself! West and 
 South keep on prevailing, to tune my poor nerves to their 
 lowest pitch. Which shall it be, then? Maybe you'll fret 
 yourself more than you need, if I keep silence ! 
 
 Even yourself, can you actually form a clear conception 
 of my life ? I scarce can credit it, for perhaps it is not 
 possible. I have lived to make the strange experience that 
 I must end by withdrawing from almost every sign of 
 sympathy extended to me, because I'm pulled up every- 
 where at last against a point where my odd position toward 
 the world, and everything I do therein, falls victim to mis- 
 understandings so manifest that I can but feel how people 
 really take me — strictly speaking — for a sort of hypocrite. 
 It is becoming very difficult, however, even to explain what 
 I mean by that ; so that this perception in turn remains my 
 secret, and the only consolation left me in face of the world 
 is a curious one : that what it fancies it beholds in me is a 
 thing it treats as common to us all, quite natural, and there- 
 fore not particularly blamable.* — 
 
 * These and the ensuing dark sayings rather suggest that the 
 gobemouches had lately been busying themselves with that generous 
 assistance jin recognition of which Mme Kalergis became owner of the 
 " orchestral sketches " of Tristan — an act of generosity thus reported by 
 Liszt in a letter of July II to Pss Wittgenstein — "La ligne sur Mme 
 Kalergis dans la lettre de X se rapporte au service qu'elle vient de rendre 
 a Wagner, en comblant ggnereusement le deficit de ses concerts de Paris, 
 par l'avance de plusieurs milliers de francs. C'est un beau trait qui m'a 
 cause une tres agreable surpris, et dont j'ai 6te directement informc par 
 une courte lettre de Wagner, que j'ai communique^ a X." To Frau 
 
PARIS LETTERS 235 
 
 No one, I am sure, could have less gladness, pleasure, or 
 merely recreation, fleeting stimulus of any sort or kind, than I. 
 Whatever I do or try to, never for a moment does it enter 
 my head to prepare myself a pleasure, an enjoyment, by 
 it; were it only since I've learnt to see more and more 
 distinctly that what I sought has never thriven, but always 
 turned into the opposite. To me this is so evident, that after 
 a trip to Fontainebleau the other day— whither I had been 
 attracted by the promise of fine trees — I took a firm resolve 
 to think of no further distraction of any kind this summer, 
 because so much, regarding which I've grown extremely 
 sensitive, made me finish by recognising even in that trip an 
 experience more replete with pain than pleasure. Not a soul 
 invades my solitude whom I'm not more pleased to see depart ; 
 at any stirring of the inextinguishable desire for intimacy, 
 or were it but some trifling change, I have come to impress 
 on myself that all conceivable fulfilment could only give 
 me pain, and quietly bide at home, aware that I should 
 never find the very tiniest refreshment tho' I sought it. I 
 expect there's hardly anybody who can figure this entire 
 and utter resignation, and least of all if one has children ! — 
 
 And with all this unheard joylessness of existence to 
 be moving in a world still, amid requirements and regards 
 that almost always cast on me the light, in others' eyes, 
 of one who shews himself inordinately grasping, — at last 
 that leads me to the strangest sentiments in respect of this 
 world. I tell you openly, the bitterness I have often con- 
 fessed to you is disappearing more and more from me, and 
 contempt is usurping its place. This feeling is not passionate : 
 
 Wesendonck the transaction can scarcely have been a mystery, for the 
 reference in letter 1 14 (vid. inf.) points to a prior communication thereof 
 either to her husband or herself. — Mme Kalergis is the lady whose name 
 by a second marriage (de Moukhanoff) adorns the dedication of the reprint 
 of Wagner's Judaism in Music some nine years hence. — Tr. 
 
236 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 no, it gives me more and more tranquillity ; but no longer 
 is there a relation of mine to anyone whatever, in which this 
 feeling doesn't take the upper hand completely. And that 
 spares my heart much : it's far less vulnerable now ; — I can 
 despise where formerly I was enraged ! — 
 
 So I pour my heart out much less freely, also, reflecting 
 that I'm not the man for understanding through my actions, 
 and hoping that something at least of my works will meet 
 with understanding some fine day. Yet I may tell you 
 thus much: my sense of purity alone confers on me this 
 power. I feel myself pure of heart : in my inmost depth 
 1 know that I have ever wrought for others only, never 
 for myself; and my perpetual sorrows are my witness. — 
 
 But joy ? Ah, nothing more can give me joy ! And 
 that's my solace : any joy, in which I caught myself, were 
 my arraigner, and it were over with my right of proud 
 disdain. — 
 
 Thus to-day I am able to inform you with a curious sense 
 of satisfaction that the notification of repeal of my banish- 
 ment from Germany, delivered me a few days since, left 
 me utterly cold and indifferent. Telegraphic congratula- 
 tions have been raining cheers upon me : not a single one 
 of them have I answered. Who would comprehend it, if 
 I told him this is nothing to me but the opening of a new 
 field of suffering, of suffering that certainly outweighs all 
 chance of any kind of gratification, in measure as I see 
 nothing in front of me but , sacrifices on my own part ? 
 Whoever draws by accident a step too near me, appears 
 to understand this of a sudden ; but 'tis nothing save a 
 whiff of understanding ; he turns his back, and ere long 
 he thinks I'm shamming after all. And those, too, are 
 the middling best ; as for the remainder — Disgusting's 
 the word ! 
 
 I have a friend, however, of whom I grow fonder and 
 
PARIS LETTERS 237 
 
 fonder afresh : my old surly-faced and yet so deeply love- 
 filled Schopenhauer. When I've been fumbling the farthest 
 and deepest, what a quite unique refreshment all at once, 
 to dip into the pages of that book ; to see my sentiments 
 so wholly understood and scheduled, but in that other 
 tongue withal which soon turns sorrow to an object of 
 cognition, transposing everything from Feeling to the cool, 
 consoling marble of the Reason, and while it shews me to 
 myself, at like time shewing me the whole wide world ! 
 What a marvellous exchange is that, and of the most 
 beatifying order ! And ever new is this effect, because it 
 constantly is stronger. Thus calm is given, and contempt 
 itself ascends to love : for all self-flattery has gone ; clear 
 knowledge cools the brow of pain ; the creases smooth, and 
 sleep regains its soothing power. And how beautiful [ ? * ], 
 that the aged man knows nothing of all he is to me, of 
 what I'm through him to myself! 
 
 And now please let me call to mind a very different 
 sort of friend. Laugh as you list, but I speak of a perfect 
 angel I've always about me, a being of unswerving kindness, 
 that cannot so much as look at me without lavishing a 
 whole heap of glad caresses on me : 'tis the little dog you 
 destined for me once upon your bed of sickness! Words 
 fail to express the affection of this matchless beasty. 
 Each afternoon we lose ourselves together in the Bois de 
 Boulogne ; then I often think of my old peaceful Sihlthal ! 
 Fare you well, dear kindly soul, and have my thanks ! — 
 
 * I cannot help thinking that Wagner meant to say " wie Schade '' — 
 " what a pity ! " — instead of this puzzling " wie schon." — Two months after 
 the above was written, the Frankfort philosopher died (Sept. 21). He and 
 Wagner had never met, nor even exchanged an epistle ; for the com- 
 plimentary copy of the Ring poem was sent to Schopenhauer unattended, 
 Dec. 1854, and the Tristan poem direct by Hartels Dec. 1858 without ^he- 
 draft letter quoted p. 76 sup. — Tr. 
 
238 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 106a. 
 
 [Paris, beginning of August i860.] 
 Heaven help us, what a poet I must be ! I am growing 
 quite presumptuous — this never-ending translation of the 
 Tannhauser has made me so conceited. Just through being 
 compelled to follow word by word, I've discovered at last how 
 concise and unalterable even this my poem is ; one word, 
 one shade of meaning dropped, and my translators and self 
 have had to admit that an essential point was sacrificed.* 
 At first I did believe in the possibility of minor alterations, 
 but we've had to give up all and sundry. I was quite 
 astounded ; and then, comparing this with other poems, 
 I found I really knew but few to which I could ascribe a 
 similar quality. In brief, I've been driven to acknowledge 
 to myself that just the poem could absolutely not have 
 been done better, — what will you say to that ? It is rather 
 in the music, that I can make improvements ; here and 
 there, to particularise, I shall give the orchestra richer and 
 more expressive passages. The only scene I mean to recast 
 entirely, is that with Venus : I found Frau Venus stiff ; a 
 few good features, but no true life. Here I have added a 
 fair number of verses ; the Goddess of Delight herself 
 becomes affecting, and Tannhauser's agony real, so that his 
 invocation of the Virgin Mary bursts as a cry of anguish 
 from his deepest soul : at that period I could never 
 have made a thing like this. For its musical execution, 
 though, I still need very good humour, and haven't the 
 remotest notion whence to get it! — 
 
 There will soon come out a prose translation of the four 
 pieces, Hollander, Tannhauser, Lohengrin and Tristan, for 
 
 * Edmond Roche and Rudolf Lindau, assisted afterwards by Charles 
 Nuitter. — The whole subject is exhaustively dealt with in an interesting 
 article by Dr. Golther in the special "Wagner-number" of Die Mttsik 
 1903 (No. 16). — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 239 
 
 which I shall write a preface meant to give my friends here 
 some enlightenment on the formal side of my artistic 
 tendencies.* I have just been going through these trans- 
 lations, and that compelled me to take stock of every detail 
 of my poems once again, J Yesterday the Lohengrin moved 
 me very much, and I cannot help considering it the most 
 tragic tale of all, since the Versohnung really is only to be 
 found if one casts a quite terribly far glance on the 
 world.f 
 
 Only the profound hypothesis of Reincarnation (Seelen- 
 wanderung) has been able to shew me the consoling point 
 where all converge in the end to an equal height of 
 redemption, after their divers life-careers, running severed 
 j but side by side in Time, have met in full intelligence 
 Beyond it. On that beautiful Buddhist hypothesis the 
 spotless purity of Lohengrin becomes easy to explain, in 
 that he is the continuation of Parzival — who first had to 
 wrest to himself his purity ; in the same sense would Elsa 
 reach up to Lohengrin in her rebirth. Thus the plan for 
 my " Sieger " would appear to me the sequel and conclusion 
 of the Lohengrin : here " Sawitri " (Elsa) fully overtakes 
 "Ananda/j Thus were all the awful tragedy of life solely 
 to seek in sunderance by time and space ; but as Time and 
 Space are nothing save our modes of viewing, have no reality 
 apart from that, so to the man of perfect sight even the 
 utmost tragic grief should be explainable as nothing but the 
 
 * " Zukunftsmusik," i.e. "Music of the Future"; see Prose Works 
 III.— Tr. 
 
 t To prevent this sentence being twisted to an arbitrary significance, 
 I have retained the German word Versohnung, which may literally mean 
 either reconciliation, atonement, or expiation. Here, in light of the next 
 paragraph, the idea is that of an ideally ' happy ' ending, but of such 
 effected by extension of the conflicting factors to one point of rest, 
 beyond the bounds of personality, just as with the chief characters of the 
 three other dramas named above. — Tr, 
 
240 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 individual's defect of vision.* So it is, I believe ; and in full 
 truth the solitary point at stake is a matter of the Pure and 
 Noble, which in itself is griefless. — 
 
 I can write you nothing but such babble — the only 
 worth the pains; and with you alone have I a care to 
 babble of such things ! Then Time and Space, their 
 contents naught save want and agony, take wing ! But ah, 
 how rarely am I in heart for such babbling ! — 
 
 The Tristan is as great a wonder to myself as ever. It 
 is becoming more and more inscrutable to me, how I was 
 able to create a thing like that; upon reading it through 
 again, alike my eye and ear went wide agape ! How terribly 
 I shall have to pay for this work some day, if I mean to 
 place it whole before me ! I distinctly foresee the most 
 unheard-of sufferings ; for there, I can't conceal it from 
 myself, I've overstepped whatever lies within the range of 
 our executive achievement : supremely talented performers, 
 the only ones equal to the task, are very rare arrivals in 
 the world. Yet I cannot withstand the temptation, were it 
 merely to hear the orchestra ! ! — 
 
 Parzival has been much awake in me again ; I'm seeing 
 more, and clearer, in it every day. Once the whole is 
 finally mature within me, the carrying this poem out ought 
 to be an unexampled joy for me ; but many a year may 
 run ere then ; also I should like to let it rest, for once, 
 with poetry alone. I'm staving it off as long as I can, 
 and only busy myself with it when it takes me by main 
 
 * "So miisste dem vollkommen Hellsehenden auch der hochste 
 tragische Schmerz nur aus dem Irrtbum des Individuums erklart werden 
 konnen." At risk of appearing to play into the hands of my friend Dr. 
 Gould, I have been obliged to give this clause half a diopter clearer 
 definition than that of the original. Greater difficulty is presented by the 
 next sentence : "und in voller Wahrheit handelt es sich durchaus nur um 
 das Reine und Edle, das an sich schmerzlos ist " — for one cannot be quite 
 certain, to what the " handelt es sich " refers. — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 24 1 
 
 force ; but this curious generative process makes me 
 forget my whole misery then. — 
 
 Would you like me to babble of that? Didn't I tell 
 you once, that the fabulous wild errand-woman of the Grail 
 is to be one and the same with the temptress of the second 
 act? Ever since that dawned on me, almost the whole of 
 this subject has grown clear. This strange uncanny creature 
 that slavelike serves the Grail -knights with unwearying zeal, 
 fulfils the most untold commissions, and lies cowering in 
 a corner till she's told to execute some office of uncommon 
 hardship, — at times she vanishes entirely, no one knows 
 whither or how. Then suddenly we meet her once again, 
 worn, gruesome, wan and haggard ; yet tireless anew, serving 
 the Holy Grail like a hound. Of its knights, tho', she 
 betrays a secret scorn : her eye seems ever seeking for 
 the right one, — already has she fancied to, but never found 
 him ; nor what she's seeking, does she really know : it is 
 sheer instinct. — When Parzival, the dullard, comes into the 
 land, she cannot turn her gaze away from him : some strange 
 thing must be passing in her ; she knows it not, but fixes 
 on him. He shudders — but it fascinates him also : nothing 
 does he understand. (Here — Poet, set to work !) The 
 working-out alone can speak here ; yet listen to a hint or 
 two, just as Brynhild lent her ear to Wotan : — 
 
 This woman is in an inexpressible state of disquiet ; the 
 old esquire has remarked it of her oft before, as the time 
 drew near for her to vanish, but her condition this time is 
 at utmost strain : what is taking place in her ? Does she 
 dread another disappearance, fain would be dispensed 
 therefrom ? Does she hope to be allowed to— end at last ? 
 What is she hoping of Parzival ? Plainly, she looks to him 
 for something never-heard, — but all is vague and shadowy, 
 no knowledge, only craving, gloaming.* — Huddled in a 
 
 * "Kein Wissen, nur Drang, Dammern.'' Here we may certainly 
 
 16 
 
242 WAGNER TO MATH1LDE WESENDONCK 
 
 corner, she is present at Anfortas' scene of agony : sphinx- 
 like, with curious scrutiny she stares at Parzival ; he, too, is 
 stupid, comprehending nothing, open-mouthed — stays dumb. 
 He is cast forth: the errand-woman of the Grail sinks 
 shrieking of a heap, then vanishes (she must roam again). 
 
 Now can you guess who is the wondrous witching 
 woman found by Parzival in the magic castle whither his 
 knightly temper leads him? Then guess what goes on 
 there, and how it all turns out, for I tell you no more 
 to-day. — 
 
 106b. 
 
 August 10. 
 
 I am writing you this second sheet many days later, — how 
 many, I do not know : " Schon zahl' ich nicht die Tage 
 mehr ! " Everything here is one murky monotony : cares 
 and disagreeables in ever novel shape,* but ever the same. 
 Completely joyless ; but not stormy : rather, slinking. On 
 the contrary, calm, full resignation ; naught to — expect ; 
 nothing — to hope ; scarce aught — to wish. Quite used to 
 the caprices of my fate ; bending my back to my mission ; 
 patient, even as regards the weather. And this weather 
 has its lesson for me : it is, that one can alter nothing, 
 must get accustomed to it. The same with all the moral 
 constellations that surround us : there raging is of no 
 avail, — only enduring ! — But now and then a light springs 
 up, within. When all has withdrawn there from without, 
 
 detect the germ of "Durch Mitleid wissend" (such an enigma to the 
 average German of the 'eighties). — It is unnecessary to indicate the 
 differences between this concept and the final story. — Tr. 
 
 * See the letter of June 5, in which Otto had been told of the 
 approaching demolition of Wagner's little Paris house for street improve- 
 ments. About this date he must have been engaged in his attempt to 
 recover the remaining two years' rent, which he had been obliged to 
 pay down in advance (perhaps because of his having no legal standing, as 
 refugee). — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 243 
 
 unsatisfied, the inner life grows light and warm. Surely 
 that is the Tristanesque Night: " Barg im Busen uns sich 
 die Sonne, leuchten lachend Sterne der Wonne ! " 
 
 All that I could tell you of my existence, appears to 
 me so futile ; yet maybe that's the hardest thing of all to 
 understand. Such a career as mine must ever cheat the 
 onlooker: he sees me in acts and undertakings he deems 
 to be my own, whereas at bottom they are quite alien to 
 me : who marks the repugnance that often is filling my soul ? 
 All that will be understood one day, but only when the sum 
 is finished and the balance struck. Then folk must find 
 that this Unusual was really but to be accomplished thus t 
 and they'll learn — though without being able to apply the 
 lesson to the next case. It has arrived at this : to others 
 I seek to explain but little now ; as I have none save a 
 sense of unmitigated suffering, I may as well suffer this 
 too — for I know that it must be. Still : the day of clearing 
 up will come — things are shaping that way — and the world 
 will clap its eyes on many a thing it had not allowed itself 
 to dream of. I say this without for a moment concealing 
 from myself the impossibilities on which I'm marching : 
 Germany lies open to me at last, and I'm feeling my first 
 true shudder ; for I haven't an idea as yet, where Tristan's 
 to be born. Ah yes, now the trouble's about to begin ! 
 
 So the Paris Tannhauser distracts me, gives time to 
 meditate on Germany, precipitate nothing, and — what is of 
 vast importance ! — perhaps the means to adopt the only 
 attitude toward German reproductions of my newer works 
 to enable me, with patience and tranquillity, to prepare 
 there for the best. Should this succeed — how strangely would 
 that sum have then worked out whose figures puzzle every- 
 body now, since nobody can square them.* And yet — I 
 
 * Apparently alluding to some remark of , Otto's re the writer's 
 finances. — Tr. 
 
244 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 admit it most modestly — there has been as good as no 
 true calculation of my own in it. — But let us quit this Jack- 
 o'-lantern dance of worldly will and weening : we rank for 
 little else therein but sorrow ! — 
 
 I can tell you nothing more of Parzival to-day, however, 
 for it's all in a very embryonic stage as yet and indescribable. 
 I'll narrate you an old story instead, which made a great 
 impression upon me the other day through its individuality 
 and profound characteristique. In a volume of Ct. de la 
 Villemarqud's " Les contes des anciens Bretons," where I 
 found the oldest versions, from the Mabinogion, of the 
 legends handled later by French poets — e.g. of Artus, 
 Parcival, Tristan, and so on — I also lit on the tale of Erec 
 and Enide, whereof I still " possess " a medieval German 
 adaptation * in my whilom Dresden library — without having 
 read it. The tale runs pretty much as follows : — 
 
 Erec, after long warfare, has brought Enide home to 
 wife ; his land he has secured against assaults of foes on 
 every side ; such miracles of bravery has he wrought, that in 
 his own and all men's eyes he can but rank as most un- 
 vanquishable hero ; so he finds no further cause for fighting, 
 and lives in peaceful bliss for nothing but the love of his fair 
 wife. This dismays his people and his friends ; they fear he 
 will unman himself and lose his power, and blame the too 
 great influence of the gentle dame. She herself begins to 
 grow alarmed, and chides herself for being cause of what all 
 deem this serious change in Erec's nature. Careworn she 
 wakes one morning, looks sadly on her slumbering spouse, 
 and down upon his naked breast, from which all bravery 
 seems fled, fall two hot tears. Waking, he overhears her 
 words, " Oh, must the blame be mine, that hero-strength has 
 
 * By Hartmann von Aue, who followed Chretien de Troyes [the 
 paradoxical " possession " is to be explained by a brother-in-law's 
 guardianship. — Tr.]. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 245 
 
 hied from him?" Marvelling— with the instant sensibility 
 of noble natures — he fancies he must read her plaint to 
 mean that she is longing now to be, or haply to become, a 
 worthier hero's wife. This strangely subtle film of jealousy 
 determines him forthwith : " God forbid that I should stay 
 thy hand from joining with a worthier knight's above thy 
 husband's corpse ! " — he cries. At once he bids saddle for 
 himself and Enide, takes hurried leave of all, fares with her 
 alone into the world, and orders her continually to ride 
 before him, and whatever she may hear or see, never to turn 
 round her face to him, and never breathe one word to him 
 except he ask her. Far in the forest, three robbers come 
 riding towards them : she cannot help but warn Erec. " Did 
 I not command thee silence ? " he upbraids her, defeats the 
 robbers, slays them, gives their horses bound together into 
 Enid's charge, and bids her ride still farther in advance of 
 him, driving the horses before her. So they fare on in 
 silence. The same adventure is repeated, only with pro- 
 gressive increase of the danger, of Enide's alarm, Erec's 
 wrath and victorious exploits. Enide hardly dares own to 
 herself her fearful weariness from the long journey without 
 rest or refreshment, for how much more terrible must Erec's 
 exhaustion not be, — Erec, who has ceaselessly to undergo 
 the most stupendous combats ? At last he calls a halt ; he 
 bids her repose on a flower-strewn mead, a countryman 
 brings food, wine, and so on. Erec goes aside while she 
 revives herself, and merely wets his parched lips at a spring. 
 He lets her fall asleep, and watches by her. Then they set 
 forth once more, farther and still farther to the most un- 
 heard, most perilous adventures, and ever passed through as 
 before. ""•'- 
 
 Finally, after doing battle with a fearsome giant, Erec 
 returns to Enid's resting-place exhausted unto death, and 
 swoons to the ground, O her Lamentations, ! Then comes, a 
 
246 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 knight with lordly retinue — an enemy of Erec's ; the latter 
 girds himself to yet another fight : he crashes down, as dead. 
 Seized with burning love for Enid, the Graf bears her off to his 
 castle, together with her husband's body. Enid is forced to 
 appear in the banquet-hall ; the Graf wooes her hand ; be- 
 side herself for woe, she cries aloud : " O Erec, liv'dst thou 
 yet, what man had dared to woo me ! " The door flies open : 
 that piercing cry has woken Erec out of death. One glance 
 reveals him all ; he slays the foe, clasps Enid to his bosom, 
 begs her ne'er to doubt him in the days to come, e'en tho' he 
 be not ever fighting, and with the overjoyed fares home ! — 
 
 What do you ithink of it ? Are not these whole men ? 
 So ineffably tender that nowadays we can't conceive of them 
 at all ; the frightfulest expenditure of strength, from an 
 excess of refinement of feeling ! — 
 
 So sheet 2 is full, as well, — goodbye ! Kind regards to 
 
 Wesendonck ; I shall write him soon. A thousand thanks 
 
 and constant love ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 107. 
 
 Paris, Sept. 30, 60. 
 
 My dear precious Child. 
 
 Hitherto it had only been unwellness that seemed to 
 seem to allow a pause in my affairs ; to-day, however, I 
 must wrest me a free hour for once — if free I mean to be. — 
 
 Ah, how the child is revelling in Raphael and paintings ; 
 how beautiful it is, how sweet and reassuring ! Only myself 
 does that manner of thing refuse to so much as touch : I still 
 am the vandal who, after a whole year of residence in Paris, 
 hasn't got the length yet of a visit to the Louvre ! Does 
 that not tell you everything? — 
 
 And how goes it with me otherwise? — Imagine that 
 I'm trying now with all my might to pump up music, as 
 Venus has got to take singing-lessons J How do I feel 
 
PARIS LETTERS 247 
 
 with it? — You know I'm always writing dumb (or rather, 
 invisible) letters to you. In one of them I wrote a deal 
 about two tiny Indian birds that had come into my home 
 here, and I would not let be given away because they sang 
 quite exquisitely in the summer, and always cheered me 
 up at breakfast ; the little cock and little hen had each 
 its own peculiar stave of melody, most delicate, most 
 melancholy. At last, on my return from the Rhine expedi- 
 tion about mid-August,* I hear the hen not at all, and her 
 mate doing nothing but twittering, striving with more and 
 more distress to find his stave of melody again : — in vain, 
 he could not take it ; he was unable to sing any more ! I 
 had not noticed it myself, but merely heard, that birds grow 
 dumb at summer's end and don't begin their song again 
 till Spring draws nigh ; so I judged that their affairs were 
 finished thereabouts, and they forgot their singing just 
 because they no longer felt a need of it. But this taught 
 me something different : my little male seemed quite as- 
 tonished at himself, that he had lost his tune and no attempt 
 could bring it back to him. It took strong hold upon my 
 mind, this alienation of the inmost nature, this failure of 
 the power of melody. To whom does that belong, then, — 
 to the bird, or to someone who simply lends it him ? Certain 
 it is, that nothing save a state of ecstasy renders him capable 
 of melody ; at the proper time this state becomes so much a 
 habit to him, that when the other season comes, he's quite 
 aghast at seeing the magic suddenly reft him. I suppose 
 he gets used to it at last ; something inside must tell him, 
 in Spring he'll have the power to sing again ! 
 
 Much did I write you on that theme ; for his twittering 
 
 * To Otto Aug. 23 (a Thursday) : "Last week I made a few days' 
 trip to the Rhine, to wait on the Princess of Prussia at instigation of 
 the embassy ; " it was with Minna, whom he fetched from Soden baths 
 Aug. 13— Tr. 
 
248 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 and painful chirping lasted for some time. — But now, imagine 
 it — another letter ! — one morn his little wife starts twittering 
 — and gets her whole tune correct ! Fully ten times in 
 succession did she pipe it ! — I was beside myself, — what 
 could it mean ? Was it an anomaly ? Are there exceptions 
 in Nature too ? Be that as it may, the little hen had 
 managed it, though I have not heard her since. — 
 
 Ah, if the sky would but clear for once ! How am I 
 to put up even with that for over a year? It's no use 
 grumbling, though ; in spite of sky and autumn days, 
 compose I must. And I've been literating also ; I shall 
 send you the book very soon [cf. p. 239]. The verses for 
 my Tannhauser are not in German trim yet : I'm giving 
 you the draft after which they've been carried out in French. 
 And those French verses I have had to compose ! What 
 do you say to that ? God knows ! everything comes right 
 in the end ; but how ? — Yet all this occupation comes in 
 pat ; it masks the world-estrangedness in which I shall always 
 remain. Hold out I must ; it is the will of that same power 
 which bids my dickybirds to sing and cease. But as for 
 any actual thinking of myself, I dare not often do it ; for 
 nothing's there but dreary waste. That I have to try and 
 people with affairs ; and if the latter go against my grain, 
 why ! cares merely make one live longer ; and Care is aye 
 a faithful dame. — 
 
 But don't entertain any false notions ! I'd bind myself 
 by violence to nothing, and least of all engage in this Paris 
 Tannhauser, for instance, were I obliged to importune for 
 aught here, to say nothing of making a sacrifice. On the 
 contrary, I put a good face on this foolish game since people 
 bring so good a face to meet me. As far as reproductions of 
 my works go, never in my life have I been so well-treated, 
 nor am I ever likely to be again : no matter what I ask, is 
 done; nowhere the smallest withstanding. The pianoforte 
 
PARIS LETTERS 249 
 
 rehearsals have now commenced, and time is devoted in the 
 very best sense. Every detail is submitted to my approval : 
 thrice have I rejected the plans for the scenery, before they 
 drew them to my mind ; but all will be perfect now, and — 
 even if it doesn't attain the ideal — at any rate the representation 
 will be the best that has taken place yet, or can take place 
 again for ever so long. My pillar of strength is my giant 
 Niemann ; the man has inexhaustible capabilities. He's 
 almost raw at present, and owes everything to instinct until 
 now ; but he has nothing else to do, for months, than let 
 himself be led by me : we study it all to the very last dot. — 
 For Elisabeth I have likewise a half-novice, Sax : her voice 
 is wonderful and not yet spoilt, her talent promising ; she's 
 completely under my thumb. — Venus — Mad. Tedesco, ex- 
 pressly engaged for me — has a superb head for her r61e, 
 only the figure is just a shade too ample ; talent very con- 
 siderable and well-suited. — Wolfram gave us the greatest 
 trouble of all ; finally I got a Sig. Morelli engaged, a man of 
 magnificent presence and splendid voice: I must try how 
 to coach him. Luckily the opera isn't to be given till I'm 
 perfectly satisfied with the rehearsals ; and that's of weight — 
 I couldn't let so momentous an offer go begging ! — The 
 Op6ra people already have taken a liking to me ; there is no 
 constraint in any of my relations with them now ; they have 
 begun to understand me, gainsay me in nothing, and are 
 delighted at all the fine doings ahead. 
 
 So everything would be well, if it were only a little better 
 with the rest of my existence. There nothing helps : I wake 
 up sad, and sadly go to bed. The bad weather may have 
 something to say in it ; but the moments of wellbeing are 
 growing all too rare, and disquiet, ay, dread, stretch ever 
 broader. — 
 
 But don't pay too much heed to these complaints : after 
 all I still am open to the greatest sense of wellbeing, so soon 
 
250 WAGNER TO MATHU.DE WESENDONCK 
 
 as any really fine impression comes. On my last birthday, 
 you know, it was the east-wind did it ; to-day we've had the 
 first autumnal fog, which forcibly reminded me of Zurich. 
 Perhaps it means fair weather, and that will help me 
 much. — 
 
 Already I've been working a bit at the music of my new 
 scene. Remarkable : all the inward-empassionate, what I 
 might almost term the feminine-ecstatic, I could do absolutely 
 nothing with at the time I wrote my Tannhauser ; there I've 
 been compelled to throw down everything and build anew, — 
 in fact, I'm horrified at my erst property- Venus ! Well, that, 
 I'm sure, will go much better this time (especially if the fog 
 brings good weather) ; but the brisk, the joy-of-lifed, all this 
 is good in the Tannhauser, and I cannot make the smallest 
 alteration there. Further, whatever bears the legend's scent 
 about it, already has the atmosphere : Tannhauser's lament 
 and penance thoroughly successful, the [instrumental] group- 
 ings not to be improved, except that I have had to touch 
 up passionate features now and then before ; for instance, 
 at Tannhauser's outburst in the finale of the second act I 
 have replaced a very tame passage for the violins by a new 
 one, which is very difficult, but the only one to satisfy me. 
 I can ask anything of my orchestra here, however ; it's the 
 first in all the world. 
 
 Enough of Tannhauser. — From time to time I've also 
 gossiped much with you on people I had met : for the 
 moment I know of nothing to single out, without giving 
 it an air of more importance than it has. On the whole, 
 I continue to lead a thoroughly lonely life ; nothing suits 
 me better. Yet my loneliness itself is often one of dis- 
 content : what helps me then ? — Sweet memories, and — 
 sleep. — 
 
 Having taken a great dislike to plans, I have projected 
 absolutely none as yet, even for a production of the Tristan ; 
 
PARIS LETTERS 251 
 
 I keep thinking the right thing is bound to turn up of itself 
 some day. Meanwhile Queen Victoria has taken it into 
 her head to want to hear my Lohengrin this winter ; the 
 director of Covent Garden Theatre has looked me up, and 
 the Queen wants Lohengrin in English. It would have 
 to be in February, but I know nothing more precise about 
 it, nor even if I shall be able to entertain it. It would be 
 droll, though, were I to hear this work in English for my 
 own first time ! — r - 
 
 And now I shall soon be moving out ; from the 1 5th 
 of October on, my address is 3 Rue d'Aumale. It is a 
 smaller dwelling, and I hope not to have to write either 
 poetry or music in it, as all it's fit for is a counting-house. 
 I half lost my law-suit ; not a sou of compensation do I 
 get. Ah, when have I ever arrived at anything? This 
 has been a bad, a most unlucky business ; the house itself, 
 which I chose just for sake of its quiet, had become noisy 
 beyond all bearing through the demolition of this quarter. 
 They declare that my propridtaire was unaware of it : 
 quite possible !* — 
 
 Well, child, with you it has fared better; my only 
 consolation ! Heaven bless your lovely pictures, and the 
 portrait above all ! * I quite expect to see all that, myself, 
 ere long. — A thousand kind regards to Otto ; I'll write him 
 the very next time. 
 
 Just one thing more. On the Rhine, not far from 
 Rolandseck, blonde slips of children got on board, then off 
 again, — quite in the children's way : one of them looked, 
 in fact, like Myrrha ! How well I knew that you were once 
 at home there ! — 
 
 A thousand greetings, and the whole of my heart ! — 
 
 R. W. 
 
 * Clearly that which now figures as our frontispiece. — Tr, 
 
252 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 And now for the draft of the new Tannhauser verses. 
 
 Get out your book ! Turn to " Venus (breaking into 
 wrath) " — after Tannhauser's third stanza — down to the 
 words : 
 
 " Zieh hin, Bethorter, suche dein Heil ! 
 " Suche dein Heil, und find' es nie ! " — 
 
 Then something like this is to follow : — 
 
 " Die du bekampft, die du besiegt, 
 
 " Die du verhohnt mit jubelndem Stolz, 
 
 " Flehe sie an, die du verlacht ; '' [etc.*] 
 
 108. 
 
 Oct. 24, 60. 
 
 A hurried word, my dearest Child ! 
 
 Your last lines made me profoundly and heartily glad, 
 — as one always feels after alarm.-f- 
 
 The [missing] letter must have got here on a most 
 unlucky day, just as I was packing off my servant, whom 
 I had previously had the greatest difficulty in tolerating. 
 He had frequently committed the offence of forgetting my 
 letters and carrying them about with him for days, if they 
 
 * The whole of the new draft dialogue is given in the German edition 
 of these letters, but a reproduction is quite needless here, as the only 
 variants from the modern textbooks (down to 1901) are the following: 
 " Sclaven nie" for " Sklave, weich ! " "gespart" — for " erspart " — and a tiny 
 point or two in punctuation. On the other hand, though the form given in 
 modern textbooks prior to the very latest edition (1901) is that of Wagner's 
 Ges. Schr. ii (1871), the wording differs considerably in the revised German 
 score : a riddle solved at once by that article in Die Musik (cf. p. 238), 
 where Dr. Golther shews that the music for this new scene was set to 
 the French translation, and therefore Wagner had subsequently to re-adapt 
 his German draft to fit it. — Tr. 
 
 t See letter of Oct. 20 to Otto: "On the 1st of October" — meaning 
 Sept. 30, unless the letter spread over two days — " I wrote your wife ; I'm 
 much disturbed at having had no news since then, as I hoped to find at 
 least a word of welcome on my entry into my new abode." — Tr.. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 253 
 
 had been handed to him by the postman ; for which I had 
 often blown him up severely. Now — it was precisely in 
 that week that I sent him about his business ; he had to 
 quit my house in half an hour (for good reasons). Another 
 letter, also, has never reached me : now everything is clear, — 
 whether from knavery or fright, he didn't give the letters 
 up, on leaving. — I shall try to hunt him up ; if that doesn't 
 succeed — ah ! you must write me all over again. I give 
 everyone exactly as much trouble as I give myself : we must 
 bear it between us. 
 
 I am very fatigued : people here are too unremittingly 
 industrious for me. Not the least irritation — but very great 
 strain ! 
 
 A thousand fine greetings ! 
 I must be off again ! 
 
 Just one more greeting, tho' ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 109. 
 
 Paris, Nov. 13, 60. 
 Dear precious Child, fair kindly soul, have thanks for 
 all your messages ! 
 
 You shall have a brief bulletin from me as often as 
 possible. 
 
 I am picking up — very slowly — but still picking up. 
 — I have scarcely any recollection of the first week of 
 my illness, but now my mind is gradually clearing.* For 
 
 * Two or three days after letter 108, Wagner had been compelled 
 to give up his attendance at the opera-house, owing to what is vaguely 
 described by contemporaries as " a typhoid fever, the crisis of which was 
 marked by all the symptoms of inflammation of the brain." The term 
 " typhoid," however, must not be read in its specific modern sense, as in 
 those days it was indiscriminately applied to almost every kind of so- 
 called ' low ' or ' nervous ' fever. More probably it was an actual case 
 of subacute 'brain-fever,' brought on by worry and nervous strain 
 (including that of the eyes — see this letter's next sentence). — It really is 
 
254 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 several days I was almost totally blind ; now I'm uncom- 
 monly weak, amazingly emaciated, with eyes deep-sunk. 
 You know that I am never wholly free from pain, which 
 nothing save nervous excitement could numb now that I 
 have to avoid all excitement, you may guess what is left 
 of me ! — 
 
 Yet, too much is dangled in front of me still, and Life, 
 I suppose, will soon have back the whole of me! 
 
 Yesterday I was taken for a drive to the Champs Elysdes, 
 with a little walk in the sun, which did me good. I'm coming 
 round ; moreover, I've recovered patience. — 
 
 In my humble new abode the three Roman prints hang 
 framed above and round my couch ! — 
 
 Adieu for to-day ; I can write no longer ! — Thanks, a 
 thousand thanks, and deep fidelity of heart ! — 
 
 R. W. 
 
 instructive to compare the above with Minna's report to the Berlin friend 
 next day (Nov. 14, 60) : " Richard has certainly been ill, but thank God ! 
 is now so far recovered as to have been able to take a walk with me 
 again, and consequently he thinks of attending the rehearsals of his 
 Tannhauser after another few days. His illness lasted quite a fortnight 
 in all, and he brought it on himself through some over-exertion in teaching 
 their parts to the two lady-singers who are employed in the Tannhauser 
 [also, be it said, through " a removal at which I was the only person, on 
 my side, who could speak French " — R. W. to Otto, Oct. 20. — Tr.]. In 
 addition he may have caught a slight cold, and as his nerves are always 
 quite excitable enough, that made them worse ; he was also very feverish. 
 But Richard was not actually confined to bed, as I have already heard 
 that the newspapers somewhat strongly exaggerated ; which is disproved 
 by the fact that Wagner is shewing himself to the Germans here, receiving 
 them, etc. — Unfortunately Richard is a very impatient invalid, and at such 
 times always vents his spleen on me. He will not obey, when one kindly 
 entreats him to anything; for instance, he wouldn't keep warm, and so 
 brought on an inflammation of the eyes through another chill. But that 
 also is happily got over, with the help of our excellent doctor [Gasperini], 
 so that he is . able to write and read again now " {Die Gegenwart, 
 Oct. 1899). One could have wished for a word of sympathy with his 
 present feebleness. — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 255 
 
 110. 
 
 Paris, Nov. 17, 60. 
 
 Here comes another bulletin, my Child. 
 
 I'm mending — tho' the pace is very slow : the weather 
 will not favour me a bit, but keeps throwing me back ! Still 
 I've attended to a first affair, — I have been to the book- 
 binder. The pianoforte [Billow's ' vocal '] score of Tristan 
 has at last appeared ; I had given Hartels orders to send 
 a few copies to Zurich direct, among them one for Frau 
 Wille ; but Lady-friend I naturally was not going to polish 
 off like that: I bade a copy come to Paris, to be bound 
 here after my own heart and despatched to you by my 
 own hand. Well, it came at the very worst stage of my 
 illness : imagine my distress ! I had to see it lying there, 
 without the power to attend to it. 
 
 But I have been to the bookbinder now. That it will 
 turn out after my wish, alas ! I'm bound to doubt ; these 
 people > are all so horribly devoid of ideas ! Probably I 
 shall have to content myself with something quite ordinary, 
 and you will have to make the best of good intentions. In 
 any case it will take long enough before it's finished, and 
 you'll have to reckon it as birthday-gift and Christmas-box 
 in one! — 
 
 For the rest, I feel so — dead : I can describe it no other- 
 wise. A becalming without a puff of interest in existence ; 
 the future productions of my latest works all dream and 
 haze ; not a trace of wish or zeal within me ; my wretched 
 nerves always -aching and much below par ; nothing but 
 the moment's excitement to give my state a better look ! — 
 And still — it goes, and go it will — but how ? God knows ! — 
 Why on earth are there spots on the sun ? Bright weather 
 is still the best aid. — Monday [19th] I mean to attend a 
 rehearsal again : I must learn to be duly composed. — 
 
 But, what a charming idea, your little dog ; do tell me 
 
256 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 its name ! Was that a master-stroke of friend Otto's ? — 
 Believe me, you'll get plenty of joy from the beasty ; there 
 is something wonderfully composing in association with 
 dumb animals. I congratulate ! 
 
 And now sincerest thanks for the kind messages that 
 came into my sick-room : I'm worried at their having ceased 
 for several days. Surely you are not ill yourself? Do 
 reassure me ! — 
 
 And a thousand hearty greetings to Wesendonck ; he 
 shall hear from me soon. 
 
 Good-bye, and health be with you ! 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 
 111. 
 
 [Latter part of November.*] 
 Merely a few lines, Lady-friend, but they will tell you 
 enough ! — 
 
 I'm doing my utmost to be able — by taking the greatest 
 possible care of myself — to attend rehearsals regularly every 
 day ; and this is how I manage it : — 
 
 At 10 o'clock I go to bed, remain sleepless as a rule 
 for 3, 4, to 5 hours ; then arise — very weak — about 10 
 in the morning; after breakfast I lie down again, undertake 
 nothing, don't write a line, read a very little ; then dress 
 myself, go to the Ope>a— for 1 o'clock — attend a rehearsal ; 
 come home dead-beat between 4 and 5, lie down again 
 and try to doze ; dine at Si, then recline once more, receive 
 nobody except the doctor — not to have to speak ; read a 
 little, and commence afresh as above. — 
 
 * I have reversed the German volume's order of letters 111-112, and 
 consequently altered the date there conjectured for this one (" Dez."). I 
 have done so, not only because of ample internal evidence, but as we 
 have documentary proof that Wagner resumed his superintendence of 
 the Opera rehearsals on the 20th November. — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 257 
 
 You will see from this, how profoundly ill my wretched 
 nerves are. Never must I sing again ; the way I used to 
 render whole acts from my operas, however seldom, can 
 never be re-attempted : it is just those, always superhuman 
 exertions, I have to pay for now. Neither of my old 
 conducting of an orchestra can there be any further talk : — 
 accordingly, I don't know how I am ever to get to the 
 end of my life-task ! — Still, much is to be expected of 
 rest, great care and graduation, and at any rate I shall 
 improve in time. — 
 
 It is like you, to have thought of approaching my poor 
 self on the spot : yet I also think, Dame Reason's right. 
 Wait for Tannhauser, and perhaps not even the first 
 performances, but until I shall already have recuperated 
 somewhat : in a condition like my present, I can't be said 
 to exist at all. Please seek Otto's kind opinion ! — 
 
 I was delighted with what you told me of Frau Wille : 
 I had thought as much, and am cross with her for nothing 
 more. I really do know what she's worth, albeit she is 
 not made for action ; often we do not need this energy, 
 tho', but simply comprehension and good-feeling : and of 
 what value it is, to have found that! — Greet her for me 
 from my heart! — 
 
 And sincerest love to all your family, together with the 
 
 good Papa ! Weak and full of woe, but faithful aye and 
 
 thankful, I remain Yours 
 
 R. W. 
 
 112. 
 
 Paris, 3 Rue d'Aumale. 
 
 Dec. 4, 60. 
 In haste a heartfelt greeting to the precious Child, and 
 some relief! — 
 
 During the past week my recovery has made good 
 
 17 
 
258 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 progress. Strength is returning ; I'm looking better ; people 
 are pleased with my appearance. — 
 
 So it has been a serious warning. It made a great 
 impression on me: I am carefully mapping my future, to 
 be able to fulfil my life-task ; yet I have hopes, again, that 
 I can fulfil it !— 
 
 Are you better satisfied, dear Liege ? 
 
 As for Tannhauser, we'll bide our time ; I don't conduct 
 the band myself, and the rehearsals over — all is over! — 
 
 Soon more from the 
 
 Living. 
 
 113. 
 
 ■ For the 23rd December, i860. 
 
 I find I have still a sheet left of my colour,* Lady-friend ; 
 so it shall bear you my felicitation on your birthday. 
 
 What shall I wish, what offer you ? An utmost toilsome, 
 unresting existence makes — Rest appear to me the wishful 
 thing ; I long for it myself so yearningly, that I needs must 
 wish it others too, especially my Dearest, as sole and highest 
 good. It is so difficult to win to : in whom it was not born, 
 he hardly ever will acquire it, and nothing but a total 
 crushing of his native character can bring him this victor's- 
 prize. Who remains in life like this, staking his nature 
 again and again on this life, may have grown very tranquil — 
 almost completely so, in fact — as regards much in its broader 
 issues ; but the little everyday affairs of life will ever sting 
 him, make him lose all patience and repose. 
 
 How curiously it fares with me ! All that sets the world 
 in motion, almost without an exception, leaves me cold 
 and unmoved. Fame has no sway at all, with me ; Profit 
 only in so far as I may need it to keep me independent : 
 
 * Pale lilac, like most of these letters' originals ; see the Tristan 
 facsimile. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 259 
 
 of taking any serious step for either, I never could dream. 
 To prove my point is also quite indifferent to me since I've 
 learnt how unutterably few men are capable of so much as 
 understanding their fellows. Further, my very natural and 
 pardonable craving, to witness a fully adequate representation 
 of each of my works, has very much cooled down of late, 
 and particularly in this last year ; renewed contact with 
 bandsmen, singers, and so on, has again wrung many a sigh 
 from me, and fed my resignation with strong food on this 
 side too. More and more have I to mark how measurelessly 
 far I've strayed from this — in our modern life the quite 
 invariable — basis of even my own art-fashionings, and 
 willingly do I admit that if I suddenly cast a glance now 
 on my Nibelungen or the Tristan, I startle as if from a 
 dream, and ask myself: "Where wast thou? — Thou wast 
 dreaming ! Set wide thine eyes and see : lo ! this is the 
 reality."— 
 
 Yes, I will not deny it, I strictly hold my later works 
 for downright inexecutable. And if the inner prompting 
 ne'ertheless revives, to realise a possibility e'en here, in turn 
 that's only possible through letting my poor brain roam 
 off again into the dream-world ; where untold, never- 
 precedented aids arise, and I trust myself with the enormous 
 power to draw them to me. Faced with an unbroken series 
 of experiences, however, of incredible weakness and super- 
 ficiality in all the persons and relations whereon the possibility 
 of my assumptions had reposed, here also Resignation gains 
 more and more predominance, and lends me that passivity 
 which turns with terror from a useless strife. I have come 
 to thinking very little of it now — 
 
 So, if aught invigorates me for the present Tannhauser 
 affair, it is strictly nothing but my nature's inextirpable 
 propensity to rouse itself beneath the influence of artistic 
 aims. With difficulty can I force myself the whole day 
 
260 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 long, to take an interest in the thing ; but once I'm at 
 rehearsal, the immediateness of art resumes its hold on me : 
 I squander myself and my forces — and literally for a thing 
 that leaves me quite indifferent. — 
 
 In truth that is my case ! — 
 
 Yet see ! — how the whole breadth of heaven parts this 
 from the view which not alone the world, but all my own 
 acquaintances, nay, e'en my most devoted friend, still takes 
 of me. I can truthfully say that it is almost solely this 
 mad but ineradicable opinion of everybody who draws near 
 me, that gives me pain : I may preach, waste anger, argu- 
 ment, or indignation, — I'm ever answered by the smile of 
 pity for a momentary loss of temper ! If people then could 
 only plumb my silence, when, pale and outwardly indifferent, 
 I suddenly break off, withdraw into my shell! 
 
 O my child ; where am I then to find my only, only 
 solace? — .Once I did find the heart and soul that wholly 
 understood me in such moments, and held me dear because it 
 understood, and knew it understood me so ! See, to this soul 
 do I flee then, let sink my limbs as one fatigued to death, 
 and dip my head in the soft aether of its kindly thought. 
 All that I lived through once, the untold emotions, cares 
 and sorrows of that past, dissolve as from a storm-cloud 
 to a quickening dew, which laves my burning temples ; 
 there do I feel refreshment and at last repose, sweet rest : 
 I am beloved — am known ! — 
 
 And that repose, I lay it at your feet ! In gracious con- 
 sciousness of all you are to me — the angel of my calm, the 
 guardian of my life — may you also find the noble fount 
 to steep the arid paths of your existence ! Share you my 
 calm, accept it from me whole to-day, as I enjoy it at this 
 instant when I sink my soul entire in yours ! My wish 
 this, this my offering! 
 
 R. W. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 261 
 
 114. 
 
 Mardi Gras [February 12, 1861]. 
 
 Fat Tuesday shall grant me a quiet morning at last, 
 Lady-friend, to tell you just a little of myself. 
 
 When I've a headful of nothing but the hundred details 
 of my present task, there seems to me no sense in speaking 
 of myself to you ; for this was ever the distinction of our 
 intercourse, that instinctively a sublimation of the truer core 
 of thought and action alone appeared to us worth heeding, 
 and, so to say, we felt ourselves emancipated from material 
 life forthwith, so soon as we but met. So, if I hunt all 
 the lumber out of my head, to get it clean-swept for you, 
 of course there's nothing but the marrow left there, and 
 no more need to talk about my plague. In return, a gloaming 
 melancholy then girdles-in the soul, and shews us all the 
 things without in their true empty light ; for nothing really is 
 of solid worth to him who feels how much he has to sacrifice 
 if he would yield an import to the semblance of reality. — 
 
 What comforts me amid the many plagues that Art 
 imposes on me, is that it can appear to you in cheerful 
 light. You have and dote on paintings, reading, studying, 
 hearing ; and of it all you hold alone to what seems nobly 
 worth to you, untouched by what you suitably may leave 
 unheeded. All your accounts, even the latest of this winter, 
 agree herein — that on you the blessing is bestowed of placid 
 calm enjoyment. The deeper sense of that enjoyment will 
 have been revealed to you by now ; haply for you it is the 
 same as my activity, perchance my want, for me. — Yet 
 I often entertain the thought that I myself were capable of 
 such enjoyment, and nothing but my mission held me back. 
 Of course, when I reflect on what I'm able to endure, I 
 can but wonder at myself, and deem that oft so ardent wish 
 for quiet and secluded rest entirely unjustified ; and yet a 
 certain inner peace is my constant companion, — the peace 
 
262 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 of deepest and completest resignation. An altogether 
 uninvidious, but all the surer incredulity has won possession 
 of me : I hope for absolutely nothing more, and in particular 
 — despite occasional airings of my sometimes most com- 
 municative temperament — the whole of my relations to such 
 as come in contact with me are so extremely flimsily based 
 that it would be impossible for any shock to damage them ; 
 if an individual has approached me somewhat close to-day, 
 and I lose sight of him for months — or quarters, or half- 
 years — that doesn't make a grain of difference in our mutual 
 relations. I am never unsociable, but unspeakably indifferent ; 
 habituation nowhere gets a hold of me. 
 
 You ask about my female company? I have made a 
 few acquaintances, but not so much as made myself at home 
 with one. 
 
 Mad. Ollivier list's eider daughter] is highly gifted, even 
 dazzling of nature, ... I'm thinking, how it is that we so 
 seldom see each other. ... It is much the same with all the 
 rest of my acquaintances : the odds are so against my profiting 
 by any better-cultivated intercourse, that I willingly resign 
 on every hand, and just accept whatever whim or hazard 
 brings into the house. Among others . . . there is a Frln 
 von Meysenbug * who is staying here as governess to Russian 
 children. . . . When brought to see me, she had this in her 
 favour, that once in London, years ago ... I had treated 
 her very badly in a fit of ill-humour ; the recollection 
 touched me, and now . . . she finds herself more at her 
 ease in my company . . . 
 
 * See Wagner's letters to her, included in the volume of Letters to 
 Otto Wesendonck et al., where will also be found her interesting account, 
 as eye-witness, of the Tannhauser disaster. — It should be remarked that 
 the dots in the above are faithfully reproduced from the German edition, 
 notwithstanding the difficulty of fitting some of them in without affecting 
 the sense ; obviously they represent allusions to third parties, with whom 
 (apart from Minna) we are in no way concerned. — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 26^ 
 
 As for the so-called higher world, a lady whom I knew 
 quite superficially in earlier days [1853] has drawn greater 
 attention from me this time, than before; it is Countess 
 Kalergis, niece of the Russian chancellor Nesselrode. Surely 
 I have told you of her once already, . . . She was in Paris 
 some time last summer, hunted me up, and induced me to 
 get Klindworth over from London to make music with her. 
 Entirely among ourselves, except for Berlioz, I sang the 
 second act of Tristan with Mme Garcia- Viardot ; we also 
 did some music from the Nibelungen : it was the very first 
 time since I left you. — What made me more attentive to 
 this lady, was the observation of a singular weariness, a 
 disdain and loathing of the world, that might have seemed 
 indifferent, had I not quite plainly noticed with it all her 
 profound longing for music and poesy, which appeared to 
 me of moment in such circumstances ; and as her talent 
 was considerable in that direction, at last she did not leave 
 me without interest. Moreover, she was the first person I 
 have met who surprised me — quite spontaneously — by a 
 truly magnificent grasp of my situation . . . [cf. p. 234]. 
 
 Frau v. Pourtales, wife of the Prussian ambassador, seems 
 to be not without depth, and at least to have distinguished 
 taste. — 
 
 Quite a racy nature is that I have detected in the wife 
 of the Saxon ambassador, Frau v. Seebach ... I was surprised 
 by a certain gentle glow that gleams beneath the lava here : she 
 could not understand how anyone could overlook the intense 
 warmth of my conceptions, and thought it questionable to 
 take her own young daughter with her to the Tannhauser. 
 Such curious acquaintances one makes, you see, but they're 
 nothing more — than acquaintances ! . . . 
 
 Ah ! child — let us drop all that ! And believe me, one 
 drags along one's way just so, with toil, with toil, — scarcely 
 caring to render account to oneself of how one does it. All 
 
264 WAGNER TO MATH1LDE WESENDONCK 
 
 wishing is in vain : toiling and moiling is the only method 
 to forget one's misery. 
 
 Your decision not to come to the Tannhauser, my child, 
 had much depressed me — as you surely will be able to 
 conceive — simply because it robbed me of the pleasure of 
 seeing you so soon again. I was bound to endorse all the 
 reasons combining to influence you, as valid for your inner 
 self, since I have always done wisest when I took the pains 
 to understand you, and enriched, ay, often-times corrected, 
 my own feeling by adopting yours. I was sad — and said 
 nothing. — But Otto lately wrote me that, after all, you meant 
 to come with him for the event. Look you ! that gave me 
 such a grievous inner joy ; for I knew you had done yourself 
 injustice, and that made me so [un]happy that I hardly dared 
 to hope for a fulfilment of the promise. — And now Otto 
 has just written me again, that — you would not accompany 
 him. Once more it troubles me unspeakably, as you may 
 well imagine! — 
 
 Now listen to a quiet word from a friend who again has 
 just battled through much :— 
 
 This first Tannhauser-time will hang a load about my 
 neck ; I do not think it a propitious season for the silent need 
 of our two souls. Much that is needless will not be avoid- 
 able,* whilst everything will take an outward and unedifying 
 turn. Accordingly I needs must hold it better to accept your 
 meaning, and await a more equable season to present you 
 for the first time with an entire work of mine so carefully 
 prepared in execution as here is the case with this Tann- 
 hauser : then, and in calmer mood, the performance itself 
 both must and will have much to offer you, and we shall 
 taste it tranquilly. — 
 
 * Undoubtedly, a very painful encounter with Minna. — In the uppei 
 paragraph an " un " must surely have been dropped by the German 
 printer. — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 265 
 
 Yet if I admit you all that, ought I to conceal from you 
 that every point in it vanishes before the bare thought of 
 seeing you again — were it only for an hour ? — No, my child, 
 it shall not be concealed from you ; and were you still to 
 come at risk of having little sight of me and my true self, 
 I still — the egoist I ! — should count the hour thrice- blest in 
 which I once again could gaze into your eyes ! — But, enough ! 
 You know it all better than I ! — 
 
 For the nonce I have a little rest, to wit, not those daily 
 rehearsals ; but the last second of my working-time is always 
 claimed by countless extras. The rehearsals go ahead with 
 unexampled application, at times beyond my comprehension, 
 and at any rate we are in for a performance quite out of the 
 common. Niemann is right-down sublime ; he's an artist 
 of the very rarest water. The succeeding of the other parts 
 will be rather an outcome of artifice ; yet I hope that by ex- 
 treme attention we shall succeed in covering up the strings. — 
 
 And now, a thousand greetings from my heart ! Thank 
 Otto most sincerely for his firm allegiance : whatever he 
 may meet with here, I know he'll bear it, and surely carry 
 back a strong impression with him. 
 
 Adieu, Lady-friend ! 
 
 The first performance still stands fixed for Friday 22 ; 
 yet Otto should be prepared to wait for it till Monday 25. 
 
 [The three notorious nights at the Grand Optra, when 
 Tannhduser fell victim to the Jockey Club's deliberate plot, 
 occurred between this letter and the next. As the first perform- 
 ance did not take place till March 13 {second 18, third 24), it 
 is to be presumed that Otto arrived too early for anything but 
 the dress rehearsals, and had to leave before the actual de"bdcle. 
 —Tr.] 
 
266 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONOC 
 
 115. 
 
 Paris, April 6, 6i, 
 Best Child, I think you did me an injustice when you 
 shewed yourself a little sensitive at my having merely 
 forwarded for you to read, the other day, a not insignificant 
 letter that had reached me, without accompanying it by 
 a single word of my own. Has silence lost its meaning to 
 you, and could you possibly imagine that in such a case 
 I really had nothing to say ? Nay, that would not be right 
 interpretation. — 
 
 To tell the truth, I'm tired of eternally giving my friends 
 concern ; from the whole objectionable Paris adventure I 
 have no other residue than this bitter feeling. The disaster 
 itself left me fairly indifferent, at bottom. Had I made for 
 mere outward success, I should naturally have had to tackle 
 many things another way ; but that's — just what I can't. 
 In my mind that success could only count as a result of 
 the thing's inner succeeding : the chance of a truly fine 
 performance of no matter which of my works had tempted 
 me ; so soon as I was forced to abandon that, I was already 
 done for and defeated. What actually occurred to me, was 
 the appropriate punishment for my giving way to another 
 illusion ; it affected me no deeper. The representation of 
 my work was so foreign to me, that its reception didn't 
 really matter, and I could look on at it all as a spectacle. 
 Whether the incident may have consequences or not, is a 
 point that still leaves me cold : all that I feel in its regard 
 is — lassitude, disgust. — 
 
 Indeed the only thing that stung me, was the quick 
 recovery of consciousness that from such incalculably mad 
 odds, as those of a Parisian success of one of my most 
 intimate works, my whole lot in life must so onerously 
 depend withal. This is so cruel and insane [a fate] that 
 for a while it really seemed to me the most sensible course, 
 
PARIS LETTERS 267 
 
 to renounce, and radically, an existence so utterly awry and 
 undisposable ! 
 
 I am wearying my friends past all conscience, and 
 dragging loads along with me that I really cannot bear much 
 longer. — Good Billow, who felt my pain most deeply, has 
 been probing German soil to find a somewhat reassuring 
 outlook for me. I have— little trust, and suppose that in 
 the search for rest I must gradually wear myself down till 
 I find the last rest. Yet I have duties that keep me still 
 erect ; Care lends me life anew. — 
 
 Nothing further can I tell the child about myself; but 
 I reserve a broad smile for the very next time, that— deceived 
 by falsely judged appearances — one thinks one may con- 
 gratulate me prematurely, — as happened to me not so long 
 ago.— 
 
 Whither, my child, has flown the comfort of those 
 Calderon evenings ? What evil star was it, that robbed me 
 of my only worthy haven ? — Believe me, whatever you may 
 hear that sounds unlike it, — when I left that Asyl my star 
 was doomed to its descent ; I can but fall and fall ! — 
 
 Never — never let a contrary belief arise in you ! Hold 
 fast to that alone ! I do not murmur, 1 complain of 
 nothing : — it had to be ; but, if you would remain just to 
 me, — never forget it yourself! — This I still have wished to 
 say to you : oh, stamp it deep upon your mind ! — 
 
 And now give Otto my best greetings. His presence 
 in that evil time afflicted, rather than rejoiced me, albeit I 
 protest from my whole heart that his care and sympathy, 
 his entire being, profoundly moved me. Personally, however, 
 I could be so absolutely nothing to him ; it was one perpetual 
 racket, and the real miscarriage of my undertaking so exactly 
 coincided with the period he was here. I suffered most 
 at those rehearsals, during which my work grew more and 
 more unrecognisable and alien to me. The performances, on 
 
268 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 the contrary, had the mere effect of purely physical blows, 
 that simply woke me from my soul's distress to consciousness 
 of — my outward misery ; the blows themselves I felt but 
 superficially. — 
 
 Tell Otto also that there will shortly be a report by 
 myself to read, presumably in the Leipzig Illustrirte, on the 
 whole Paris Tannhauser affair ; * I had promised a relative 
 something of the kind. — 
 
 Fare you well, Lady-friend ! 
 In a few days I must go to Carlsruhe for quite a brief 
 stay, then speedily return, as I still have far too many things 
 to settle here. — 
 
 With a thousand greetings ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 [Billow's diplomacy had been at work, sounding the Grand 
 Duke of Baden as to Wagner's "outlook" — see p. 267. Wagner 
 goes to Carlsruhe, obtains a promise that Tristan shall be given in 
 September, and returns to Paris by April 24 / whence he starts 
 for Vienna May 7 or 8 — in search of special singers, and in 
 response to an announcement of " Lohengrin," — arriving there 
 May g.—Tr.] 
 
 116. 
 
 Vienna, May 11, 61. 
 I have just attended the rehearsal of my Lohengrin ! I 
 cannot lock away the incredibly moving effect of this first 
 hearing, amid the fairest and most affectionate circumstances, 
 artistic and human, without imparting it at once to you. 
 Twelve years of my life — what years ! — have I passed 
 through ! ! You were right, when you so often wished me 
 
 * Dated " Paris, 27th March 1861," it appeared in Brockhaus' Deutsche 
 AUgemeine Zeitung the day after this letter was written ; see Prose 
 Works III. 347-360. — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 269 
 
 this delight; but nowhere could it have been offered me 
 
 so completely as here ! Ah, were you two here to-morrow ! ! 
 
 A thousand sincerest wishes ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 117. 
 
 Paris, May 27, 61. 
 
 Just arrived back here [26th] I find the Child's dear letter 
 forwarded after me from Vienna, which was to have delighted 
 me there on my birthday. The effect of these lines has 
 been indescribably beautiful, now that Wiedersehen lay 
 between:* a dream had become reality, to melt once more 
 to dreamlike memory ! 
 
 So there still are means of heartiest invigoration and 
 encouragement ! They are ours, and ever do we win them 
 afresh, because our consciences are pure and free. For sure, 
 we shall hail each other oft again, and every Wiedersehen will 
 weave a lovelier, nobler bloom into the garland of our life ! 
 
 A thousand faithful greetings from the lately sped ! — 
 
 At Carlsruhe I had a very pleasant time with the 
 Grand Duke ; his delight was great when I informed him 
 of my firm resolve to give preference to a settlement there, 
 to any other in Germany. Whatever he can do towards 
 assisting me to a suitable abode, he will with alacrity. — 
 
 I find Liszt still here.f and shall have a longer sight 
 
 * Having left Vienna on the 21st or 22nd, he clearly paid the Green 
 Hill a flying visit for one night en route for Carlsruhe ; the nearness of 
 the latter city to Zurich perhaps had much to do, not only with the 
 " resolve " recorded a few lines lower, but also with the final domestic 
 'catastrophe ' vaguely suggested in the next two letters. — Tr. 
 
 t Liszt writes a friend in the second half of May, " Wagner will be 
 back in 4 or 5 days. — He left a few lines for me ere starting— the same 
 day as I arrived here " (i.e. the 7th or 8th). The "bflsen, schwierigen 
 Periode " of the next sentence in the above must chiefly refer to the 
 serious financial embarrassment in which Wagner had been plunged by 
 deprivation of any returns from the Paris Tannhituser.—lx. 
 
270 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 of him this evening at my rooms . . . — For the rest, my 
 child, I now am face to face with a bad, a difficult period ; 
 by the beginning of July, when I should re-cross the Rhine 
 in that event, may I have everything well behind me : 
 that's what you must wish me! Meanwhile little Tausig 
 who started from Vienna after me, and punctually caught 
 me up at Carlsruhe — helps me now and then to a playful 
 smile. I look upon him as partly a gift from yourself ! — 
 
 And many thanks for the pretty presents which I found 
 on retiring to rest and egoistically packed up at once* 
 The wreath I left for you ; I know you will make fine use 
 of it! 
 
 My heartiest greetings to Otto and the children ! Thanks 
 and love to yourself! 
 
 Your 
 R. W. 
 
 118. 
 
 Paris, June 1 5, 
 
 1861. 
 
 What a time it is since I wrote the most excellent 
 Child, — and yet there were a lot of thanks to be said for 
 the dear last letter ! — 
 
 I'm living dreary, soul-less days away, have zest for nothing 
 in the world, neither for work of any kind, nor for anything 
 else ; scarcely can I drive myself to write the most in- 
 cumbent letter ! Perhaps I might describe my state as a 
 preservation of patience : complete uncertainty — is all that 
 I can distantly convey! — 
 
 I go out little now : disgust with everything is great. — 
 I am simply trying to kill time, and read Gothe just as it 
 
 * Presumably at the villa on the Green Hill, with a departure early 
 next morning before his hosts had risen. The wreath would be an 
 operatic trophy from. Vienna. — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 271 
 
 comes ; of late, the campaign of 1 792. 'Tis a total lethargy, 
 and the fish on dry sand is quite an apt emblem of me. 
 
 Liszt and Tausig left a week ago ; I was glad to be rid 
 of them — in my present state ! No matter who, is not the 
 right one, and naught avails me. How strange must Liszt's 
 occurrence in . my life appear to me ! I met him first just 
 20 years ago in Paris, at a time when — in the most precarious 
 outward plight — I had already conceived a great loathing of the 
 world in which he dangled glitteringly and dazzlingly before 
 me ; and now, when I have to repent my driving by my 
 fate for once towards that world again, when I am renewing 
 the experience of my youth so thoroughly, and nothing, 
 no pretence, no mirage, can move me any more to lift a 
 finger up to it, — now Liszt must once again be basking 
 in the sun there, under my very eyes ! . . .* No one knows 
 better than himself what it is, that is to be attained there ; 
 wherefore it will be judging him more correctly if I assume 
 that, as his object stays denied him too, he likes to intoxicate 
 himself now and then with a semblance ... I couldn't 
 accompany him any-whither, and so saw little of him ; but 
 I've promised to visit him for a week or two at Weimar, 
 where he intends bringing out some big symphonic works. — 
 
 Ah ! my child, if I had not you, my look-out would 
 be bad ! Hold firm to that belief, and faithfully ! — And 
 let that cover all that I could say ! — 
 
 But a life I have no longer. Perhaps I shall somewhat 
 pluck up heart again — particularly for work — when I have 
 got away from here ; if only that can be effected soon ! — 
 
 The solitary thing to rouse me is the Tristan scheme. 
 Do think it over, how you can get Papa to pass the 
 autumn and a portion of the winter in Vienna this time ; 
 I'm sure it would do you good as well ! I would let you 
 both look after me, as long as I remained there ; for I 
 
 * Again the dots are reproduced from the German edition.— Tr. 
 
272 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 am going away alone,* and shall put up meantime at 
 Kolatschek's. Then you could listen quietly for once to 
 all I shall have brought to a hearing, Tristan, Lohengrin, 
 Hollander and Tannhauser — : it really ought to make your 
 winter quite a homelike one again. — 
 
 Well, we'll have another debate about that. — And now 
 my best and heartiest wishes ! And all that's good and 
 kind to Otto, the children, and the whole Green Hill, 
 
 from Your 
 
 Grey 
 R. W. 
 
 119. 
 
 Paris 
 
 78 Rue de Lille. Legation de Prusse. 
 July 12, 61. 
 My Child, I am writing you from the h6tel of the Prussian 
 embassy, where I have found sanctuary for the few weeks 
 I still must keep to Paris. In front of me I have a garden 
 with fine tall trees and a basin with two black swans,f 
 over the garden the Seine, and over the Seine the garden 
 of the Tuileries ; so that I can breathe again a little, and at 
 least am in ordinary Paris no longer. 
 
 * The virtual separation from Minna (it never became a formal one) 
 was evidently a settled thing by now, and two days before the next 
 in this series of letters, "After we had lived through four more ghastly 
 days in the [dismantled] rooms, she set off comfortably [for Soden baths] 
 together with the parrot" (to Malwida von Meysenbug, July '61). — The 
 Kolatschek of the sentence's end perhaps was Dr. Adolf, who also had 
 been a refugee in Switzerland, and in whose short-lived Deutsche 
 Monatschrift portions of Opera and Drama had appeared in 185 1 before 
 the book itself was issued ; but we hear no more of him. — Tr. 
 
 T See the beautiful Albumblatt " Ankunft bei den schwarzen Schwanen," 
 dedicated to his present hostess, and instinct with all the touching 
 melancholy of the moment. What detained him in Paris till nearly the 
 end of the month, was the supervision of a translation (Nuitter) for the 
 French vocal score of his Hollander. — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 273 
 
 My household goods have been packed again, and sent 
 to the dep6t here : where they will get unpacked, some day, 
 God knows;; in all probability I shall never see them more. I 
 am wanting my wife to settle down in Dresden, and take 
 them to herself there ; for my part, I can think of no more 
 settling down. This the upshot of a last, hard, infinitely 
 miserable experience ! Tis not appointed me, to cultivate 
 my muse in the lap of a cosy home ; each attempt to defy 
 all the frowns of my fate, and indulge a longing so innate 
 in me, is more emphatically frustrated every time, from 
 within and from without ; the daemon of my life throws 
 every cunning semblance to the dust. 'Tis not appointed 
 me, and every sought-for rest becomes the source of most 
 acute disquietudes. 
 
 So I shall vow the remnant of my life to roving. Perhaps 
 it will be granted me to rest my limbs from time to time 
 beside some shady well, and here or there refresh myself: 
 the only benefaction still to grant me ! — 
 
 To Carlsruhe I am not going ! ! 
 
 From this indication of results you may infer the latest 
 happenings in my life, both inner and outer. — 
 
 At the last there even died the little dog that you once 
 sent me from your sickbed ; mysteriously suddenly ! It 
 is presumed he had been struck by a cart-wheel in 
 the street, injuring one of the little pet's internal organs. 
 After 5 hours passed without a moan, quite gently and 
 affectionately, but with progressive weakness, he silently 
 expired [June 23]. Not a foot of ground was at my dis- 
 posal, to bury the tiny friend in ; so I sneaked and forced 
 my way into Sturmer's little back-garden, where I buried 
 him myself by stealth beneath a bush. — With that little dog 
 I buried much ! — So I intend to wander now, and on my 
 wanderings I shall have companion no more. — 
 
 That tells you everything ! — 
 
 18 
 
274 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 I shall be able to send you a carte-de-visite presently : 
 Liszt, who sat to every photographer in the place, compelled 
 me to a sitting also.* I have not been to fetch the cards 
 yet, but will do so by and by. — 
 
 Keep well and cheerful ! Many hearty wishes to Otto 
 and the children ! All my love to yourself! — 
 
 R. W. 
 
 120. 
 
 Paris, July 25, 61. 
 
 I meant to come to you for two days, before my journey 
 to Vienna ; now Liszt has knocked that on the head. On 
 the 5 th and 6th of August he is giving big music of his 
 own at Weimar (Faust etc.), and had arranged for me to 
 pay him a brief visit ; then I learnt that he was expecting 
 friends from far and wide, a crowd I did not want to mix 
 in, and sent him word I shouldn't come ; but as that appears 
 to touch him to the quick, I shall have to go, unless I wish 
 to wound him seriously. 
 
 That frets me, since it makes my Zurich plan impractic- 
 able, but I've been thinking whether you perhaps could come 
 instead to Weimar for the 5th and 6th of August ; which 
 really would be very interesting to you both, were it only 
 as pretext for staying away from St Gallen. Do you think 
 that Otto could be brought to see it? — If not, I shall rely 
 all the firmer on you both for Vienna ; where you would 
 
 * See the request in her letter of June 24 (p. 345 inf.). — Hereafter I 
 shall have a word to say on the ominous coincidence, that not one of 
 Mathilde's letters of earlier date than poor Fips's death has descended to 
 us, though Wagner had had a portfolio "expressly made to lock away 
 thy keepsakes and letters " (p. 34). Here I merely refer the reader to 
 p. 278, 1. 18, my note on p. 283, and Wagner's letter to Otto of June 25, 
 where that death had been already termed " almost inexplicable," and 
 " the manner of it, everything — has much afflicted me . . . particularly in 
 present circumstances." — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 275 
 
 have to arrive by the end of September at latest, and stay 
 as long as you possibly can. — 
 
 I do not write you, for fear of distressing you ; but I 
 think, if anything, too much of you ! — The sense of strange- 
 ness in this world is growing on me ever stronger. In truth, 
 I know not why I should endure this parody of life. 
 
 God knows whether the Tristan will revive me ; if I dip 
 into the score by accident, sometimes I stand aghast at the 
 thought that I may have to hear it soon. — I am astonished 
 afresh, how little of one people strictly can know, how utterly 
 different I am when alone, and when I mix with others ; 
 often I've to laugh at the phantom which steps before them 
 then !— 
 
 But why continue ? — 
 
 How goes it with the health? Are the baths acting 
 well ? — Strength ! we still need it ! — 
 
 I shall start on Monday [29th] ; a quick reply will catch 
 me here still. Then Weimar till the 6th of August. Then — 
 Vienna, K.K. Hofoperntheater. — However, I'm sure to write 
 if I don't see you. — 
 
 Be saluted from my deepest heart ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 121. 
 
 Vienna, Aug. 19, 61. 
 
 Letter-writing is a funny thing, Lady-friend ! One sets 
 apart an hour at last, and vows it to communication ; but 
 what is such an hour, when plucked from out the midst 
 of this eternal churn of life, impressions, moods ? For sure, 
 a letter of the sort tells little, and we couldn't correspond 
 at all with those we love, were that churning not to be 
 assumed as known to them through sympathy. 
 
 I had to agree with your Weimar letter at once, when 
 I saw that your visit might have interfered with Vienna. 
 
276 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 Grant Heaven the sacrifice's recompense be not withheld us ! 
 Amen ! 
 
 At Weimar there naturally was no question of peace 
 and enjoyment. From far and near they trooped around, 
 to see me once again — or see me ; literally, I had to relate 
 my whole life's history to some fresh person each half-hour. 
 Despair at last inspired me with my old mad pranks, and 
 everybody was delighted with my jocularity ; but I dared 
 not turn serious, since I can no longer be so without almost 
 dissolving into tears. Tis a long-standing fault of my 
 temperament, and now is taking more and more the upper 
 hand : I fight against it, tho', as much as I can, for fear 
 of some day weeping myself all away. 
 
 A feeling is growing upon me, that I have pretty well 
 got to the end of life's journey : there has long been no 
 question of goal, but the pretext also, maybe even the excuse, 
 will fail me soon. Don't misunderstand me, if I confess 
 with mildest candour that it is ever growing harder to me, 
 to hold anything worth serious consideration : nothing grips 
 me any more, and all belief is lacking; there's only one 
 way left to bring me round, — to weep together with me ! — 
 That is precisely what good Hans did, and Liszt as well: 
 the good old Frommann also came and helped ! And really 
 it did help me, in a sort, to bear the other people's praises 
 of my courage, their talk of fame and glory. — So I departed 
 from Weimar in quite an amicable mood, and above all, 
 I took away a very charming memory of Liszt ; who is 
 also leaving Weimar — where he has been able to plant just 
 nothing — to fare at first into the vague. His Faust really 
 gave me great joy, and its second part (Gretchen) made an 
 unforgetably deep impression on me. What filled me with 
 great melancholy, was that all this could only be performed 
 with quite unusual mediocrity: everything had to be seen 
 to in one rehearsal, and Hans, who conducted, did wonders 
 
PARIS LETTERS 277 
 
 to make the execution even tolerable. So, this has been 
 the goal of all the sacrifices of our lucky Liszt, too — that he 
 could not wring from this wretched world so much as the 
 bare material for a good performance of his work ! How 
 profoundly that reflection confirmed me in my resignation ! 
 And I had to learn much besides, on this occasion, that shed 
 a final light upon my own position in the world. I learnt 
 exactly how it stands with all the princes from whom I have 
 felt driven to expect a little, more or less, for some time past ; 
 now I know that even the best of them, with the best of 
 will, is impotent to do anything for me. That honestly was 
 good for me, and not a grimace could I pull at it ; but I 
 have a feeling that it must soon be over now, and — in sober 
 truth !— I'm glad of it ! 
 
 Well, I've been in Vienna several days [since the 14th]. A 
 good-natured enthusiast, Dr. Standthardtner, has lent me 
 his home for a few weeks, while the family is away ; after 
 that I shall have to fend for myself, or perhaps find someone 
 else who'll put me up ! Unfortunately my tenor, Ander, 
 is still out of voice, and the study of Tristan is delayed 
 thereby ; but as I have nothing else in view, and should 
 harm the undertaking if I left Vienna, I am awaiting what- 
 ever the stars shall decide about this final scheme of mine, 
 which, like the last flutter of the veil of Maya, still chains 
 me to this life. The people here are good to me ; but none 
 of them actually knows the danger into which I am dragging 
 them with my Tristan, and perhaps it all will still become 
 impossible as soon as they find out. Isolde alone [Frau 
 Mayer-Dustmann] — a little of whose part I lately went 
 through with her — has an inkling of what is at stake. How 
 horrified they will be, one fine day, when I blurt out that 
 they all must go to ground with me ! — 
 
 Down to now I can testify that I have never duped 
 anyone wilfully. When the management inquired my terms, 
 
278 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 it was impossible for me to ask or stipulate for money ; 
 the only thing I bargained for, was that my singers and 
 the orchestra should be most studiously saved for me a 
 whole month before the projected first performance. That 
 gives me the requisite composure ; for I am drawing near 
 my last goal now, and know that I can do something toward 
 reaching it only by waiving every kind of obligation. — 
 
 So come, my child, and the sooner the better! I'm a 
 dreadful egoist to urge you to it, and unless Otto is very 
 fond of me, he has cause enough not to fall in with my 
 petition* But this is a last word : the course and meaning 
 of the world are dead against me ; I can stamp my last 
 clear imprint on it only if I do not give the smallest thought 
 to sparing of myself. For your comfort I may say, how- 
 ever, that I am in surprisingly good health ; my appearance 
 is capital, so everybody tells me, and my patience has 
 steeled itself quite cheeringly. Merely, I'm excessively soft ; 
 for instance, human beings' treatment of dumb animals makes 
 me grieve more than ever. Also I am clearer-sighted than 
 of yore, and getting to make less and less use of Illusion. 
 So venture it, my child ! 
 
 I'll write you another time about my journey with 
 Olliviers [from Weimar] via Munich and Reichenhall (near 
 Salzburg). A thousand good wishes! Every kind thing 
 to Otto and the children ! Adieu, dear Child ! 
 
 R. W. 
 (Seilerstatte 806, 
 
 3rd floor, Vienna.) 
 
 * Last June 25 Wagner had written Otto, " I know the great cares 
 to which you are exposed at present," and three weeks previously, to 
 another person, " I am entirely bereft of means ... a best-proved friend, 
 upon whom in such circumstances I might have counted for certain, is 
 completely paralysed just now by the American crisis — owing to the 
 character of his business " (see Glasenapp's Das Leben R. W.'s II. ii, 
 328).— Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 279 
 
 122. 
 
 Vienna, Sept. 13, 61. 
 
 I have really had three lovely hours ; so Lady-friend 
 shall hear about them : — 
 
 The other day I was driven to the country-seat of a 
 Hungarian family, Graf Naho [Nako], which boasts of having 
 been the first and red-hottest devotee of my music in 
 Vienna. An amiable young man — Prince Rudolph Liechten- 
 stein, who picked up his equally estimable and very gentle 
 wife en route — conducted me to the foot of the chain of 
 hills, where Schwarzau lies. A wonderful site : were the 
 plain filled up with water, it might easily pass for a Swiss 
 lake. The equipment of the castle, of extraordinary taste, 
 betrayed the rarest sense of fantasy in choice, arrangement 
 and invention. The countess, a lady verging on the end of 
 her thirties, with large, surprisingly intellectual black eyes, 
 is celebrated for her singular natural talent in music ; she 
 maintains a private orchestra of Gipsies, in whose midst 
 she sits down to the piano and they improvise the most 
 marvellous stuff for hours together. I feared I might find 
 her stuck-up, perhaps affected : her mien soon reassured me. 
 The seriousness of her sense of beauty was still better taught 
 me by some astonishingly well-executed copies of the 
 finest Vandyck portraits, as to which she remarked that 
 they had cost her much trouble since she unfortunately 
 had had no regular instruction in painting either ; anything 
 like her studio I have never seen. At lunch we touched 
 on books ; she was reading Tschudi's " Fauna of the Alps " 
 at present. Then in came a magnificent light buckhound, 
 followed by a spendid raven-black Newfoundland of gigantic 
 size ; both were indescribably delighted by their mistress's 
 caresses. We fell discussing the bearings of the animal 
 world to man ; I propounded my pet theme, and found a 
 most sympathetic audience, even to the full height of my 
 
280 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 articles of faith. The Gipsy band was in Hungary at the 
 moment, so the countess tried to give us an idea of the 
 way she improvised with them, alone at the piano, and 
 very original and fascinating it was. Soon she dropped in 
 motives from Lohengrin, and that ended in its being my 
 turn to go to the piano. I was gratified by the beautiful 
 hush with which it was all received. Only the Graf, a 
 fine tall thoroughbred Hungarian, thought needful to keep 
 telling me about my works' impression ; I bore it with much 
 patience, however, as the scraps of conversation he had 
 heard about me were related with an inexpressible good- 
 nature. Young Liechtenstein I found a prey to touching 
 melancholy : he had entered the diplomatic (Jolitischen) career 
 after having chosen naval service in first youth, but was 
 growing more and more aware how little he was made for 
 politics. — The day passed in just enough walking and driving 
 to induce an agreeable fatigue. Next morning I had to 
 be called very early, as I had a rendezvous with my singer 
 Ander at Modling, which lies on the road from Schwarzau 
 to Vienna. Everybody assembled again for breakfast on 
 the terrace in the freshest morning air, and with two other 
 Hungarian magnates — Zichy and Almasy, who incessantly 
 spoke of their horse-breeding — I began my journey back, 
 as far as Modling ; where I was set down at 8 o'clock, in 
 glorious weather. It was still too early to make a call on 
 Ander ; moreover I was tired of so much talking, and finally 
 of hearing others talk; so I determined to belong all to 
 myself for a while first. I took a chaise and drove into 
 
 the lovely ravine of the Briihl [the Liechtensteins' property]. 
 
 There stands a place of entertainment, deserted at that 
 hour of day. Behind the house lies a garden with an out- 
 look on lush fields and hanging woods, magnificently 
 lighted by the early sun. There I sat down, and passed 
 —alone, in silence — that first fair hour whereof I wished 
 
PARIS LETTERS 28 1 
 
 to tell you. I left the spot profoundly comforted, beatified, 
 at peace ! 
 
 The second fair hour was that when Lady-friend expressed 
 to me the very thoughts which I had felt in that first hour. 
 That Ulrich v. Hutten was guiding her pen, but made her 
 prophecy the more significant. The whole full soul of my 
 existence stepped to me, interpreted that hour's silence, and 
 the angel breathed its kiss of blessing on my brow. — That 
 was the second fair hour. 
 
 And what of the third ? — 
 
 It was an unawaitedly fine success. The Flying Dutchman 
 (the only opera of mine that can be given during Ander's 
 continued indisposition) was set down for yesterday. I had 
 heard this opera again a little while ago, when it left me 
 very discontented, annoying me in particular by some very 
 grave misunderstandings in the interpretation and the musical 
 tempo, as also by a good many crudities in the rendering 
 of the female chorus. So I had the two principal singers, 
 the chorus, and the Kapellmeister called together yesterday 
 morning for a little talk. It chiefly concerned the big scene 
 between the Hollander and Senta, to whom I briefly but 
 definitely explained the needful ; they seemed to be struck 
 at having missed such obvious points. Chorus and Kapell- 
 meister were similarly instructed. — As the representation 
 had become a matter of routine already, and it was impossible 
 to call the band together too, it would have been easy for these 
 renovations to throw the whole thing out : the greater was 
 my joy at the performance. A new spirit had entered into all. 
 The Kapellmeister himself was astonished at the precision 
 with which the amendments were executed ; my two singers 
 were positively sublime in those particular places, but from 
 beginning to end it all was seizing, ay, overwhelming to myself ! 
 I can't help saying it : I have experienced many a beauteous 
 thing, and yet must call last night my third fair hour ! — 
 
282 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 Let that be enough for to-day ! The happiness of those 
 three hours ought not to be alloyed ; and therefore — nothing 
 more from me to-day ! Out of mist and grey I stretch my 
 hand to thee and cry : This has been possible. — Courage, 
 then, courage ! The fairest hour is still to come ! — 
 
 R. W. 
 
 123. 
 
 Vienna, Sept. 28, 61. 
 
 Kaiserin Elisabeth 
 
 Weihburg Gasse. 
 
 O my noble glorious child ! — 
 
 Almost I ought to write down nothing else to-day, than 
 that ejaculation, for all that I could add thereto is immaterial ! 
 Music is turning the whole of me into an exclamatory being, 
 and the sign thereof, at bottom, is the only punctuation 
 to suffice me, when once I leave my tones ! 'Tis the old 
 enthusiasm, too, apart from which I can't subsist; and 
 sufferings, troubles, ay, peevishness, ill-temper, all take 
 on this fanatical tinge with me, — which surely also is the 
 reason why I give so much distress to others ! — 
 
 See ! What can they not bring to pass in Zurich ? One 
 might ransack Vienna, Paris and London, to find aught in 
 photography to touch what your Herr Keller has achieved !* 
 Ah, child, how beautiful you are! No words can breathe 
 it ! ! By God ! this heart is fit to be a dwelling-place for 
 kings : the poorest beggar who resides therein must feel 
 his head upsoaring to the clouds! — And the birth-pangs 
 of the highest birth are written also on these cheeks that 
 
 * In all probability this is the carte-de-visite facsimiled in Herr 
 Steiner's " Neujahrsblatt " for the Zurich Allg. Musik-Gesellschaft 1903. 
 The portrait — a good deal handsomer and more "queenly" than that 
 of the oil-painting — has been deemed too small for reproduction in 
 the present book, but perhaps may eventually be used elsewhere. — Tr, 
 
PARIS LETTERS 283 
 
 once had smiled so child-like !— Eh ! God, too, dwells within 
 
 the child ! — Ye there, obeisance deep ! ! 
 
 Do you think to-day a little late, to bring my thanks? 
 — But it is only to-day, that I can get at last to anything. I'm 
 just resurging from all sorts of worries, of which the queenly 
 dame must hear the leastest little. Moreover, I have moved 
 again ! An acquaintance who had placed his home at my 
 disposal hitherto — since he was away .with all his family — 
 is coming back immediately; and as the luck never falls 
 to unlucky me, to light on decent hospitality (I must except 
 the kind Prussian ambassador in Paris), nothing remained 
 but to tuck myself into an inn again. So I am quartering 
 here for some months, and here have I at last unpacked 
 my little flying — Dutchman's — chattels ; among which the 
 big green portfolio has also come to light once more. I 
 had kept it locked up since Lucerne; so I hunted out the 
 key, to take a good look at my treasure again. Heavens, 
 my feelings ! Two photographs, the birthplaces of Tristan : 
 the Green Hill with the Asyl, and the Venetian palace. 
 And then the birth-leaves with first sketches, curious embryos ; 
 the dedicatory verses, too, wherewith I sent the finished 
 pencil-sketches of the first act to the child : how I rejoiced 
 -in these verses, they're so pure and true ! The pencilling 
 of the song— I found that too — whence sprang the Night- 
 scene : God knows, this song [Tmume] has pleased me better 
 than the whole proud scene ! Heavens, it's finer than all 
 I have made ! It thrills me to my deepest nerve, to hear 
 it ! — And to carry such an omnipresent after-feeling in one's 
 heart, without one's being overjoyed ! ! How were that 
 possible ? — I locked the portfolio nice and fast again ; * but 
 
 * In pursuance of my note to page 274, it should be remarked that 
 not a word is said here of Mathilde's early letters, diary, etc. ; whereas there 
 is apparent purpose in that " kept locked up since Lucerne," seeing that 
 the photograph of the Green Hill did not arrive till the prse-Minna 
 
284 WAGNER TO MATH1LDE WESENDONCK 
 
 the latest letter with the likeness, I opened that once more : — 
 and out came my ejaculation ! ! Forgive, forgive me ! — 
 I'll exclaim no more! — 
 
 And least of all should I do it now, when I'm addressing 
 my lines to you at Dusseldorf, whither you have gone to 
 tend a poor sick mother ! — How deeply the thought distresses 
 me, that I can be of no comfort whatever to her ! I have 
 to thank her for something so ineffable — and perhaps my 
 very name must not be spoken in the patient's presence ! 
 This I fear in all modesty, as you may well believe ! ! But 
 on the day when you see her just after my letter, do tell 
 her that you wish her patience, convalescence and recovery, 
 from a doubled heart ! — 
 
 Now I'm to look forward to the 20th of October, am I 
 not? — I am thinking of all the fine things which I mean 
 to prepare for the pair of you here: the Hollander and 
 Lohengrin you shall hear at once and frequently, and even 
 of the Tristan there is hope now. My singer's in possession 
 of his voice again, full of hope and zeal ; so the study is 
 at last to commence in real earnest. 
 
 Now, my blessing on you, dear ones ! 
 
 Many kind wishes to Otto and the children — who are 
 with you, I presume. All that is noble and eternal to the 
 Queen ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 [Here a letter is obviously missing ; see Frau Mathildis of 
 October 23. About a week after receipt of the last-named 
 Wagner must have paid the Wesendoncks the brief Venice 
 
 Paris period — cf. pp. 177 and 184. This " big green portfolio," which 
 " she sent me once to Venice " (p. 307), must not be confounded with that 
 other locked portfolio he bought for himself at Geneva (p. 34), the fate 
 whereof is so dark a riddle. — For the references to the Tristan sketches 
 etc., see pages 16-17, 58, 80, 307, and 314. — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 28 K 
 
 j 
 
 visit recorded below, then returned to Vienna, only to find 
 it useless to wait any longer for the " return of a tenor voice 
 into the throat" of his sole available Tristan.— Tr.] 
 
 124. 
 
 Paris, 19 Quai Voltaire, 
 Dec. 21, 1861. 
 
 Were you by any chance thinking I should not con- 
 gratulate you on your birthday ? But there, you knew my 
 Christmas-eve is antedated by a day ! — 
 
 Prosperity and happiness, with all my heart ! — 
 
 I have cast myself into the arms of my old beloved : — 
 Work has me once more, and to her I cry : " gieb Vergessen, 
 dass ich lebe ! " [Tr. u. Is. ii.] 
 
 I left Vienna three weeks since, direct for Paris. Nobody 
 wanted me ; I can't produce the Tristan ere a twelvemonth 
 — a twelvemonth how and where ? I have had no happy 
 time of it. Metternich's invitation alone kept faith, but in 
 consequence of the mother-in-law's sudden death an un- 
 expected relative had come to Paris and seized the apartment 
 meant for me ; I can't move in before the beginning of 
 January. I couldn't stop in Vienna ; nowhere else was I 
 welcome ; so I started for Paris right at the beginning 
 of December, and am making shift till January with a small 
 room on the Quai Voltaire. I have got so far, however, as 
 to look forward to the imminent blessing of reception into 
 a well-regulated household with good attendance, and without 
 any outlay needed for nice sustenance. I'm sure you will 
 be glad of that ! — 
 
 Here I am taking the greatest of pains to deny myself ; 
 if it doesn't succeed altogether, I make the pretence, to 
 myself at least, as if people weren't aware of my presence : 
 for three days in succession, now, I've contrived to be obliged 
 to speak to no one (that horrible speaking !). At the 
 
286 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 restaurant I saw Royer, director of the Grand Ope>a, but 
 pretended not to notice him ; very soon afterwards I saw 
 him again, and meantime had read the announcement-of-issue 
 of a translation by him of some lost stage-pieces by Cer- 
 vantes : of a sudden the man interested me. It was droll 
 to find myself accosting him, talking with him for fully 
 half an hour, and so completely ignoring the opera-director 
 that our only topic was Cervantes. He sent me his book 
 next day. The poet's preface moved me beyond words : 
 what profound resignation ! — 
 
 I have often to laugh out loud when I raise my eyes 
 from my work-bench to the Tuileries and Louvre straight 
 opposite, for you must know that in reality I am in Niirnberg 
 now, and mixing with somewhat blunt, three-cornered folk : 
 there was nothing else for it, but to get among such com- 
 pany. The journey back from Venice to Vienna was most 
 lingering ; two whole long nights and a day I sat helplessly 
 wedged between Erst and Now, driving home into the grey : 
 a new labour it must be, or — an ending ! Unfortunately 
 my visual functions are growing ever duller ; nothing rivets 
 my gaze, and each locality, with all that appertains thereto — 
 were it the greatest masterpieces in the world — distracts 
 me not, remains indifferent to me ; my eye I have for 
 nothing but distinguishing of day from night, now, light from 
 gloom [cf. p. 200]. It really is a palsying against and toward 
 the Outer ; I see no pictures more, save inner ones, and 
 they clamour for nothing but sound. But no empassioned 
 vision would consent to lighten me on that grey journey ; 
 the world itself appeared a toyshop ; and that took me 
 back to Niirnberg, where I had passed a day last summer 
 and there are plenty of pretty things to see. At once it 
 resounded to me as an overture to the Mastersingers of 
 Nuremberg. 
 
 Arrived back at my Vienna inn, I worked the ground- 
 
PARIS LETTERS 287 
 
 plan out in curious haste ; it made me feel quite well, to 
 find how clear my memory had remained, how fluent was 
 my fancy in invention ! 'Twas a rescue, nothing less ; just 
 as the advent of insanity may even save one's life ! So I 
 wound up left and right, thrust the twelvemonth's bolt 
 on Tristan, politely thanked for invitations to triumphs in 
 various cities of my exquisite German fatherland, and — finally 
 arrived just where I am, " zu vergessen, dass ich lebe ! " — 
 
 Your own home-coming, across the sainted Gotthardt, 
 cannot have been precisely pleasant ; yet I was glad that 
 you were not beside me on the journey to Vienna ! For 
 once I was so narrow-hearted, as to congratulate myself 
 on having to accuse myself of no complicity in a discomfort 
 for yourself and husband ; neither did Iphigenie [his own revised 
 version of Giuck's] come off punctually on the day supposed. On 
 the contrary, it calmed me to think of your reaching the 
 green hill sooner, where you could gladden yourself with 
 the children once more. 
 
 Your husband's condition grieves me much ; he is a 
 palpable hypochondriac. It really is to be doubted whether 
 the seclusion of Zurich is beneficial to him ; for it will have 
 been remarked that amid the distraction of great cities, 
 much company and so forth, he thinks far less about 
 himself, and then is perfectly well. Probably he is not 
 made for fruitful self-absorption : reading can help him but 
 little, since he lacks too much of what one must gain in 
 comparative youth and cannot make up for later ; so he 
 falls into unprofitable brooding. I believe, dear Lady-friend, 
 that you ought seriously to contemplate some change in this 
 direction ; for it is evident, especially to one who has been 
 away from you some time, that it is a question here of 
 maladies which have their root far oftener in little, than in 
 deep complaints. — 
 
 Perhaps you'll smile at my solicitude and my advice ? — 
 
288 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 Ah ! I know it's not my rightful 'business. But when one 
 has arrived at helping oneself the way I now am doing, 
 one becomes quite presumptuous, and tries to take too 
 much upon oneself, maybe, in seeking to help others also. 
 At least this presumption, however, is kindly meant ; so 
 don't be angry with me for it ! — 
 
 And now forgive me for my Nurnberg mastersingers ! 
 They'll come by quite a pithy meaning, and quickly make 
 their tour of all the German theatres, perhaps by the 
 beginning of next winter, when I shan't trouble my head 
 much more about them; 
 
 The production of the Tristan still remains my eye's 
 chief mark. That once successfully effected, I have not 
 much more to do upon this earth, and would gladly lay 
 myself to sleep beside Master Cervantes. For my having 
 written the Tristan I thank you from my deepest soul to 
 all eternity ! — 
 
 Now fare you well ! Reign calmly on, both learn and 
 teach ! Patience already is yours : and that I now have 
 learnt myself ! A thousand fine wishes for the birthday ! 
 
 Your 
 R. W. 
 
 125. 
 
 [Paris, end of December 1861.] 
 
 My best and heartiest thanks, my Child ! — * 
 I reply to you with a confession. It will be needless 
 to speak it plainly out : everything in and about you tells 
 me that already you know all. And yet I feel impelled 
 to give you certainty on my side also : — 
 
 A t last I am fully resigned ! \ 
 
 * For her letter of Dec. 25 and the scenario mentioned later.— Tr. 
 
 t The most delicate of all possible allusions (confirmed by the letter's 
 close) to an event impending, in the Wesendonck household, for the 
 middle of next June. — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 289 
 
 One hope I never yet had -given up, and believed that 
 I had earned it hardly ; to find my Asyl once again, be able 
 again to live near you. — One hour of Wiedersehen in Venice 
 was enough, to shatter that last fond dream ! 
 
 I had at once to recognise that the freedom which is 
 needful to you, and to which you must hold fast for your 
 continuance, you can never maintain so long as I am near 
 you. Only my remoteness can confer on you the power 
 to move free after your own will ; only when you have 
 nothing to purchase, have you no price to concede. 
 
 I cannot bear, for price of my proximity, to see you 
 cramped and put upon, dependent, ruled. For I cannot 
 requite to you that sacrifice, because my presence then can 
 offer you no more ; and the thought that the poor mite I can 
 be to you in such conditions is bought with all your liberty, 
 with human dignity itself, would make me feel that nearness 
 in itself a torture. 
 
 Here soothe avails no longer. — I see, you feel and 
 know it yourself ; and how should you not, the first of all ? 
 You have known it long, and earlier than I, who have 
 long remained within my secret heart the incorrigible 
 optimist. — 
 
 It was that, that alone, which weighed like lead upon 
 my soul in Venice, not my plight, nor my other mischances. 
 Those are indifferent to me in themselves, and have been ever 
 since I knew you. You would scarce believe the utter 
 callousness wherewith I cast the die in all these things : in 
 truth they do not touch my feeling anywhere, or but in 
 passing ; and that with mere relation to the lot which really 
 might be due me, wherein there would be no such thing 
 for me as failure or success. — 
 
 I adhere to it : to me it is a comfort to know you endowed 
 with tastes, and in a social position, that can confer upon 
 your pain a soft, idyllic character. For my part, I shall 
 
 19 
 
290 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 merely strive to square my outward life in such a way, that 
 unmolested I may obey my creative inner impulse, retained 
 in all its freshness. I need a settled home for that, above all 
 else : I shall accept it under whatsoever conditions ; for I 
 can bear everything, everything now, since nothing weights 
 me, and Life with all that it involves has no more sense 
 for me at all. Where and how ? — is boundlessly indifferent 
 to me ; I want to work : naught further ! Then for yourself 
 as well can I be something quite apart : I know it, and you 
 know it too ! The grisly Last is over : Venice, the journey 
 back and three ensuing weeks — O horrible ! — now lie behind 
 me ! — So, courage ! go it must ! — 
 
 I shall send you oft a morsel from my work. How you 
 will open your eyes at my Mastersingers ! Keep your heart 
 secure against Sachs, or you'll fall in love with him! It's 
 an extraordinary work. The old draft afforded little,* 
 next to nothing. Eh, one must have been in Paradise, to 
 discover what may lurk in such a thing ! — 
 
 Of my life you shall hear the merest necessary — the 
 outermost : inwardly — rest assured of that ! — nothing whatever 
 will occur again, nothing but artistic creation. Consequently 
 you will be losing just nothing at all, but will gain the only 
 thing I have of worth — my works. We shall see each other 
 now and then, though, shall we not ? Void of all wish then : 
 wherefore also, wholly free! — 
 
 So ! A remarkable letter is this ! You can hardly 
 
 * Sent to Paris by Mathilde Dec. 25 ; see her letter of that date. 
 This scenario had been lent or presented to her long before, and must 
 thereafter have been returned to her ; for it is mentioned in her list, 
 page 366, and was also in her possession till her death. The main body, 
 all of it that had previously been made public in Germany, will be found 
 in Life ii, 383-5 ; its entirety in the " Bayreuth number " of Die Musik 
 1902. — The allusion to " Paradise," of course, is taken from the " Cobbler- 
 song " (act ii), which accompanied the present letter ; see facsimile. — Tr. 
 

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 V 
 
 *ZHt-r% ^C&^^sz eye?-*, (7ZJ-f—%^ 
 
 o a/ .„ 
 
 V 
 
 'w> 
 
 3/ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
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PARIS LETTERS 29 1 
 
 believe what ease it gives me now, to know that you know 
 that I know what you long have known ! 
 And now for a Cobbler's song ! — 
 Ade, my Child ! 
 
 The 
 
 Master ! 
 
 126. 
 
 Viel Gluck, und dass es bliih' und wachs' 
 Das wunscht von Herzen euch Hans Sachs. 
 Something new in the old year ! * — 
 
 Good-Year. 
 
 R. W. 
 
 127. 
 
 Paris, 19 Quai Voltaire. 
 
 January 7, 62. 
 
 My Child, I am still here ! End of the month I think 
 
 of transferring myself to Wiesbaden. — I confess to feeling 
 
 weak enough to need a friendly word. 
 
 I am not pleased with myself thereat ! 
 
 Yet the Mastersingers help : for their sake I'll hold out ! 
 
 Adieu ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 128. 
 
 [February 3, 1862.] 
 
 POGNER. 
 " Und du, mein Kind, du sagst mir nichts ? " 
 
 Eva. 
 " Ein gutes Kind, gefragt nur sprichts." t 
 
 * Enclosing Walther's verses "Am stillen Herd ... da lernt' ich auch 
 das Singen." [The words in the text, modelled on Sachs' favourite rhyme, 
 convey to both the Wesendoncks " every good wish for its thriving," 
 and one's thoughts fly at once to the Master-cobbler's speech that ushers 
 in the quintet of act iii. — Tr.] 
 
 t " And thou, my child, say'st nothing to me ? " — "A good child only 
 
292 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 So, some children do not understand being asked in the 
 third person. 
 
 The old enthusiasm tried to stir. I had a mind to beg 
 you people for an evening's rendezvous at Basle, to read 
 my Meistersirtger to you. It came hard to me, to renounce 
 the old custom ; yet be it must, and I daresay you will 
 thank me for it! — 
 
 I have packed my manuscript up for you, however, and 
 it's just going off to you instead* Mind how you find your 
 way about : it looks dreadful in places, with blots of ink too. 
 It would be amusing to me, to see if you made it all out. 
 
 At times I had to stop work for laughing, at times for 
 crying. I commend to your notice Herr Sixtus Beckmesser. 
 David, too, will win your favour. 
 
 For the rest, don't get misled : all that there is in it, 
 has been made expressly by myself. Merely the eight lines 
 with which Sachs is saluted by the people, in the last scene, 
 
 speaks when asked" — Die Meistersinger act ii, save that "folgsam" 
 ("obedient") now takes the place of "gutes." — Probably a letter, or 
 telegram, is missing between 127 and 128, as Mathilde had answered on 
 the 1 6th Jan. — vid. inf. — In the German edition this letter 128 is con- 
 jectured as of the end of January, and inferentially, from Paris ; but it 
 now appears to have been written from Carlsruhe on the date assigned 
 above, As its contents, however, round off the composition of the Meister- 
 singer poem, no object would be served by detaching it from the group 
 of " Paris letters."— Tr. 
 
 * Dr. Golther informs us that this manuscript, the " much corrected " 
 original poem, was also found among Frau Wesendonck's papers : — its 
 first act is dated " Paris, 5. Jan. 62," its second " Paris, 16. Jan. 62," its 
 third " Paris, 25. Jan. 1862 " — the date in each case being terminal. The 
 remarkably caligraphic facsimile-edition now obtainable at Schott's is not 
 taken from this, but from the fair copy made by Wagner for his own use, 
 clearly just before the present letter, and from which he read aloud at 
 Mainz two days later (see p. 300). From the books of that firm we 
 further learn, through Dr. W. Altmann, that Wagner had despatched a 
 copy of the whole new scenario from Vienna the 19th of November^ 86 1 
 on approbation, i.e. fully six weeks ere renewing acquaintance with his 
 sketch of sixteen years ago (p. 290). — Tr. 
 
PARIS LETTERS 293 
 
 are from SACHS' own hymn to Luther; the names of the 
 master-tunes and ' tones ' (with exception of a few invented 
 by myself) are also genuine. Taken all round, I am surprised 
 at what I've been able to make of the meagre notes. 
 
 To-morrow I go to Mainz, and thence to Biebrich or 
 Wiesbaden, to seek a nest in which to hatch into music the 
 master-egg I've laid. 
 
 Should you want to write to me, before you hear from 
 me again, please address aux soins de /. B. Schotfs Sohne in 
 Mainz. 
 
 God keep you, my Child ! 
 
 Best greeting from the 
 
 Master. 
 
AFTERMATH 
 
 LETTERS OF FEBRUARY 1862 
 
 to 
 
 JUNE 1 871 
 
 "9S, 
 
129. 
 
 Biebrich, Feb. 13, 62. 
 Does the wicked Child intend, perhaps, to let the Master 
 know absolutely nothing more about her? I should have 
 been so glad to hear how the Meistersinger pleased her ; 
 I'm getting half afraid she may be ill ! — For my part, I 
 remain here till late autumn (and let us hope, the finish of 
 my composition), Biebrich c/o Architect Frickhoffer ; where 
 I have taken a year's tenancy of a couple of nice rooms, 
 magnificently situated on the brink of the Rhine, close to 
 the palace [Duke of Nassau's], and am fitting them with odds 
 and ends of hired furniture. My only property, among it, 
 is the famous tea-machine with mug ; but I expect to shake 
 down very soon. If the Child would only write from the 
 Green Hill! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 130. 
 
 Biebrich 
 
 Feb. 16, 62.* 
 Lady-friend ! 
 You do wrong to pay any heed to me ; this time it 
 positively shames me. I was unaware, and accordingly 
 uneasy. One word sufficed, one mournful, hopeless word ! 
 O how much happier to be dead oneself, than see a loved 
 one die ! — So it is moving over you, and you are receiving 
 one initiation after another! To the serious mind it is 
 
 * Probably in answer to a telegram, not preserved. — Tr. 
 
 297 
 
298 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 initiation : thought and feeling blend in it to one ; it feels 
 the deepest-thought, and knows how direly true that is ! 
 
 For your mother I have shed a tear-drop big with mean- 
 ing ; for yourself, be welcomed to this solemn realm where 
 I am now a denizen, and whence alone I still can look upon 
 the world, — can even see it bright of semblance, since I 
 look no longer into, but from out the night ! 
 
 Leave the Meistersinger quite aside ; the manuscript 
 belongs to you ; I had no other purpose than to render 
 you your property ! 
 
 Heartfelt greetings to Otto and the children ! 
 
 R. W. 
 Biebrich 
 
 (bei Architect Frickhoffer). 
 
 131. 
 
 Biebrich, 
 
 March 12, 1862. 
 I wrote you once from Paris lately that you should hear 
 little of my life thenceforward, but solely of my handiwork, 
 because the first could never have a meaning more. But 
 how when I cannot get to work, when life takes all my 
 energy ? Must the solution then be such a dubious gap as 
 this, when I have kept you so long waiting for a thankful 
 sign of life in answer to your letters, to your gift ? — Even 
 to-day I can tell you nothing further, than, I hope to start 
 work at last to-morrow ; there has been an interruption of 
 six weeks, during which I have done nothing but "live" — 
 if so one may call it* 
 
 * March 6 he writes Roeckel : "My wife surprised me by coming 
 over from Dresden to help me ; she was 10 days here." Minna had 
 come to divide up the furniture (cf. p. 273) — arriving about the 20th of 
 February, as Wagner writes Frau Betty Schott on the 22nd that he 
 is at Darmstadt with his wife for a performance of Riensi. At Biebrich 
 she would naturally put up at the same hotel as himself, the Europaischer, 
 
AFTERMATH 299 
 
 I am thoroughly settled here now, have two chambers 
 hired for a year, the pianoforte, book-case, renowned divan, 
 the three Roman engravings and the old Nibelungen print ; 
 facing my desk hangs the photograph of the Green Hill 
 also, in a window-recess the Palazzo Giustiniani. The site 
 is extraordinarily beautiful, hard by the Rhine, the [ducal] 
 palace close beside it. The house itself stands quite alone, 
 and may God preserve it from further inmates ! It is very 
 handsomely built, on speculation, and contains one lovely 
 big suite, which I would gladly see occupied by some decent 
 body.* A beautiful, quite spacious garden ; the birds in 
 the [duke's] park keep up a contest of song with those on 
 the island opposite ; the nightingales are numberless, they 
 say, and positively deafening in their season. So here will 
 I await my Mastersinger destiny ! 
 
 Best thanks for the letter with which you really shamed 
 me ! You read too soon, and wrote to me too early ; you 
 should still have left me in the corner for a while. For the 
 rest, I couldn't help remarking that this was in fact the 
 first time you had made acquaintance with a poem of mine 
 on paper, and not through my reading it out ; also, the 
 difficult manuscript must have given you much ado, — eh ! 
 it all is so different, when one has to struggle on alone. 
 I've read it several times aloud, though, lastly at the Grand 
 
 Hof, and at the beginning of March he writes to Biilow, according to 
 the latter, " in a terrible fit of the blues. 1 ' Minna appears to have been 
 bent on getting him back to live with her, since Roeckel is informed 
 April 5 : " My wife has now obtained the full Dresden amnesty for me 
 [Saxony had been excepted in i860], but I shall not budge from here; 
 where I have housed myself quite endurably, and — down to the present — 
 have splendid calm for work." — Tr. 
 
 * "Eine ganz wunderhiibsche grosse Wohnung, in welche ich gem 
 etwas anstandiges wiinschte." Presumably the said "big suite'' was 
 temporarily inhabited by the landlord, with whom Wagner soon fell out 
 over that person's neglect of his (F.'s) mastiff. — Tr. 
 
30o 
 
 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 Duke's in Carlsruhe [March 7], when they listened very well, 
 if nothing like so well as great big Micky,* and the rules 
 of the Tabulatur were the very things that made them laugh 
 most. Why, child ! thats just the point of all the strange 
 pedantic stuff ; one has got to laugh. With Walther's songs 
 you lack the melody, by all means there the indispensable 
 affair ; I set these verses to the melody all ready in my head, 
 and that of course you can't conceive. Just hear how easily 
 it runs tho' ; e.g. 
 
 fl 0'"^*0. 
 
 £ 
 
 m 
 
 Fern mei-ner Ju-gend gold-nen Tho - ren 
 Far from my youth-hood's golden por-tals 
 
 zog ich einst 
 forth I one* 
 
 ? 2 Lhh H — r*-| — rr- 
 
 fe;^i j » J ^ '"■J-J n i 
 
 0.8.7. f 
 
 ans in Betrachtungganz ver-lo - ren. 
 fa/red, lost in thought, away from mortal*. 
 
 Of the whole affair the Folk hears nothing but the melody : 
 guess my riddle who can ! — 
 
 The first time I read it, was at Schott's in Mainz, the 
 5th of February. I had had to abandon the idea of reading 
 it first to yourself, but was determined to have some com- 
 pensation for you ; so before my departure from Paris I 
 wrote to Vienna, telling Cornelius (from whom you'll hear 
 more in due time) that he must be at Schott's in Mainz 
 
 * See pages 14 and 134, Micke or Miekchen being a pet abbreviation, 
 generally of Marie, in this case of Myrrha, to whom Frau Wesendonck 
 had evidently read the poem. From the remainder of the paragraph it 
 is clear that the lady had written another letter on Die Meistersinger 
 besides, and presumably after, her " no. 5 " ; in fact the first paragraph 
 itself speaks of unanswered " letters " in the plural. — Tr. 
 
 T Of course one must supply a flat b for key-signature, but the above, 
 so Dr. Golther tells me, is a faithful copy of Wagner's MS. sketch. Alike 
 words and music entirely differ from the finished work. — Tr. 
 
AFTERMATH 301 
 
 on the evening of the 5th or I should call him " Sie " again. 
 That was as good as leg-bail ! All the rivers had flowed 
 over, as you know, many trains stopped running, great 
 danger everywhere : no matter, on the tick of 7 my 
 good Cornelius enters, and travels back to Vienna next day! 
 Now I would have you know what a poor devil he is, how 
 he plagues his soul with lesson-giving to earn 40 fl. a month ; 
 but — he loves me dearly, and you have seen what store 
 I set by him.* Do write him, child ; he loves you too. — 
 He lives at " Weissgarber-Pfefferhofgasse 30 Wien," his full 
 name is " Peter Cornelius," and he's also a nephew of the 
 celebrated painter. 
 
 Now fare you well, and accept my very best greetings. 
 I could not write before to-day ; I had to wait for good 
 humour. Adieu, my Child ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 P. S. 
 
 Ah, the lovely pillow ! Look at me, now ; to pocket 
 such a thing as that without a word ! Nicely spoilt ! ! 
 
 132. 
 
 Biebrich a/ Rh. 
 
 May 22, 1862. 
 Dear Lady-friend, 
 To-day is my birthday : someone has sent me flowers 
 into the house [cf. Meistersinger ill]. I have been ill, and 
 only yesterday could I get into the park again. Of yourself 
 I durst think little now, as I can help you in nothing more 
 and simply cherish silent wishes for your welfare ; 
 so I sat all lone. 
 Suddenly there came an inspiration for the orchestral 
 introduction to the third act of the Meistersinger. The most 
 
 * In his invitation, as a fact, Wagner himself had undertaken to pay 
 the travelling-expenses. — Tr. 
 
302 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 engrossing climax of this act will be the moment when 
 Sachs stands up before the whole assemblage, and is greeted 
 by the people with a mighty outburst of enthusiasm, whereon 
 they chant with clarion tongue the first eight lines of Sachs's 
 ode to Luther (the music for which is ready). For the 
 introduction of this 3rd act — the curtain rising upon Sachs 
 seated in deep thought — I now shall give the bass strings 
 a soft and mellow, deeply melancholy strain to play, that 
 bears the character of utmost resignation ; then the solemn- 
 joyous melody of the " Wacht auf ! Es rufet * gen den Tag ; 
 ich hor' singen im griinen Hag ein' wonnigliche Nachtigall," 
 sounded by horns and sonorous wind-instruments, will be 
 added thereto as bright evangel, and developed more and 
 more by all the band. 
 
 It has become clear to me that this work will be my 
 most consummate masterpiece, and also — that I shall [live 
 to] consummate it. 
 
 But I wanted to give myself a birthday-present ; I'm 
 doing so, by sending you these tidings. 
 
 Take care of yourself, attend to your health, and — -if 
 think of me you must — picture me always in the frame 
 of this birthday-morning mood ! It will be a comfort to 
 you, and you will flourish too, for sure ! — 
 
 Best wishes from 
 Your 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
 133. 
 
 Biebrich 
 
 June 9, 1862. 
 Dear Lady-friend, 
 
 For days and days have I been intending to write dear 
 
 Myrrha and thank her for the share I'm sure I must ascribe 
 
 * The word stands thus in the MS., instead of "nahet." [N.B.— 
 The brief explanatory programme contained in Prose Works VIII., p. 388 
 was not written till seven years later. — Tr.] 
 
AFTERMATH 303 
 
 her in the lovely cushion ; but she also must get used to my 
 ingratitude, which doesn't consist in actual want of thanks, 
 but in so frequent omission to attest them. Such attesta- 
 tions are agreeable, flattering effusions, wherewith one flatters 
 and delights oneself the most : I seldom come to execution 
 even of such pleasant projects now ; all trends with me 
 towards a last and serious close, so it is but with sadness 
 I can look at e'en the flowers strewn upon this final road. 
 
 The poem you sent me to-day is very beautiful — quite 
 masterly, I think ; only, the point of the legend now appears 
 to me otherwise. There flattering hope is given the nixy,* 
 but I for my part understand no hope now, have become 
 impervious to nothing so much as its suasion ; in its place 
 I understand that happiness we have not first to hope for, 
 but truly in ourselves are masters of. Perhaps you will 
 remember how I told you once in days gone by, that as 
 life went on I had ever grown more vividly aware that Art 
 would never furnish me a happiness beyond conception till 
 every good of life were reft me, all, all were lost, and any 
 possibility of hoping cut away. I remember also in my 
 thirtieth year, or thereabouts,! having asked myself in inward 
 doubt if I really did possess the grit for an artistic in- 
 dividuality of highest rank ; in my works I could still trace 
 influence and imitation, and only with misgivings did I 
 dare look forward to my further evolution as a thoroughly 
 original producer. Well, at the time when I told you the 
 above — that period of strange passion — on a lonely walk one 
 day the possibility suddenly occurred to me of losing one 
 boon whose possible possession must from of old have 
 seemed to me unthinkable ; and then I felt the time would 
 come for Art to acquire a quite new meaning in my eyes, 
 
 * See "Religion and Art," Prose Works VI. p. 249, and cf. p. 22i» 
 tp.—Tt. 
 t Therefore between the Hollander and TannhUuser. — Tr. 
 
304 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 a meaning altogether wondrous, — the time when not a 
 hope would ever have the power to snare my heart again. 
 
 Thus has the full meaning of the old Messiah-legend 
 also dawned on me at last. They were waiting for a liberator 
 and redeemer, of the seed of David, a king of Israel : every- 
 thing came true ; palms were strewn before him ; — only, the 
 unexpected occurred, for he said to them, " My kingdom is not 
 of this world." * So do all the nations yearn and strive for 
 their Messiah, who shall fulfil their wishes of this life : he comes, 
 and says to them, Give wishing up itself! — 'Tis the ultimate 
 solution of the great Wish-riddle, — which you must admit 
 that your friend Hutten and the others did not understand. 
 
 Myself, I have no wish left, save to be able to work. 
 Even to the representation of my works my wishes extend 
 no longer, and compulsion thereto I accept as an unavoid- 
 able calamity. To Vienna I have been definitively invited 
 for the autumn, to produce the Tristan : that disturbs me 
 now. Yet it irks me also to be driven in my work 
 [bySchott?], for, the way I'm working now, I cannot do it 
 quickly. Assured leisure were what I most could wish : 
 if I cannot attain it, I suppose I still must feel the pain 
 of life ; but its anticipation would enhance the pleasure of 
 creating. I should like a haven in the most complete and 
 utter solitude, and that is very hard to gain. — 
 
 Accept my felicitations yourself; give my kind regards 
 and thanks to Myrrha, as also to your husband, to whom I 
 still owe hearty thanks for his last letter ! 
 
 From my heart Yours 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
 * Slightly expanded, the same parable is narrated to Malwida within 
 a week (see Letters to Otto etc.), whilst an immature variant is to be found 
 thirteen years earlier in the working-out section of Jesus of Nazareth 
 (Prose Works VIII. 297-9).— May the " Wunsch-Rathsel " toward the 
 paragraph's close be a lapsus calami for Welt-R&thsel, i.e. " Riddle of 
 the World"?— Tr. 
 
AFTERMATH 305 
 
 [Between this and the next came three letters to Otto, 
 whilst a fourth bears the same date as our no. 1 34 — see Letters 
 to Otto. The master had meanwhile left Biebrich for Vienna, 
 arriving mid-November, to prepare for the eternally deferred 
 production of Tristan und Isolde. On the day before no. 134 
 he telegraphs to a disciple that he is " half dead" from the 
 rehearsals for his concerts of the 26th and New Year's day. — 7>.] 
 
 134. 
 
 [Kaiserin Elisabeth,] 
 
 Vienna, Dec. 21, 62. 
 I had a beautiful sweet dream of you last night, directly 
 after falling asleep. May it betoken you good — all the 
 good I wish you, cherished Friend, with all my heart ! 
 
 It affected me much, midst all the stress and misery 
 of the present, that a dream should still remind me of your 
 birthday in good time. That was fine, and I observe that 
 Dream at least still cares for me. 
 
 Fervent greeting ! 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
 [For Frau Wesendonck's three-line reply vid. inf. — Wagner's 
 outward history between nos. 134 and 135 is sufficiently 
 indicated in no. 136. He had returned to Vienna the end of 
 April, only to find his Tristan still postponed, and writes from 
 his new ' home ' in what then was an outlying suburb. — 7V.] 
 
 135. 
 
 [To Frau Eliza Wille, Mariafeld.J 
 
 221. Penzing bei Wien 
 
 ,—* June 5, 1863 
 Dear honoured Lady, 
 In a day or two I mean to write to Wesendonck's again, 
 at last ; only — it can only be to him. I am too fond of 
 
 20 
 
306 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 the wife, my heart is so melting and full when I think 
 of her, that it is impossible for me to address her with 
 that formality which would be more incumbent on me now, 
 in her regard, than ever ; neither can I write her from my 
 heart without an act of treason to her husband, whom I 
 sincerely prize and honour. What, then, is to be done ? 
 for I also cannot keep it wholly buried in my heart ; some 
 human soul, at least, must learn how it stands with me. 
 So I tell it you : She is and stays my first and only love ; 
 I feel it plainer every day. That was the summit of my 
 life ; the trembling years of beautiful distress I lived beneath 
 the waxing spell of her proximity hold all the sweetness 
 of my life. It needs but the remotest ground, and I am 
 back amidst them, all saturated with that magic atmosphere 
 which takes my breath still, just as then, and leaves me 
 nothing but a sigh. And were there no stimulant else, 
 yet dreams would do it ; dreams that refresh me every 
 time they shew her to me. — Now tell me, friend, how can 
 I converse with this lady as now it should and must be ? — 
 Impossible ! — Ah, even do I feel I dare not see her any 
 more ; in Venice once already such a wiedersehen made me 
 right unhappy : only after I had entirely lost that memory, 
 did she become to me again quite what she was before. 
 This do I feel : fair will she ever remain in my eyes, and 
 never will my love of her turn cold, but I dare not see 
 her face to face ; not under this awful constraint, which — 
 imperative as I acknowledge it — must be the death-knell 
 of our love. What am I to do, then ? Should I leave my 
 dearest in the fallacy that she has grown indifferent to me ? 
 But oh, that falls so hard ! — Should you relieve her of that 
 fallacy, would that be doing good ? I know not ! —And 
 life will slip away at last ; O misery ! — 
 
 Since my departure from Zurich I have been strictly 
 living as in exile ; what I sacrificed then, no tongue can 
 
AFTERMATH 307 
 
 tell ! — Tis my solitary craving now, to arrive at least at 
 household peace again, be left to live for work alone. By 
 dint of untold exertions I have bought myself at least the 
 possibility of founding a hearth once more, which I hence- 
 forth have to tend entirely alone. Repeated attempts have 
 convinced myself and friends that a continued dwelling 
 with my wife is clean impossible, and thoroughly injurious 
 to us both ; so she is living in Dresden, where I provide 
 for her abundantly beyond my means. She cannot quite 
 compose herself as yet, and I am forced — with strenuous 
 subdual of recurrent accesses of pity — to adopt an attitude 
 of sternness, without which I should only prolong her 
 sufferings and rob myself of all prospect of peace. I can 
 truly say, this trial is the hardest I have ever borne ; but 
 there ! — I am renouncing all, and wish for nothing but a 
 working rest ; the sole relief to clear my conscience and 
 make me really free ! — 
 
 And now, my dear, do be beseeched and tell me often 
 of our lady-friend, — you love her still, I hope, and she is 
 likewise true to you? Indeed it is too hard to know so 
 infinitely loved a being's life so utterly remote and alien, 
 without the power to cast a glance upon it anywhere. What 
 I may learn through her husband, you will comprehend, 
 cannot shew me the Lady-friend to whom I dare protest 
 undying love e'en tho' I never mean to see her more. 
 Never? — 'Tis hard, — but so it must be! — 
 
 I have just been opening that green case, again, she 
 sent me once to Venice. How many an agony of life has 
 been passed through since then, and yet to be encompassed 
 at a touch with all the old, unspeakably beautiful charm ! 
 Sketches for Tristan there, for the music of her poems ! — 
 Ah, dearest friend, 'tis true one loves but once, whatever 
 of intoxicant or flattering this life may bring our way ! 
 Yes, I ,know it now, now first completely, that I shall never 
 
308 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 cease to love but her. You will respect the innocence of 
 this avowal, and forgive me that I make confession to 
 yourself? 
 
 Good-bye, and be a friend to 
 Your 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
 136. 
 
 [To Otto.] 
 
 221. Penzing 
 bei Wien. 
 
 June 6, 1863. 
 Best Friend, 
 
 I really must have news of your two selves at last ! Of 
 mine you will learn something worth hearing only when 
 I can tell you I'm at work again ; for happenings, however 
 manifold, have no more actual sense for me. My Russian 
 travel, St Petersburg, Moscow, with all the episodes attached 
 thereto, only influenced me in so far as it was to contribute 
 to freeing me from all such things and conducting to a 
 haven of work. Under terms and conditions like those, 
 my bitterness regarding the heap of people who have more 
 surety and ease than they know what to do with is often 
 very great, and gives me an ironic undertone to almost every 
 act of kindness shewn me. When I reflect on the states 
 of unrest into which I have fallen since quitting Zurich, 
 I cannot but accuse my fate of hardness ; for it is solely 
 the chance of finding rest again to write my projected 
 works at last, that lends this foolish hunt for it a meaning. 
 
 Well, I have traversed my fiftieth birthday, and had 
 wellnigh to felicitate myself on keeping it in total 
 solitude ! My rural dwelling was thereafter treated to a 
 torchlight procession [June 3] which I attended rather 
 absent-mindedly. Just as the line of lights was drawing 
 
AFTERMATH $0$ 
 
 near across a bridge, the most splendid full-moon rose above 
 the tree-tops of the Schonbrunn garden, and gazed in 
 mystical sublimity upon the mummery beneath. Even 
 during the singing, a couple of young people who were 
 with me up above heard naught from me but exclamations 
 at the glory of the moon. It was the old familiar, unique 
 friend, that drew to me above this childish stranger world — 
 exactly as it used to cross the distant wreath of Alps and 
 move athwart your garden to my — Asyl ! 
 
 — Asyl! — How often have I thought, ere this, that I 
 had found a haven ! ! — This last time I was so in need 
 of an abode of rest, that, with eyes for nothing save a quiet 
 dwelling with a garden, I took the very first that came ; 
 a week later, and apparently I should have settled at 
 Bingen. While that hung fire, I heard of this ; indifferent 
 as to where, I closed with here ; and now I've but one wish, 
 that at least it may be granted me to stop here till my 
 end ! — As things stand in Germany and with myself, the 
 only chance I see of bringing that about is by dint of 
 periodical excessive strains, journeys to Russia and such- 
 like ; though I cannot conceive how I'm to sustain them 
 for long. Some day folk will read it perhaps in ' my 
 biography, and many a one will wonder ; for I naturally 
 shall come to grief on one of those occasions. If you want 
 a notion how such undertakings tax me, compare for a 
 joke the three Petersburg photographs* which were taken 
 at the commencement, with *the Moscow one for which I 
 sat a fortnight later! — However, it has got to be! — 
 
 For all that, I haven't lost my old mania for fitting up 
 the dwelling of my final choice as tastily as possible ; should 
 your household care to make a trifling contribution,! from 
 
 * See Mr. H. S. Chamberlain's Richard Wagner p. 70.— Tr. 
 
 + See postscript to this letter, and openings of the next two. — Tr. 
 
3IO WAGNER TO MATHlLDE WESENDONCK 
 
 no one would it be more welcome — as you must be aware. 
 For you really are the only ones to whom I belong on this 
 earth, in a measure ; to that pass has it come, and I can 
 make no fresh beginning. That I belong to you, you both 
 have earned with griefs and sacrifices of all kinds. 
 
 — What did you think of the Swiss villa the Grossfiirstin 
 Helene of Russia presented me with ? Weren't you a little 
 afraid of getting me slung about your neck again ? Luckily 
 the villa stands in the same place as the 50,000 fr. 
 which I'm supposed to have netted in Russia. How 
 welcome it must be to all my German patrons, to know 
 that I'm so sumptuously provided for and it hasn't cost 
 them a penny ! — Well, well, it's just my usual fate, to figure 
 as the enviable ! 
 
 Ah, dearest friend, enough about myself! Once I am 
 back at my Meistersinger, you two shall hear again ; I'm 
 so distracted at present, that I can collect my wits for 
 nothing. Still better, if you gave me prompt occasion 
 by heartily-begged news of yourselves ; for which I'm 
 longing much ! 
 
 With a thousand good greetings, 
 Your 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
 I would gladly have a pretty good-sized portrait (photo- 
 graphic) of your wife, please ; the Green Hill already hangs 
 framed in my room. 
 
 [To Mathilde henceforward] 
 
 137. 
 
 221. Penzing bei Wien. 
 
 June 28, 1863. 
 Lady-friend, 
 A beautiful, beautiful portfolio arrived to-day ; it is 
 destined for the Meistersinger. I have managed down to 
 
AFTERMATH 31I 
 
 now quite capitally with the green one, which I unpacked 
 again the other day ( — I have settled once more!—) and 
 behold ! all kinds of sketches and strange leaves therein, 
 all tucked into a corner. Dear Heaven, it looked like Tristan 
 still, inside there ! Never mind ; the mastersingers had to 
 creep in too. Now, don't be cross with me for once, I'm 
 not a proper Master yet ; even with my music I haven't 
 got much beyond the 'prentices (so God knows how it all 
 will turn !) : wherefore the perfectly finished shall always 
 go into the new portfolio, and look so grand that I'll tell 
 myself each time I peep at it, " Come, you're already a bit 
 of a master, — tho' nothing like so much as she who sent 
 you the Master-portfolio"; but the unfinished (alas! and 
 how much about me is unfinished !) shall jog along in the 
 big green one meanwhile, with all the gleanings from old 
 wondrous days. I really am more faithful than you may 
 believe, and perhaps than you are sometimes made believe 
 about me ; so the mastersingers, if ever they're to come to 
 anything, must come into the world partout in the same old 
 green portfolio : God only knows what luck 'twill bring 
 them ! But whatever gets quite straight at last shall move, 
 as said, to the new brown one ; already there are 40 pages 
 of full score inside, — tho' I've no idea at all what luck 'twill 
 bring. 
 
 How am I to make that intelligible to you? — Admit, 
 it's hard for so unfinished a mastersinger to write you ; e.g., 
 if I were to tell you, A master ought to have repose, I must 
 confess at once that I have none, and — what's worse ! — am 
 never like to have any. That's the hideous truth which 
 has now become quite plain to me: I've no repose! I 
 cut myself entirely loose from men, relations, every sort 
 of intercourse at last, because at bottom all torment me — 
 that's how I am ! — and furnish me a nice still dwelling ; 
 every nook in it has to fit to my mind, I'm a-fever to make 
 
312 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 it all immensely snug and comfortable, for I tell myself, 
 There shall you stick, pass all your time there (fortune 
 favouring) and stay entirely alone. — To be alone : ah ! the 
 bliss that thrills through me anon, when I tell myself that 
 — before I actually am alone. Good : I get alone — foolish 
 man, as if my heart weren't yoked to me ! — and then at 
 last my full unrest explodes, now in the likeness of care, 
 now of craving. I yearn for a presence, since nothing save 
 presence can soothe — believe me, the god of peace and 
 happiness, his name is " Presence " — and — have to do without 
 it. So I take up at first with my serving-folk,* who soon 
 grow fond of me ; then a dog is added. Not that I have 
 procured myself a new one, — I've a horror of everything 
 new now, all new associations, even with a dog ; but thieves 
 broke in, the other day, and stole a gold snuffbox which 
 the Moscow orchestra had given me as souvenir ; that 
 grieved my old Baron who lives below, and he placed his 
 old retriever at my service. So the dog now sleeps in my 
 rooms at night, and will not quit me even in the day ; he 
 clings to my heels wherever I go. His name is Pohl ; he's 
 brown and strong, but aged already, as I said : ere long 
 
 he'll die.t like Fipps and Peps, — the pity of it ! To 
 
 resume : I fancy I shall reach no true repose. Even as 
 regards the Meistersinger I'm still mistrustful, earnestly and 
 calmly as the brown portfolio stares at me. — 
 
 Can Otto be cross with me for not having written to 
 him so long? Well, I did write him as soon as my 
 birthday was over — the so momentously awaited 50th [cf. 
 p. 231] — lest he might think I only wrote him when I wished 
 to bother him for something ; but if it were not for yourself 
 I really shouldn't have known if he received my lines or 
 
 * A most excellent couple, man and wife, named Mrazek. — Tr. 
 t Pohl survived the whole Munich period, and died in January 1866 
 at Geneva. 
 
AFTERMATH 313 
 
 no. How goes it with his health; does his throat still 
 trouble him? I hope for good news of him. 
 
 How stands it with beautiful Switzerland ? Is the lake 
 as vivid green and blue as ever ; and the mountains with 
 their fields of snow ? — Children, indeed you chose yourselves 
 a lovely land, and oft-times does a longing for it seize me ; 
 once I hoped to die there some fine day ! Methinks I was 
 often more restful there, upon the whole, than I am now ; 
 Swiss scenery like that has something tranquillising ! A 
 sunset I no longer know ; just a couple on the Rhine of 
 late. But no residence would come to hand there, so I'm 
 seated here for the sake of some fine tall trees which I have 
 in the garden ; and the abode is restful, — not myself ! How- 
 ever, I told you that before. — 
 
 And how do things fare with yourself? To you Hans 
 Sachs came easy ; to me he still comes hard. Art also 
 can be serious — not life alone ! Adieu, Lady-friend ! 
 
 Stay kind to 
 
 Your 
 R. W. 
 
 138. 
 
 Penzing, August 3, 1863. 
 
 Dearest Meisterin, 
 
 According to your last dear lines * I might strictly have 
 
 looked for " further particulars " from Schwalbach. Meantime 
 
 I ran over to Pesth, whither I had been invited by the 
 
 Hungarians, to give two " concerts." f I got back a few 
 
 * An unpreserved letter of July 15, which would fall between nos. 7 
 and 8 of Frau Wesendonck's own group, evidently announcing her de- 
 parture for a 'cure' (see end of the present one). — Is it necessary to 
 explain that the only possible English equivalent for Meisterin in this 
 connection would be " Lady-master," with allusion to her verses of 
 "7a"?— Tr. 
 
 + July 23 and 28 ; including the Meistersingcr overture, which he had 
 given first at Leipzig to an empty house the year before (Nov. 1, 62).— Tr. 
 
314 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 days since, and found at least the promised lamp ; which 
 I find most beautiful and masterly, and would have you 
 freely thanked for. — 
 
 With my haven it's so-so, really curious ! The need of 
 a more permanent foothold, with a suitable pleasant abode, 
 had become overpowering ; I felt that only from a similar 
 base could I look out on the world once more — for a final 
 time — to discover how things stand twixt it and me. Well, 
 I find they don't stand for the best, and heartily repent 
 having laid out my poor hard earnings on securing the ex- 
 pensive basis for that step in knowledge. As nobody seems 
 inclined to take me in, I should have put my few thousand 
 Russian roubles to better use by buying myself into the 
 first Italian hospice and leaving the world to go its way ; 
 for I really don't see any need of me in it. It is the honest 
 truth I'm telling you, and calmly from the bottom of my 
 soul ! Were I to count up all the queer mischances that 
 have dogged me since my departure from Switzerland, you 
 yourself could only see therein a wellnigh systematic reckon- 
 ing of Fate's, to turn me from my purpose. I have no luck ; 
 and it takes a little luck to keep a man like myself under 
 the delusion that he belongs to the world. — 
 
 Meisterin, it is not well with me, and I'm aweary of life, 
 — as I plainly ascertained the other day, when at instant 
 peril of death. It happened near Pesth on the Danube, in 
 the same boat two young Hungarian cavaliers had sailed 
 from Rotterdam to Pesth. A spirited lady, Grafin Bethlen, 
 mother of six children, had undertaken to steer ; at a sudden 
 squall she grew alarmed, and brought the boat too near 
 the wind ; the waves dashed it against a raft, and it cracked 
 in two. Well, compassion for the mother seized me, but 
 so singular a sense of comfort for my private self, so buoyant 
 and so bracing that our young-folks could hardly contain 
 their wonder at my conduct, as they would rather have 
 
AFTERMATH 315 
 
 expected great excitement from such a nervous man as me. 
 When they began praising me — for I did a little toward the 
 rescue — I had almost to burst out laughing ! 
 
 What is the use ? Dying is no such easy job, especially 
 
 if one's time hasn't come yet ; and that must be the case 
 
 with me, except that I cannot see at all what I am spared 
 
 for. To be something, perhaps, to my dear ones ! ? Could 
 
 I be less to them when they know that I am dead, than 
 
 now when I'm cut off on every side and merely suffer? 
 
 Personally I can be nothing more to anybody, — and my 
 
 spirit? That remains with them, whilst it quickens my 
 
 heart no more. I have no zest any longer, — for nothing. 
 
 All devoutness fails me, all concentration ; a deep, restless 
 
 distraction sways my inner man ; I have no present, quite 
 
 palpably no future, of belief not a speck. To be sure, the 
 
 right artistic function, the representing of my own new 
 
 works, might have made a great difference ; but my return 
 
 to Germany has dealt the death-blow to that. It is an 
 
 abominable country, and a certain [Arnold] Ruge is right 
 
 in saying, " The German is vile." * Not a trace of hope 
 
 exists there, and you may judge how it stands with my 
 
 erst-presumed high patrons, when I tell you that I have 
 
 been invited to repeat my Vienna concerts by the Czechs 
 
 of Prague, the Russians, the Hungarians, whereas I am 
 
 certain that my precious Germans would decline me if I 
 
 made an offer of myself. In Berlin the Intendant refused 
 
 to accept my call, and so on; since my return from Russia 
 
 I haven't found it possible to look up a soul belonging 
 
 to this theatre as yet : my loathing of these people is so 
 
 strong, that I am incapable of undertaking anything else 
 
 for which I should require them. Everybody who knows 
 
 anything, finds that perfectly natural ; only, it also means 
 
 * Or " abject " — niedertrctchtig — see " German Art and German 
 Policy," Prose Works IV, 92.— Tr. 
 
316 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 the close of my career. Believe me, it is a strange feeling; 
 to know that even you are really not acquainted with my 
 works ; I have simply to conduct a morsel of them properly, 
 and even the most gifted and experienced of my disciples 
 at once admit that they had as good as no conception of 
 the piece before. What, then, is my spirit, what my works ? 
 — without me, they exist for no one ! Yes, that makes 
 my humble person of great weight to me ; only — this 
 personality itself exists for none but me, and that's a bad 
 business. Something, no doubt, may be said on the other 
 side, including words of comfort, of emphatic flattery ; but 
 it avails with me no longer.: I hear they are words, even 
 see it when they're written — as for that matter, nearly all 
 my intercourse with men is carried on by letter now. 
 
 What am I to do with my haven, then, despite portfolio 
 and lamp ? A knotty point, especially with my great 
 distraction. I turn and twist it in my mind : If I set 
 myself a term again, a fixed number of years — say five, — 
 how am I to start gaining them? That is growing very 
 difficult, and to tell the truth, I don't know how. My 
 needs are increasing, I've a double household to keep up — 
 two altogether wretched ones ! — so my person has occurred 
 to me. Nobody asks for my works, the world pays heed 
 to nothing save the virtuoso ; now want has shewn me that 
 I also am a virtuoso. At the head of an orchestra I appear 
 to produce that effect- on these people ; the Hungarians, 
 who hadn't a notion of my music, and live on nothing 
 but Verdi etc. at their National-theatre, took in each single 
 number from my Nibelungen, Tristan, Meistersinger, with 
 quite incredible alacrity, — manifestly because it was I who 
 presented and performed them. So, now that I am 
 pondering how to gain my "time," I tell myself that I 
 must make a concert-tour ; and that's what it most probably 
 will come to. The worst of it is, I cannot stand it long 
 
AFTERMATH 317 
 
 or often, my over-exertion at such performances and 
 rehearsals passes all measure ; yet I mean to try. Perhaps, 
 if I were to ask you, you could arrange me such a " concert " 
 of new scraps at Zurich itself; only it might be hard to 
 contrive there, as my poor " person " needs very many 
 other persons, to make a personal effect. Be that as it 
 may, you will shortly hear of my giving concerts again 
 here or there ; some will exclaim, " Didn't we tell you, he 
 wants to make money ? " — perchance a few others, " They 
 say, he wants to die ! " — 
 
 Perhaps it will end all right, tho', and my Asyl (the 
 how-many-eth ?) stand me in good stead for once ; the 
 lamp will shine, portfolio fill,' and — a tea-set (my old one is 
 not get-at-able !) agreeably refresh me* God ! everything 
 is possible, and although my nerve-racked body's always 
 feeling aches and pains, my doctor [Standhartner] laughs 
 each time I ask him if it must not turn into a fatal illness 
 soon. That ought to brisk one's spirits up ; and in truth, 
 however wretched is one's health, it's health of a sort. 
 Only, I can bear with solitude no longer ; the old retriever 
 given me by my landlord, is really not enough. With my 
 50th year I came by a positive yearning for a daughterly 
 element ; at Berlin a little while ago [end of April] when 
 Biilow presented his baby girl to me with the regret that 
 it was only a daughter, something flashed upon me and I 
 told him, Be glad of it, for thou shalt have great joy of 
 this daughter. Recently a maiden of 17 years and unim- 
 peachable birth was recommended to me as gentle, willing 
 to serve, and uncorrupted ; so I took her into my home, 
 to dish me tea, look after my things, and be present at 
 table and of an evening. God bless me, the trouble I had 
 
 See pages 118 and 356; it is clear that Wagner uses the present 
 tense here in a future sense, though Frau Wesendonck's answer mistakes 
 
 it.— Tr. 
 
318 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 o 
 
 to get the poor child out of the house again without 
 wounding her feelings ! She was bored to death, longing 
 for town again, but took every pains to conceal it ; so that 
 my only way to create myself a relative happiness at last, 
 by getting rid of her, had to be on the pretext of my 
 journey [Pesth concerts, end of July]. Dear Lord ! and yet 'twere 
 so simple to please me; how well I can get on even with 
 my servants, I know by experience. I thought of Vreneli, 
 who waited on me at Lucerne ; she couldn't leave. Now the 
 elder sister of the girl sent home has applied to me ; she 
 is more experienced, staid, seems well-disposed, and isn't 
 unagreeable ; so I almost think of making one more trial 
 with her.* You see how it is ; I have to try for everything 
 with money now — presumably because I have so much of 
 it ! — I'll let you know how it turns out. 
 
 And now I perceive that I must put a little stopper 
 on my writing, or Otto will have a right to tax me with 
 exciting you ! To tell the truth, best lady, I find it hard 
 to write a letter to you ; all the sweet that comforts me at 
 times now, is nothing but a memory, lies back among the 
 past. Of that I cannot, must not write ; and what remains ? 
 How gladly would I tell you of a real pure joy, an agreeable 
 experience from the present ; but whence derive, without 
 inventing ? I have already told you I was nearly drowned, 
 and that is all ! — Should I write you how I have been 
 feted and applauded by the public here or there? Indeed 
 I count it to those gentry's credit, and pride myself no 
 
 * Eccentric as the episode may seem in itself, it disposes of the 
 ridiculous legends — founded on a Viennese dressmaker's bills — that the 
 writer used to dress himself in female garments. Long ago I had been 
 struck by the " we " in one of the crumbs of that correspondence 
 flaunted by addle-brained purveyors of gossip, and felt more inclined to 
 credit Hanslick's story of " a pretty ballet-dancer " ; but the amazing 
 innocence of the whole arrangement is proved alike by its narration 
 to " Elisabeth " and her unrebuking answer. — Tr. 
 
AFTERMATH 319 
 
 little on my stirring people with my music to wellnigh 
 the same enthusiasm as is wont to be evoked by ballet- 
 dancers and that class of artists ; but God forgive me, I'm 
 glad each time it's over, and do not think of it again if 
 I can help it. Perhaps it's sheer ingratitude — one of my 
 proved chief vices, you know. 
 
 Here and there an agreeably-cheating apparition of 
 more charm does flit across my gloom. For example : at 
 Pesth I had a lovely bud-young singer, with the most soulful 
 naive voice, for the rendering of cantlets of my Elsa ; she was 
 Hungarian, pronounced German with delightful correctness, 
 and probably had never heard anything right about music 
 before in her life. I was quite touched, that my music 
 should alight on something so pure and unsullied ; and the 
 good child in her turn seemed so touched by myself and 
 my music, that for the first time in her life she really felt. 
 The outbreak of these feelings was inexpressibly pretty 
 and moving, and many a one might have thought the 
 damsel had conceived a sudden love for me : so that is 
 someone else to have to " write " to. — 
 
 See, I'm telling you all the good I can ; but I really 
 know of nothing more, and am not even sure if you will 
 count the last tale to my " good." — Still, it gives the letter 
 a turn, and will enable you to tell your husband something 
 of me after all. The poor fellow seems to have been having 
 his full share of trouble ; I won't mention America (I have 
 enough for myself with my Germany !) but to be continually 
 plagued with a horrid pain in the throat, that often prevents 
 him even contradicting (as he very amiably confessed 
 to me), is misfortune enough and to spare. He thinks he 
 will have to get into a situation, for once, where he wouldn't 
 be tempted to speak at all ; I'll propose to him to exchange 
 with myself for a couple of months — when I'm at Penzing, 
 be it understood : not when I'm giving concerts, as he'd be 
 
320 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 done for in a fortnight then. — Really Otto must be heartily- 
 sick of me ! How he has tried to help me all along ; 
 how often has he thought things must go right with me 
 at last, — and ever I am stranded on the same old spot, 
 nothing will fructify, — all's thrown away! Yes, and I 
 believe it myself, all's squandered on me : sportsmen have 
 a catchword about having " ein Waidmann gesteckt," i.e. 
 one is under a spell that balks one's shot, — maybe that's 
 the case with me ! — 
 
 Now I don't know where to send this letter; July 15 
 you wrote me from Zurich that you would be back there 
 in 3 weeks at the outside ; wherefore I think it safest to 
 assume the 3 weeks are run out, and put the old address on it. 
 
 Farewell and be thanked a thousand times for your 
 existence ; you still exist, — so I suppose I, too, must co-exist 
 a little, in a fashion ! Best greetings to husband and 
 children ; they're to go on thinking decently of me. The 
 long sheet of gossip is ended ; may it not make you too 
 dismal ! Remember that at least I have been still able to 
 write it ! — Adieu, best Meisterin ! 
 
 Your 
 R. W. 
 
 139. 
 
 Dear Child, 
 
 A mighty big letter — to which I have nothing of account 
 to add for the moment — went off to your address at Zurich 
 a few days since. As you are stopping away so much longer,* 
 please let it be sent on to you (not that it's very amusing). 
 
 A thousand greetings ! 
 
 Your 
 Aug. 7, Penzing. R. W. 
 
 * Then there must be a second letter of Frau Wesendonck's missing 
 between nos. " 7 and 8," for hers dated August 9 (no. " 8 ") replies to the 
 said " gross machtiger Brief " itself. — Tr. 
 
AFTERMATH 32 1 
 
 140. 
 
 Sept. 10, Penzing. 
 
 Maybe I ought to have written you before, Best lady— 
 perhaps you were expecting it? — but I'm living in such 
 pressure now* that I can find no sense at all to write 
 you. Once I had a fanatical idea of begging you to do 
 something enormous for me ; but I had to dismiss it again 
 with a mournful smile, — I'm a man of ill-luck ! Also I 
 expected to be called to the Rhine by the end of August 
 for concerts (Darmstadt, Carlsruhe), which would have enabled 
 me to visit you all, and moreover to take a mountain-trip 
 in my old land of cure to patch up my terribly ailing lower 
 man ; but nothing came at all of Darmstadt, and I am 
 asked not to go to Carlsruhe ere the end of October. Now 
 that's just about the time I ought to have some engagements 
 in the east again, so that everything will crowd together ; 
 and yet I must put up with it, — in fact my present chief 
 trouble is due to this all having dawdled so long. — 
 
 Good Lord, how I repent my settling here, already ; and 
 yet I staked my all on first securing fixity of tenure, — so great 
 was my need to plant my foot again, no matter where or 
 how. It has fared with my hard-earned Russian spoils as 
 with the man in the play who curses his luck for having 
 won a prize in the lottery, since he can prove it has cost 
 him much more than he gained. What congratulations on 
 
 * " Nun leb' ich aber so im Drucke, dass ich gar keinen Sinn finde, 
 an Sie zu schrieben." I am not sure that the " so im Drucke " may not 
 mean " so in the press," as a serial essay on " The Vienna Opera-house " 
 appeared in a local newspaper about this epoch ; see Prose Works III., 
 also the end of this letter and the postscript to no. 143. As to the 
 " etwas Enormes," of the next sentence, upon reference to Frau Wesen- 
 donck's of August 9 it would seem that the idea Wagner had momentarily 
 entertained was that of asking to be allowed to return for a while to his 
 old "Asyl" of five years ago; in which case the " Unglucksmensch " 
 would mean " a man who brings ill-luck,'' cf. " Einen Unseligen labtest 
 du " etc., Die Walkiire act i. — Tr. 
 
 21 
 
32 2 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 my Russian fortune have I not received ! — and from whom ? 
 From creditors of whose very existence I didn't know. Ah, 
 how pleased everybody was, that I had been so well supplied 
 and no one need bother about me again ! — 
 
 I am going to Carlsruhe, to make a last trial whether 
 anything is to be expected for me from a prince's protection. 
 — Do not say that I'm a "helpless " man [cf. p. 355] : rather, 
 where no one else, at any rate, can help me, I can now 
 help myself and alone ; but where my contemporaries might 
 have helped me, posterity will apprehend — presumably very 
 soon. Then it will be patent how easy it would have been 
 to help me, and what the world would have gained if my 
 last good years of creation had not been so wretchedly lamed. 
 — Yet if / — to forestall that future wonderment — now do 
 for myself what people then will do for my monuments, what 
 rubbing of hands all around ! And the nation would like 
 to be still more " united." 
 
 Well, — I still hope to make it possible to visit you in 
 Switzerland, perhaps before Carlsruhe ; but perhaps — I shall 
 have vanished beforehand, without leaving a trace. Oh, to 
 cease sounding ; for the last echo of one's chord to die away 
 in space ! ! — 
 
 There we are ; fine stuff I'm writing you ! Of course 
 I oughtn't to send it off, but you did the same thing once 
 yourself, and insisted that written was written, — and really, 
 to have to speak to one's best friends in studied periphrasis, 
 revokes all impulsion to speak. I admit that I am foaming 
 now, and presume beyond all bounds; but it's the last 
 paroxysm, I feel, the last paroxysm : then I shall drop 
 my hands and give the horses their heads — whithersoever 
 they will ! Never will I trouble for my life again, save 
 this one time ! — Child, that's what I am passing through — 
 and so, enough ! — 
 
 I cannot advise you to come to Vienna yourselves 
 
AFTERMATH 323 
 
 [cf. p. 357]. Art? — not a rap; Opera completely wretched 
 and disgraceful. I have nothing more to do with the 
 theatre ; God knows whether you even would find me here, 
 for I'm on the bounce at any instant. Such a bounce 
 may bring me to yourselves, however, for a couple of days ; 
 if things go fairly with me, I .shall come before Carlsruhe — 
 as said — end of October. 
 
 What a letter ! — Forgive me, I cannot do better with 
 it ! — Perhaps another time ! A feeble remnant is still left 
 within me, whereout— perhaps — something still may be 
 made ! 
 
 The very best of greetings ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 141. 
 
 It is a load on my mind, that I fell upon you so un- 
 governably with my laments the other day. If you can 
 forgive me, it will be harder for Otto to, and that agitates 
 my heart ! — 
 
 Something would appear to have " got into my bones " — 
 as people say ; I fell ill, and was so for a week. — That 
 did me good, and I have come to order in myself; so it 
 only remains to get so with myself as well. Toward that 
 I have an extremely arduous time next ahead of me, toils 
 and hardships of all kinds ; but they will be the last. — 
 
 In October I shall visit you in any case. Entreat me 
 
 kindly, precious friends ; I hope I shall be welcome to 
 
 you ! 
 
 From my heart, 
 
 R. W. 
 Penzing. Sept. 20, 63.* 
 
 * See Frau Wesendonck's answer of the 23rd. The " announcement " 
 mentioned in the first sentence of Wagner's next letter is not preserved ; 
 in fact, from hers of Oct. 20 it appears to have never reached her. — Tr. 
 
324 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 142. 
 
 Penzing, Oct. 17. 
 I must correct my announcement of yesterday, and 
 acquaint you that my Carlsruhe concert cannot take place 
 till the 14th of November. Therefore, if you should have 
 any kind reassurance to send me, particularly as to Otto's 
 condition, I would beg you to address it for the present 
 to Penzing still. 
 
 With heart's devotion 
 
 R. W. 
 
 143. 
 
 No doubt you will guess, Lady-friend, of what weight 
 your letter has been to me ! I told you a while ago that 
 my resolve could not be talked about, but only gradually 
 disclosed by execution ; and now you answer me quite 
 rightly, La vie est une science, — it must be learnt and 
 practised [cf. p. 360]. I believe I am ripe for it, and know 
 but one desire now : Repose and work ! — 
 
 Of my enterprises for this winter much still remains 
 vague ; all I know for certain, is that I have to make one 
 final effort, not to achieve, but to close behind me. The 
 day after to-morrow (Oct. 31) I go to Prague (Black Horse) 
 for 2 concerts ; Nov. 10 I reach Carlsruhe ; the 14th is 
 the concert there, and should Otto have so far recovered 
 as to be able to bring you thither, I fancy I may promise 
 both of you a fine impression. Thence on, uncertainty 
 pervades my plans : roughly, between then and Christmas 
 I have concerts in prospect at Breslau, Lowenberg in Silesia 
 (Prince of Hechingen), Dresden, perhaps Hanover, and 
 probably Prague once more. Possibly St Petersburg will 
 then take March and April, conceivably Kieff and Odessa 
 the previous January also ; perhaps, too, Pesth again. You 
 may imagine the state of my poor nerves in view of such 
 
AFTERMATH 325 
 
 geography ! It seems almost criminal to myself, but nothing 
 else is left me. 
 
 Now, I should like in the interval, if you will put me 
 up, to find brief rest with you ; perhaps about Christmas- 
 tide ; possibly even from Carlsruhe. Don't be astonished — 
 tho' it be only for a few days — if I drag out the portfolio 
 and try to work a little. Moreover, I have a petition as 
 regards my board : please send me lunch and dinner to 
 my room ; meals in common to be reserved for special 
 festivals, and at your special invitation. — Otto's recovery 
 is to me a veritable gift from Heaven ; we here (I and 
 the doctor) quite share your opinion that this illness has 
 been a crisis of most beneficial consequences. All this 
 is very beautiful and profoundly gladdening to me. — 
 
 Now accept my earnest heartfelt thanks again for your kind 
 letters. — Salute Otto and the children from a loyal heart ; 
 they are all to be good to me ; Yourself as well ! 
 
 Your 
 
 R. W. 
 Penzing, Oct. 29, 63. 
 
 I am sending Otto a brochure [cf. p. 32m], You will 
 judge by it how placably I think of issuing from the world, 
 but will also infer the said issue's necessity from the certainty 
 of my knowledge that even such practical, simple proposals 
 will find no hearing. 
 
 [As Frau Wesendonck's reply speaks of a chance of Otto's 
 being well enough to take her to Carlsruhe, it is possible 
 that they heard the Meistersinger overture and Sachs' Cobbler- 
 song there, either Nov. 14 or at the concert's repetition on the 
 igth. In any case the next we hear of Wagner is from the 
 Green Hill, where he arrives between the 20th and 22nd, and 
 sends Herwegh an invitation in the name of his hosts the 
 
326 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 2^(1, for tliat evening. Presumably he spent the best part of 
 a week on the Green Hill, for he does not reach Mainz till 
 the 27th, en route for the concerts mentioned below. — 7>.] 
 
 144. 
 
 Penzing, Dec. 1 5, 63. 
 A mere brief note ! 
 
 I have been back since the evening of the 9th inst. 
 Arrival in the dwelling which Fate has assigned me as home 
 had a tristely comforting effect on me. Everything was 
 warm and snug, Franz and Anna [Mrazek] pleased to see 
 me, no ill befallen ; only Pohl had so fretted at my absence 
 that he really was much aged. It was an odd feeling, to 
 be surrounded with familiar beings and objects not an atom 
 whereof I knew a year ago. 
 
 The dismalest is my great exhaustion. This the upshot 
 of my " art-tour " — that I cannot dream of either continuing 
 or repeating it. Impossible to go to Russia ; but whatever's 
 to become of me without that aid, I vacantly inquire. 
 
 At Lowenberg I found a very good-natured man in the 
 Prince, but unfortunately he is too old, and has been too 
 much imposed on, to be able to be of use to me. At Breslau 
 I found myself thoroughly shamed, and cut a very sorry 
 figure in my own eyes,* — but an old acquaintance turned 
 into a famous new ; Frau Wille's sister, Fr. v. Bissing, came 
 to Lowenberg and Breslau for the concert. My great 
 fatigue and agitation, for which she made most kind allow- 
 ance, permitted no true freedom in our intercourse ; never- 
 theless, the few hours were of deep value for us both. 
 
 Cornelius will come out every day to me, I hope, in 
 spite of wind and weather. I am trying with singularly 
 bitter pains to keep myself this Asyl. 
 
 * A snub ; administered by a wealthy resident whose assistance had 
 been half promised ; see Glasenapp II. ii., 440-41. — Tr. 
 
AFTERMATH 327 
 
 Let me hear good of you soon, and greet husband and 
 children from the heart of 
 
 Your 
 
 R, Wagnen 
 
 145. 
 
 A thousand fervent heartfelt greetings for the birthday ! 
 I can offer you no gifts but of the heart now ; my fancy 
 still refuses me its old-accustomed services ; 'tis musing on 
 repose and paths that lead thereto. In spirit I shall be 
 among you, tho', and taste full lovely visions of the family- 
 feast ! 
 
 A thousand good wishes with the greetings ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 Penzing, Dec. 21, 63. 
 
 [This the last unconstrained exchange of letters is prompted 
 on the selfsame day (vid. inf. p. 363), and the prime cause 
 of the ensuing twelvemonth 's silence must be sought in some 
 third factor, perhaps some unrecorded appeal to the husband 
 for renewed assistance in the serious financial straits above- 
 foreshadowed. Next March it is Frau Wille who is asked 
 whether the Wesendoncks can accommodate the composer with 
 " a work-room either in the principal building, or in the little 
 neighbouring house I occupied before," to enable him to com- 
 plete his Meistersinger — the entire first act whereof had just 
 been sent to Schott — by that summer's end. Who conveyed the 
 refusal, we do not know precisely ; but within a fortnight 
 we find Wagner escaping from Vienna creditors and taking, 
 literally, taking shelter at Mariafeld, where he reaps the Willes' 
 hospitality for a doled-out month (see Letters to Otto etc.). 
 Then comes that miraculous transformation-scene, rescue by 
 Ludwig II. of Bavaria at the beginning of May ; followed 
 by the master's establishment in Munich and the removal 
 
328 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 thither of the faithfulest of his disciples, Cornelius, Hans von 
 Billow, and the tatter's wife. — This in explanation of the next 
 letter, which itself is a reply to Frau Wesendonck's of fan. 13, 
 1865.— Tr.] 
 
 146. 
 
 [Munich, mid-January 1865.] 
 Best Child, I think it would be best to send the whole 
 portfolio ; I pledge myself, with all that's dear to me, that 
 it shall return to its lady-owner unimpaired, and rather 
 enriched than diminished. It would fall hard to point out 
 everything that might need copying and despatching to 
 us ; so it's better that I should search among the things 
 themselves. 
 
 It required a strong inducement, to get me to take any 
 part in this, but my young King is just the man to set it 
 all in order; he has the right pertinacity, and all his 
 instigation springs from his own self. Now Semper has to 
 build me a splendid new theatre (there's nothing else for 
 it already), the best singers are to be fetched from all ends 
 to represent my works, and — all my writings, of no matter 
 when, must be culled from all hidden portfolios. Knowing 
 that he must not give me much to do with it, he [the King] 
 tactfully turns to my friends ; and that's what he has done 
 in this case also [cf. p. 363]. At his often-repeated request, 
 you see, I had had to state what I had written, and whither 
 it had disappeared ; so I had to denounce the big portfolio on 
 the Green Hill too, — I couldn't help myself. But no harm 
 is meant ; simply, he wants everything collected, to take it 
 in his charge and know that he possesses me entire. 
 Ay, child, he loves me ; there's no gainsaying it ! — 
 If things don't go quite right with me despite all that, 
 no doubt there may be reasons. The lighter grows my 
 freight of faith, the higher my insurance, — already I believe 
 
AFTERMATH 329 
 
 in next to nothing, and to fill that void it needs a quite 
 prodigious ballast of royal favour ! Once I was to be had 
 cheaper ; now my clairvoyance is terrible, and the illusion 
 anent that fearful weakness everywhere, which shrunk back 
 from me as from a madman, is becoming hardly possible to 
 me again* Yet I do all I can, and still gladly await 
 something better from men ; in which my young King just 
 assists me. He knows all, and — wills ! — so I myself am 
 bound to will too, tho' it often strikes my soul as 
 strange. — 
 
 Best greeting to the Green Hill ! — They told me lately, 
 it had been offered for sale this summer ; is that so ? — 
 Whither away then ? — Am I quite too inquisitive ? — Ought 
 I to renew my kind thanks for the Christmas present ? Did 
 the big Micky expect it ? Scarcely ! There's another old 
 letter to read.f — shall I find that in the portfolio ? — 
 
 Adieu ! I recollect with love ! 
 
 R. W. 
 
 147. 
 
 [Munich, Spring 1865.] 
 
 Lady-friend, 
 
 The Tristan will be wonderful. 
 
 Will you come ? ? 
 
 Your 
 1st performance 15th May. R. W. 
 
 * Cf. Sept. 9, 64, to Frau Wille : " I had really beert abandoned 
 by all my old friends, — literally you alone still believed in me " ; and 
 exactly a month later, " Your silence alarms me. Surely you received a 
 letter of mine a short while back ? " {Letters to Otto etc.). — Tr. 
 
 t Dr. Golther tells us " the letter does not exist," evidently considering 
 that the reference is to the enigmatic " Brief an * * * " in Frau 
 Wesendonck's list (vid. inf.) ; but I am inclined to think that this " noch 
 einen alten Brief" is figurative (probably also the "Christmas present'') 
 — an indirect appeal for renewal of old friendship. — Tr. 
 
330 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK. 
 
 [No one from Zurich came to hear Tristan {see the letter 
 of next September to Frau Wille), the first public performance 
 of which had eventually to be postponed to the 10th of fune 
 owing to " Isolde's " indisposition. A few weeks afterwards, 
 however, Wagner extends an olive-bough to Otto, in the shape 
 of a beautiful epistle, one passage wherein has so often been 
 misinterpreted that it will be as well to give a somewhat closer 
 rendering than heretofore : — " The disturbance that drove 
 me from you six years back should have been avoided : it 
 so estranged my life from me, that you yourself, as I, did 
 not really know me again when I last approached you once 
 more. This [latter] pain should also have been spared me : 
 to myself it seemed as if it might have been possible, and 
 beautiful, very beautiful would it have been, ay, sublime, if 
 it had been spared me, — but one must not ask for the 
 sublime, — and I was wrong. — Now much has altered with 
 me. Everything around me has become fairly new" etc. 
 (Letters to Otto). Here the " ich hatte Unrecht " (" / was 
 wrong") most clearly refers, not to the "Storung, die mich 
 vor sechs Jahren von Ihnen trieb " — which, by the way, 
 should be " seven " if it does not actually refer to the unlucky 
 Paris expedition — but to the estrangement which commenced 
 in the winter 1863-64. 
 
 From the time of the said letter and its reply, July -August 
 1865, friendly relations with Herr Wesendonck were re- 
 established, and we find letters sent to him at not unfrequent 
 intervals down to the end of 18 70. The only one to Frau 
 Mathilde still extant is the next and last of our series, though 
 the sweet lady's own simple words of 1896 should be recalled 
 here : " After his second marriage * Wagner's first visit with 
 his wife was paid to ' Mariafeld' near Zurich and to the 
 ' Green Hill' at Enge. The Festivals at Bayreuth we never 
 
 * August 1870 ; Minna had died in January 1866. — Tr, 
 
AFTERMATH 33 1 
 
 missed. Down to the master's death we remained in friendly 
 commune with him" — Tr.] 
 
 148. 
 
 Honoured Lady-friend, 
 Would you perhaps mind searching among the manu- 
 scripts of olden time, kindly preserved by you, for a sheet 
 
 of music 
 
 At Weber's last Resting-place, 
 chant for 4 male voices, and let me have a copy of it In 
 case you find it ? You would be heartily obliging Your 
 
 Richard Wagner, 
 who with his wife sends you very best greetings. 
 
 Tribschen. 
 
 June 28, 1871. 
 
 To supplement these later letters, we find the following 
 private dedications : — 
 
 Written in the pfte (vocal) score <7/"Die Meistersinger : 
 "To his valued friends on the Green Hill, in grateful 
 remembrance, 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 May 1868"— 
 
 In that of Siegfried : 
 
 " For the cherishing of ancient memories, as also in 
 continuation of the Green Hill library, with grateful 
 greeting, 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
 Tribschen, August 14, 1871 "— 
 
332 WAGNER TO MATHiJ.DE WKSENDONC. K 
 
 In th-it 0/"Gotterdammcnjn» : 
 "To his honoured friends ■■! the Green Hi' 1 . 
 fidelity and gratitude, 
 
 Richard vV, 
 Bayreuth, May 13, 1875. 
 
 And it dammered after aii ! R. VV." 
 
FROM HER TO HIM 
 
 TALES AND LETTERS, 
 1859 to 1865. 
 
 33 
 
As the succeeding 14 Utters, and the few poems included 
 therewith, are published in the German edition as the '' only 
 existing replies to the master's" and as they do not commence 
 till so late, I preface them with a couple of tales from an 
 earlier period — tales that bear their personal allusion on their 
 face. These I borrow from Frau Mathilde's little book of 
 " Marchen und Marchenspiele',' reprinted in 1900 from its 
 original issue of March 1864 and dedicated on the one 
 occasion to her children, on the other to her grand-children. As 
 to the first tale, " The Stranger Bird," it certainly was written 
 circa Christmas 1858-9, — see Wagners " thanks for the lovely 
 fable " pp. 95 and 98 sup. ; the date of the second cannot be 
 assigned so positively, since the reference at foot of p. 159 is 
 puzzling — no " Fohrenmarchen " being included in the said 
 collection, — yet Wagner's i-eference on p. 158 to the Erard, 
 which lie had christened " the Swan " (p. 57), makes July 1859 
 a presumable birth-time for this. — W. A. E. 
 
 334 
 
The Stranger Bird * 
 
 It was a wonderfully mild Spring day ; the earth looked 
 like a freshly opening rose in the fragrance of the morning 
 dew. The rays of the noonday sun enticed and coaxed 
 the blossoms forth, without scorching them ; for they still 
 were shy and doubtful, all ignorant of their power, like a 
 lover with his child-sweetheart ere the dear secret has slipped 
 from his lips. So the sun made itself as handsome as it 
 could, and smiled, and never seemed tired of gazing. And 
 every glance became a flower. Forget-me-nots sprang from 
 its childlike honest eyes ; its earnest sacred trust was shewn 
 in violets, its love in the rose, and its innocence in snow- 
 drops. The wounds, however, that its thorns made, were 
 changed into purple-red strawberries ; its tears fell into the 
 flower-cups like nourishing dew ; the deep sighs from its 
 bosom fluttered through the air and gave a good shake to the 
 fresh-clad trees and shrubs to see that every leaf was quite 
 secure and not merely pretending. But the strange thoughts 
 which flitted through its head became little birds, who made 
 field and forest, hill and vale, brim over with lovely music. 
 If a human soul but heard that sweet carol, it filled him 
 with such joy and pain that he knew not whether to laugh 
 or cry ; but his heart remained devoted to the pretty 
 songsters all his life. When the music stopped he would 
 
 * In the Englishing of these tales and letters of Frau Wesendonck's 
 I have had the valuable assistance of a friend, " Evelyn Pyne," who also 
 has kindly translated the accompanying verses.— W. A. E. 
 
 335 
 
336 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 grow sad, for it left deep longing in his breast ; he felt as 
 tho' cast out of Paradise a second time, and remained solemn 
 and grave all the rest of his days. Yet peace was within 
 him, and no more idle wish for passing empty pleasures. 
 
 Now, one of these little birds was hopping gaily on before 
 a tiny lassie, who was trying in vain to catch the pretty 
 warbler in her small white apron. Playfully teasing her, 
 the bird would now come close, and then skip far away, 
 drawing its tiny pursuer to and fro through field and thicket. 
 Out of breath and tired at last by such a chase, she sat her 
 down upon a stone beneath an old gnarled beech-tree. 
 As it threw its shade across her burning face, she wiped 
 the perspiration from her forehead, while her little heart 
 went pit-a-pat as if it needs must burst. Before her, perched 
 upon a branch, the bird sat silent. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon by now ; the setting sun was 
 gilding the topmost crests of the distant hills as tho' seeking 
 to save himself by this warm embrace from the death he 
 seemed hastening to. But their faces soon grew pale, and 
 down he sank into a sea of dreams, while long crape-like 
 shadows moved across the darkening earth. The little one 
 wished to go home, that her mother might not grow 
 frightened about her ; but each time she stood up, the bird 
 on the bough began to sing, and it sounded as if he were 
 weeping and crying, until it drew her by force to her seat 
 again. So she picked up her little basket, took out her 
 supper, and listening all the while, began to eat it. The 
 crumbs she strewed around, for the dear little creature's 
 sake ; but it did not seem hungry, and paid no heed to them. 
 The shadows grew longer on the ground ; the patches of 
 light in the wood became smaller and smaller ; whilst aloft 
 in the sky, here and there, a pale star peeped out dim 
 and misty. At last she got up, filled her little basket with 
 sweet-smelling wildflowers to take to her mother, and made 
 
FROM HER TO HIM 337 
 
 ready to go. Then suddenly the bird sang out quite loud 
 and clear : 
 
 Baby mine 
 
 sweet of eyne, 
 
 do not pine. 
 
 Fairies fine 
 
 shall be thine 
 
 where stars aye shine : 
 
 follow, follow me ! 
 The flowers dropped from the child's hands, and she 
 ran after the songster, who no longer seemed so anxious 
 to escape her, but kept quite close, and carolled as he 
 hopped on before her. How pleased she felt to understand 
 his language ! It almost seemed to her that he would 
 perch tamely on her shoulder ere long, and let himself 
 be taken home, and never fly away again. In her mind 
 she already saw her mother's joy at welcoming so rare a 
 guest ; the narrow cabin widened out into a palace, and 
 her quick little heart leapt high at the thought that it 
 would never feel lonely any more. How often had she 
 sat at the slit of a window in the poky little room, and 
 looked out longing for a playmate. Hard work and poverty 
 had held her captive with iron hands ; not for her had 
 been the heedless games of childhood ; and so she had 
 been ripening before her time towards the serious things 
 of life. How briskly now her busy hands would move, if 
 she might listen to the bird's bright singing all the while. 
 
 So sweetly befooled, she followed the teasing little 
 creature as it flew lightly on ahead through the spicy 
 evening air, never guessing how all this wandering to and 
 fro must hurt the poor lassie's little wounded feet. Often 
 did its feathers seem to her of clearest azure, then again 
 dark red like glowing carbuncles, or shining green like 
 emeralds that one may see through; at times even, he 
 
 22 
 
338 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 looked quite black, and only on his breast there gleamed 
 the loveliest tints ! But soon she lost all sense and feeling, 
 and fell exhausted on the wood's soft moss. Deep silence 
 reigned around ; only the rivulet sang in the distance, 
 and the wind lightly toyed with the ruddy gold crowns 
 of the fresh-leafed oak-trees. The bird himself had with- 
 drawn to the thicket, and snugly tucked his head away 
 beneath his wing. 
 
 Then a splendid dream arose in our poor little maiden's 
 soul. She saw the pretty golden stars come down from 
 heaven, as if to play with her ; and as she looked, lo ! 
 they were children like herself and others. Only they had 
 tiny golden wings, and such beautiful big eyes, much more 
 beautiful than even the loveliest children have ; and who- 
 ever looked into them became quite well, no matter what 
 had ailed him ! Some of these children had dazzling deep- 
 blue eyes, like Joy herself when she comes down to men ; 
 others were darker, and seemed both grave and pitiful, 
 like Mercy when she looks on the woe of the miserable. 
 But all of them embraced and danced in wondrous rings, 
 and figures past her understanding, while unseen harmonies 
 made music for it all. Our little girl knew the sounds, 
 had heard them once before, and they made her more 
 happy than tongue can tell ! 
 
 These large-eyed children of the sky had lovely play- 
 things, all made of purest silver, that never broke however 
 carelessly they handled them. Soon one of them came 
 close to her, offered her its toy, and held out its little hand 
 to lead her away. She tried to rise, but all in vain: her 
 limbs felt as heavy as if they had been bound to the earth 
 with chains ; she could stir neither hand nor foot. " Give me 
 thy little wing," begged she softly, and the child-angel 
 loosed one from its shoulder there and then, to give her. 
 Already her two little hands were stretched out to take it, 
 
FROM HER TO HIM 339 
 
 her eyes were turned toward Heaven : it stood wide open — 
 glory and splendour streamed down from a thousand 
 sparkling suns, while hymns of God resounded to eternal 
 blessedness and everlasting peace. " Ah ! " she sighed, " Up 
 there ! how happy I should be up there, with all the saints ! 
 But mother would grieve if I did not come home ; and 
 who would there be to take care of her, and keep her 
 when she grows old?" A tear fell from her eyes, hot 
 and heavy ; then — she gave the little wing back. Heaven, 
 angels, singing, all had gone, and sobbing she awoke. 
 
 On the ground lay the little basket, its withered flowers 
 overturned. In haste she picked it up, and ran off as 
 fast as her feet would carry her. Without thinking, she 
 struck the pathway to the cottage. A sudden rustling 
 among the bushes in front made her heart beat high ; — alas ! 
 it was only a grey sparrow, whose simple twitter chirped 
 its morning-hymn to the Creator ! 
 
 The Swan 
 
 The apple-trees were white. With snow ? Well, with 
 flower-snow ! God looked down at His work, as on the 
 seventh day of Creation, and found it good. The azure- 
 blue Heaven gazed on the sweet-smelling flower-decked 
 Earth, and a happy smile came over his face as he saw 
 his faithful likeness far below in the depths of the sea. 
 He felt mightily drawn toward the cool water, like Narcissus 
 to his never-to-be-won Beloved, and he could not leave 
 off looking at his image, hanging over it with endless longing 
 and pain. Often does he weep from deep emotion, and 
 his tear-drops trouble the beloved picture in the depths. 
 Then furious anger seizes him, the sapphire pillars of the 
 vault of heaven tremble, terrible furrows gash his glorious 
 
340 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 face, his eyes flash fire, and the firmament rumbles with 
 the thunder of his voice. Then he casts his nets of gold 
 toward the desired one, and in a thousand gleaming hues 
 a golden bridge arises o'er the waters. 
 
 At even, when the golden stars and silver moon adorn 
 the sky's dim garment, the watchful sun shuts close his 
 eye, that he may not behold himself in all his majesty ; for 
 were that possible, 'twould be the end of the poor earth ; 
 no power could hold him back from her, and his fierce 
 ardour must destroy her. So, never have they met ; they 
 have but looked at one another, and each has borne the 
 other's secrets in their breast. And that is why so many 
 a gift of Heaven lies hidden in the deep, deep sea. Seldom 
 is a mortal told about them, because he is a chatterbox ; 
 only the swans are in the nixies' confidence as well as man's, 
 and what they know thereof they trust it to a song. But 
 the song only tells it to such as ought to know it ; to all 
 the rest it says just nothing. But I once knew a swan, 
 and from him I've gotten all I know. 
 
 The Lord of the Worlds once sent the swan to guard 
 that likeness in the deep, to say and sing of His longing 
 and love. His lordly plumage He formed from the incense 
 of the divine spirit, from morning-fragrance and sea-foam. 
 Proudly arching his dazzling neck, the swan glides up the 
 silver stream, and many a lovely song flows from his breast. 
 His hurrying foot ploughs furrows in the crystal surface, 
 and friendly little ripples gaily dance around him, skipping 
 and foaming in their teasing play. When their pranks 
 become too rough for him, he broadens out his mighty 
 wings above the waters, the wavelets quake back in their 
 terror, and the god's Beloved trembles in the depth. 
 
 One day he saw a child upon the shore. It was building 
 little huts of sand, as busily as if its play were very serious 
 work. First he looked at the child, then at her game. The 
 
Prom her to him 3'4'f 
 
 little one would not let that disturb her in the slightest, 
 nor even seemed to notice him. Once their eyes did meet — 
 but then she went on playing as if quite alone. That look 
 had sunk itself in both their hearts, though, and clove so 
 firm that never could they pluck it out. 
 
 From that time forth the swan came often to the spot 
 where the little one played on the shore ; he found more 
 and more pleasure in the child's innocent ways and simple 
 charm. Ere long he could hardly tear himself away, and 
 only with a sigh would he return at evening to his lonely 
 watch upon the darksome waters, then hasten back at earliest 
 dawn to that dear spot to which his soul seemed chained. 
 The maiden scarcely wondered at his presence ; she fancied, 
 so it must be and never could be else. Had she not seen 
 the golden sun ascend each day, that sank from sight on 
 yester-eve ? Did not the sky, whose features lowering clouds 
 had almost turned into a stranger, yet always clear again 
 to friendly gaze upon the earth? Unsullied joy beamed 
 from her deep-blue eyes, and her unfearing little heart would 
 rock itself in sweet content. 
 
 The swan oft brought her sea-shells filled with ivory 
 foam, or purple corals, glistening roses of the deep; at 
 parting he would often leave a snow-white plume behind ; 
 and she would deck herself with them and clap her little 
 hands for joy to see how fine she looked. But when he 
 told her of the marvels he had seen on distant journeys — 
 the ways and customs of strange peoples, — proud cities 
 rising from the sea, — the colours of all countries rippling 
 from swift masts, — the heaven's beauty and that glorious 
 image of it in the deep, whose guardian he himself had 
 been elect — then, then she would forget her play, her eyes 
 would hang upon his lips, and to her it seemed that all 
 these wonders were arising, from her own child-soul, and 
 she were roaming with him on the billows' glassy paths. 
 
34 s 'WAGNER TO MATH1LDE WESENDONCK 
 
 He shewed her next the pure and noble pearl, trans'- 
 figured symbol of dumb griefs, and taught her all the 
 difference twixt true and false. And then she grew more 
 trustful toward him, stole her arm round his white neckj 
 stroked down its glossy feathers, and nestled her wee head 
 beneath his wing's soft down. All at once he felt as if 
 he thus must carry her away, and never let her leave him 
 any more. How wearisome the cold far-off Beloved of 
 the Sky appeared to him ; how foolish now, for aye to 
 guard her! "O," in his impious arrogance he cried to the 
 All-ruler, "Come down from Thy golden throne, come 
 down to men, and learn from them of love and happiness ! 
 Thy bride is cold and feelingless as Thou ; guard her 
 Thyself, since none will rob Thee of her ! " 
 
 Hurrying breezes sped his words aloft to the great 
 Father of all worlds. In burning wrath He hurled His 
 thunderbolt against the dauntless heart of His best-loved 
 singer. Whereon the air grew full of wailing, earth 
 shuddered, and the sun hid his weeping face beneath 
 the sea. 
 
 The swan let fall his dying head on the maiden's lap, 
 and singing he passed away. Dyed red with his blood 
 were her bosom and cheek, as she tenderly bent over 
 him, and their souls became one in the ebb of life's last 
 breath. 
 
 When the Lord of Creation beheld what He had done, 
 grief seized Him for his favourite. He sent His messengers 
 — an angel-host — to gather up the swan's white feathers 
 to trim His garment's starry hem. The child was never 
 seen again. 
 
 $1 
 
FROM HER TO HIM 343 
 
 Her Letters 
 1. 
 
 I have pitied you so often in this hot weather, for it 
 must indeed be stifling in Paris. Perhaps you are taking 
 refuge again in the Bois de Boulogne, only one has to pay 
 for even that by some exertion. It is really beautiful 
 now on this green hill, and the moonlight nights are 
 lovely past compare. It is long since we had such a 
 summer ; it really makes one feel quite superstitious, and 
 almost afraid to go to bed lest everything should have 
 changed before the morning. 
 
 Last week we made a little excursion with the children 
 to Baden-Weiler, the ancestral home of the Princes of 
 Zehringen. It is an hour by rail from Basle, and already 
 bears quite the physiognomy of the little Baden land 
 below ; fine nut-trees, woodlands, hills, pastures, and in 
 the distance the silver ribbon of the Rhine. I suppose 
 that will be something like your future home; pleasant, 
 quiet and lonesome, I almost fear too lonesome, as far as 
 concerns the society of refined, intellectual, artistic people ; 
 there Paris spoils one. Lessing is a taciturn, almost over- 
 modest creature, whose strongest passion is hunting ; 
 Schirmer is simply primitive ; the Grand Duke ? — but you 
 must know him better than I. Our German princesses 
 are mostly brought up in very homely fashion ; they learn 
 to keep house, that is to say, to eke out their pocket- 
 money, and touch us by their simple unassuming manners. 
 The Grand Duchess, however, has attractive features. Her 
 portrait hangs on the wall of the Roman Bath at Baden- 
 Weiler, together with the Duke's, in a gold frame ; whilst 
 the former reigning couple have to content themselves with 
 a plain black one, hung in a corner. Perhaps in fifty years 
 or so the young people may be advanced in their turn 
 to the black frame, while a new star shines in the gold 
 
344 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 one, and the grandparents have utterly vanished. It was 
 quite a picture of the age. 
 
 Last Saturday there was a concert in the Frau Munster- 
 Kirche ; Papa Heim conducted, but was unequal to his task. 
 Schmidt of Vienna sang an air from the Creation ; a grand 
 voice, that stays clear and distinct even in the softest 
 passages ; he must make a splendid Konig Heinrich 
 [Lohengrin]. His powerful physique also pleased me, and 
 it seems at least made for endurance, for he is eternally 
 singing, now here, now there ; but his programme is terrible, 
 calculated for none but the most commonplace audience. 
 A portion of Gluck's Orpheus and Euridice was given, and 
 greatly moved me. Most lovely is that passage where 
 Orpheus goes down into Hades, and the spirits of the nether 
 world thunder out at him their cries of No ! No ! while 
 the harp-strains glide so sweetly and softly between them, 
 teaching us to trust in the ultimate triumph of the beautiful. 
 I should very much like to hear the whole opera some 
 day. 
 
 Frau Dr. Wille came into town for the concert, and 
 spent the night with us. She gave me many kind messages 
 for you, and I presented her with the Rhein-Gold. Sunday 
 morning we breakfasted on the north terrace and chatted a 
 great deal about you. Keller, Dr. Wille, Kochly and his 
 wife came to lunch, also old Fraulein Ulrich, whom you may 
 perhaps remember ; we are very fond of the old lady, with 
 her original ways. — How I chatter! But perhaps it may 
 cheer my friend up, or even recall old times to him. He 
 knows a great deal, but thank God he does not know what 
 grey hairs mean yet ; ebb and flow, light and shade, that is 
 youth. A greybeard has no moods such as you describe in 
 your last letter,* and do not we know that they come and 
 
 * See the signature of no. 118, page 272. 
 
FROM HER TO HIM 345 
 
 go? That is my comfort. As I sit here on the balcony 
 and write, the mountains are glowing rose-red in the 
 sunset ; would I could fix a reflection of their tender gleam 
 on this little page, and waft it into your soul ! 
 
 I am so glad you are going to Weimar ; for all that, 
 Liszt is the one man nearest to you ; do not let him fall 
 from his place in your heart. I always remember a lovely 
 remark of his : " I value people by what they are to 
 Wagner." As for Vienna, we will see if fortune favours us : 
 at least it is pleasant to think of. I have just heard for 
 the first time from the Princess [C. Wittgenstein] from 
 Rome. She frequents none but the Nazzarenes there, 
 the Christian, churchy painters. That serves her purpose, 
 which she is carrying through with iron resolution, altho' 
 she must be frightfully ennuy6 with it all. Apart from 
 Cornelius and Overbeck there is not much pleasure to be 
 found amongst them ; of course I am referring to living 
 artists. 
 
 And now to beg a favour, which you shall grant me when 
 occasion allows. I have had a little photographic album 
 given to me, and have already several likenesses of friends in 
 it, carte-de-visite size like my own ; in a few seconds one 
 can get a dozen taken. Now of course I possess your large 
 photograph, but the little book would so like to have one 
 too, and the place for it remains vacant ; you will not deny 
 the little book its whim ? It will be very patient, and the 
 Child will be patient too, and not worry the Master with 
 writing for it ; he must only do it when he wants to, for if 
 he always consulted the Child I fear he would have enough 
 to do. Meanwhile she is trying to harden herself by 
 strengthening baths, but they are somewhat exhausting, and 
 seem to steal away the little strength remaining to her. 
 Nevertheless a good result is promised. 
 
 Now it has grown dusk, the mountains stand pale and 
 
346 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 lifeless over there, and all is very still. Peace, Peace, may 
 the blessedest peace descend on your heart also ! 
 
 Your 
 
 Mathilde Wesendonck. 
 June 24. 61. 
 
 Next morning. Last week the Pasha of Egypt came 
 up here, and afterwards went on to the Biirkli terrace, where 
 they played the Pilgrims' chorus and Evening-star a few 
 minutes later. The sounds came across to me quite plainly. 
 — Sulzer is back at Winterthur, making a pause in his cure. 
 While he was looking at the pictures I was doubtful about 
 his eyesight ; but later on, in the garden, when he wanted 
 to distinguish some very large flowers on an evergreen, 
 he was obliged to use double glasses. I was very sorry, 
 for the flowers are light blue, and stand out most distinctly 
 from the glossy green of the leaves. — Now one more good 
 wish ! Is this not a real gossipy letter ! 
 
 2. 
 
 Your last lines made me feel very sad ; * for a long time 
 I could not answer them. The thought of our meeting in 
 Vienna had grown so familiar, that at last I felt perfectly 
 sure of it. To tell you the truth, for ever so long I did 
 not believe in it ; and now when faith had come at last, 
 I have to give it up again ! What we leave in the hands of 
 the future, is taken from us for the moment, perhaps for 
 ever ; the moment is our very own, but who can tell what 
 the dim Mother hides in her dark bosom? — Foreseeing the 
 difficulties that might confront the birth of a Tristan, 
 it was chiefly our meeting that lay in my mind ; and 
 
 * A letter, now missing, that must have come between nos. 123 and 
 124. [Moreover, Frau Wesendonck herself clearly sent two letters be- 
 tween this and the one last-printed ; see pp. 275 and 281. — Tr.J 
 
FRONT HER TO HIM 347 
 
 'had We known that you would only stay such a short 
 tame in Vienna, we should certainly have come sooner. 
 It was not to be ! 
 
 But now I cannot rest. We will go and waylay the 
 Mother where she still is awake ; Otto and I intend start- 
 ing for Venice on Monday. We shall not stay there long, 
 however ; in a fortnight, or three weeks at most, we shall 
 be back again. It will strengthen, refresh, and stimulate us, 
 before the winter sets in, as I hoped Vienna would have done. 
 For, even if life does appear an idyl here and there, a proper 
 gaze would soon find out the material for tragedy ; * reciprocal 
 short-sightedness protects mankind from this discovery. 
 Then "seeing" is painless in itself, but "being" always 
 painful ; you worshipper of Schopenhauer, you really should 
 know that ! It follows that the people who see much and 
 are nothing, are certainly the happiest ! And " to be happy " 
 is the main thing, is it not ? To be great, to be good, to be 
 lovely, does not satisfy man ; he wants also to be happy, — 
 strange caprice ! It seems to me that if one were either 
 of those three, he would never need the hollow, toilsome 
 apparatus of the other ! Yet, what do I know of it ? 
 
 There have been great changes among the notables of 
 this place. Gottfried Keller has been made Town Clerk 
 and taken possession of Reg.-R. Sulzer's old quarters in the 
 Chancellery. Thus the poor mother of the "griinen 
 Heinrich" has lived to taste the joy of seeing her son a 
 recipient of outward honours and dignities as well ! 
 
 Moleschott, moreover, has been called to the University 
 of Turin as Professor of his faculty. His life here had been 
 entirely forlorn of late, and almost friendless. 
 
 * This clause is of great significance in connection with the close 
 of Wagner's letter of two months hence, page 288 ; whilst the next few 
 sentences are obviously ironical, and meant to convey the fact that the 
 writer herself is not happy. — Tr. 
 
348 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK: 
 
 And last but not least [in English] your Herwegh has" 
 received a summons to Naples, as Professor of " Comparative 
 Literature." It was high time, for his affairs were perilously- 
 near to utter ruin. Perhaps he may retrieve himself through 
 an honourable occupation so suited to his favourite pursuits. 
 
 The worthies here are shaking their heads over the levity 
 of de Sanctis ; but for my part I am glad that a few 
 well-sounding names should get noised abroad for once : 
 it is such a very rare thing in Germany. What is sounded 
 there, rings mostly false, and only those whom people do 
 not talk about are worth the trouble. 
 
 What will be the next tidings from my friend ? I share 
 
 with him the chagrin of his latest disappointment. Whither 
 
 will the Fates lead him next ? Will a time ever come, when 
 
 he can take a rest on our green hill? Let us hope on, 
 
 altho' it seems so hopeless ! Thanks for the photograph, 
 
 and sincere affection ! 
 
 Mathilde Wesendonck. 
 Octob. 23. 61. 
 
 3. 
 
 I have just been reading the sketch of the Meistersinger.* 
 I think it excellent, and hope you will make great use of it ; 
 it is full of subtle touches which may save you much extra 
 labour. My blessing on the resumption of this work ! I 
 rejoice at it as at a festival, for in Venice I hardly dared 
 to cherish such a hope. 
 
 You have brought to naught one silent Christmas treat 
 I had promised myself. You were to have received a letter 
 on my birthday — now it lies in Vienna ! A little box, con- 
 taining sundry trifles we had happened to speak about, was 
 to have taken you by surprise on Christmas day : I had 
 
 * That of 1845 ; see pages 290 and 364. Since letter " 2 " Wagner had 
 paid his visit to Venice. — Tr. 
 
FROM HER TO HIM 349 
 
 prepared all this with so much pleasure, working at it with 
 such haste and eagerness, in the secret fear lest it should 
 not be ready until too late ; and now I shall probably receive 
 it back from Vienna ere long! — 
 
 The translation of Cervantes is a most valuable find. 
 I conclude that the manuscript is beyond suspicion ? It 
 would certainly be difficult to imitate Cervantes plausibly 
 [cf. p. 286]. 
 
 Thank you so much for your kind letter [no. 124], which 
 at least brought your handwriting back to me, altho' I 
 could not quite recognise my friend's usual exalted mood. 
 
 And now receive sincerest wishes and regards 
 
 From your 
 
 Mathilde Wesendonck. 
 
 Decbr. 25. 61. 
 
 4. 
 
 I have been dipping into the biography of Schopenhauer,* 
 and felt indescribably attracted by his personality, which has 
 so much that is akin to your own. An old longing came 
 back to me, to look into that inspiredly beauteous eye 
 for once — that deep mirror of Nature which is the common 
 heritage of genius. I recalled to mind our personal com- 
 mune ; before me I saw the whole rich world you yourself 
 had unlocked to the childlike mind ; my gaze clung with 
 rapture to the magic edifice ; higher and higher throbbed 
 my heart with fervent gratitude ; and I felt that nothing 
 of all this could ever-more be lost to me! As long as 
 breath is in me, I shall aspire and strive on ; and that is 
 your doing. Schopenhauer himself you were not to know, 
 and your tone-creations were never unlocked to him : What 
 does that matter? — he would smilingly exclaim to-day — 
 
 * W. Gwinner, " Schopenhauer aus persSnlichera Umgang dargestellt," 
 Leipzig 1862, 
 
35° WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 We two belong to the Whole ; an eye that looks on loneli- 
 ness is our [joint earthly] lot ! 
 
 The book contains an excellent portrait, in which the 
 crass assertion of photography is beautified and transfigured 
 by the spiritual might of the man himself. 
 
 Some day when you leave Paris to come nearer to me, 
 I shall enjoy sharing a book with you, at least now and 
 then, without having to trouble you to go to the embassy 
 for it * My poor little box has come back to me, and I 
 have set it dolefully aside. When once you settle down 
 somewhere, I shall certainly smuggle things into your house 
 again, as surely as the goblins pursued the poor peasantf 
 — How fares it with the health — and with the work? 
 
 Yours in her heart ! 
 
 Mathilde Wesendonck. 
 Jan. 1 6. 62. 
 
 5. 
 
 The winged lion on your desk has woken up ; % spirit 
 and strength are his symbol. He shakes the troubled dream 
 from his limbs, and tosses his mane ; that gladdens me, 
 and I will think of nothing else. Let what comes from 
 without be left to Fate ; within dwells the foe, in one's own 
 breast. — 
 
 Scarcely ever, so it seems to me, has the fountain of 
 your poetry gushed forth with greater copiousness and 
 originality, than this time. Also, it is but a kind of justice 
 to yourself, to give that indestructible deep Humour, so 
 
 * " Ohne Sie auf das Ministeiium zu bemuhen " — clearly the Austrian 
 embassy in Paris, official residence of the Metternichs (cf. p. 285), to which 
 there is reason to believe that Zurich packets had been addressed during 
 the past twelvemonth or so. — Tr. 
 
 t Seepages 20, 74, 80 and 118. 
 
 X A Venetian letter-weight with the Lion of San Marco,, a present 
 from Frau Wesendonck. 
 
FROM HER TO HIM 351 
 
 considerable an ingredient in your character, its due pre- 
 ponderance for once. Together with his brother Amor, 
 the little boy-god has come down from the heights of 
 Olympus to the human heart ; and only where the one 
 was glad to stay, would the other enter in. 
 
 I feel as though I had climbed a high hill, and were gazing 
 at a wondrous evening-glow, the Hymn of all Creation ! 
 
 Greeting and farewell ! 
 Your 
 
 Mathilde Wesendonck. 
 [Feb.*] 19. 62. 
 
 6. 
 
 I knew it well : dreams do come true [p. 305]. The more 
 reality withdraws from us, the more do dreams keep watch. 
 May Heaven still send you many such a dream ! 
 
 Your 
 
 Mathilde Wesendonck. 
 Decbr. 23. 62. 
 
 7. 
 
 Lay these leaves among the others in the green portfolio ! 
 I will write shortly ; in the meantime I let myself be nursed 
 and cared for, like a sick child. My kind regards to the 
 doctor [Standhartner ?].t 
 
 Your 
 
 Mathilde Wesendonck. 
 
 July 3- 63. 
 
 * The German edition gives the month as " Jan.," but that cannot well 
 be, as the letter most plainly refers to the completed Meistersinger poem, 
 not merely to fragments thereof. That it must also have been followed 
 by a more detailed criticism, I have shewn on page 300.— Tr. 
 
35 2 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 7a.* 
 
 Mir erkoren — \Ckosen for me — 
 
 Mir verloren — Riven from me — 
 
 Ewig geliebtes Herz. Ever beloved heart. 
 
 Cf. Tristan u. Isolde.] 
 
 Hast heard the nightingales' enraptured singing, 
 while o'er the trees her garlands May was flinging ; 
 but when sad Autumn doubtful days is bringing, 
 no little bird dare set its song a-ringing. 
 The mountain-peaks that high as heaven are winging, 
 their chill renunciant silence them enringing, 
 flush red, thou seest, in mute despair close-clinging, 
 when nears the goddess in sun-chariot swinging. 
 O question not, reluctant answer wringing ! 
 Much have I borne of fortune's bitter slinging, 
 but This my lips' close lock shall ne'er be springing — ■ 
 'tis why my songs so sorrowfully I'm stringing. 
 
 What chalice holds the radiant shine 
 of all the great gold sun ? 
 
 And thou so small, O heart of mine, 
 yet wouldst confine 
 earth's joy of all, in one ? 
 
 Sweet love's infinity 
 shut in a cell, — 
 
 and heaven's eternity 
 by life's dream tell ? 
 
 * It is to be assumed, of course, that these verses were written at 
 various dates within the past eighteen months or so (e.g. the one 
 un-sent for his birthday), though all despatched together. Their printed 
 arrangement, also, may not entirely correspond with their order of origin ; 
 yet the " nightingale " poem would seem, from its contents, to be really 
 among the earliest of the series. — W. A. E, 
 
FROM HER TO HIM 353 
 
 In the heart that is sad and weary 
 there sobs a depth of woe, 
 as bitter and black and dreary 
 as the sea, in its deep, deep flow. 
 
 And sighs like the winds are moaning 
 now here, and now there, o'er the floods, 
 where memory's light, atoning, 
 as tender as evening broods. 
 
 While hope like a boat is sailing, 
 by longing drawn back to shore, 
 amid the wild breakers quailing, 
 she fareth home never more. 
 
 When dark grief with overshadowing pinion 
 fearsome on thy trembling spirit sinks, 
 and a-weary of the ever-changing, 
 thy strest soul its every chain unlinks ; 
 from thine eye Illusion's veil has fallen, 
 and thine Eden flies from thee like foam ; 
 while from graves the pallid ghosts are stalking, 
 and things real seem but dreams a-roam ; 
 all existence fades to empty show, 
 Being figures but as Not-being's foe — 
 real alone thy heart-throbs then remain, 
 with their e'er-affirming sobs of pain. 
 
 On the 22nd May 63. 
 Dwells a soul both strong and fair 
 prisoned in the blossom there, 
 that with all her being's care 
 lives and weaves in sunlit air ; 
 
 23 
 
354 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 that with ever tireless strife 
 one thing seeks — a fair flower-life ; 
 that, altho' the golden sun 
 thousand sister heads hath kissed, 
 envies not each happy one, 
 flowers toward the light she missed : 
 him alone her fair face turns to, 
 him alone her sweet breath yearns to ; 
 and — if he forget her quite — 
 shuts her gentle eyes and light, 
 lays her little flower-head low, 
 breathes one sigh — grows silent so. 
 
 Heart, what woe couldst thou endure, 
 wert but as a flower pure ? 
 
 A deep deep grave I fashioned 
 
 and laid my love therein, 
 
 with all my hope and yearning, 
 
 tears that mine eyes were burning, 
 
 joy, grief, and all akin. 
 
 And when they each slept soundly, 
 
 I laid myself therein. 
 
 8. 
 
 You can well believe, Friend, how heavily your momentous 
 letter [no. 138] has weighed upon my heart to-day ! But I do 
 not grudge the cares you thus prepare me, for I most gladly 
 suffer with you ; my whole nature feels ennobled by per- 
 mission to share your griefs. However mournfully these 
 written symbols gaze at me when I ask them for their 
 meaning, yet how dear and friendly is their glance when 
 I remind myself they come from him, and were written 
 
FROM HER TO HIM 355 
 
 just for thee ! Friend, I am afraid you might say much 
 harm to me, and I should still be fond of you ! — 
 
 You " joy-unholpen man" (" freudehelfeloser Mann") — 
 an expression I noticed once in Walther v. d. Vogelweide,* 
 and promptly in my secret heart applied to you ; whoever 
 could help you, would indeed be fortunate ! My head swims 
 when I think of all the misery which haunts you ; with the 
 exception of a few fine moments like that perilous " good 
 one" you describe to me so charmingly [p. 319], and which 
 fall to your lot more than to anyone else's, Fate still remains 
 your debtor. I know this, and grieve for it with all my 
 soul, yet can find no empty word of consolation, because 
 I have no hope it ever can be otherwise. I need not tell 
 you how terrible it is to me, to see you thus hunted round 
 the world for the sake of giving concerts ; were the sky 
 itself to re-echo the crowd's acclamations, it could never 
 make up for your sacrifice. I follow your so-called " triumphs " 
 with bleeding heart, and turn almost bitter when people 
 hold them up to me as something to be thankful for. All 
 I feel then, is how little people really know, that is to say, 
 understand you ; and — then I also feel — that I do know — 
 and love you ! — But how little can one person do, against 
 the thousand-headed monster that calls itself the world ; 
 one might shed one's heart's blood to its last drop, and yet 
 not win one tiny morsel of affection from it. So it is, and 
 so no doubt it was before us. 
 
 The portfolio and lamp are not to cumber your Asyl ; 
 they shall become "Wanderers" like yourself, when once 
 you leave it. But, supposing you wished to get rid of this 
 Asyl later on, would it be so very difficult to do so? 
 Have you bought, or merely rented it? And do you 
 not think that a residence so close to Vienna, even if only 
 
 * Lachmann's edition, p. 54, 1. 37. 
 
35 6 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 for sound of the thing, is useful and desirable for you in 
 artistic respects ? My heart, indeed, is ever calling you 
 back to Switzerland ; but then this heart of mine is 
 egoistic, and ought not to be listened to. Putting that 
 first one aside, would an Asyl in Switzerland be out of 
 the question? Until now my tears have guarded that 
 against other inmates ; only I despair of being able to do 
 more, for the immediate future. 
 
 With regard to musical conditions at Zurich, you would 
 find a nucleus in the Orchestral Union there, i.e. a 
 permanent band of 30 strong which furnishes the service 
 of the theatre, the highly respectable Musik-Gesellschaft, 
 and Garden-concerts without number, under a conductor 
 named Fichtelberger, who perspiring manages to beat a 
 Beethovenian Symphony to pieces. Papa Heim, who formerly 
 belonged to the malcontents (be it said en parenthese), has 
 since been elected to the Committee, and is so proud of 
 his new dignity that he plays the paternal monarch, i.e. 
 is pleased with everything. Besides this society, the 
 Heisterhagen and Eschmann Quartet still flourishes, in 
 which a young man named Hilpert, apparently quite 
 musical, has taken the place of Schleich. Should you 
 seriously propose to favour us with a musical performance 
 conducted by yourself, I would suggest that you have a 
 nice long rest on the green hill, allow yourself to be taken 
 care of by the Child, and then and there discuss the 
 future. 
 
 You tell me nothing about your work, except that the 
 portfolio is filling up. And I am to let you drink your 
 tea out of strange teacups? Cruel man, to grudge me the 
 pleasure of sending you a new tea-set! Do you not know 
 that my only consolation for such gloomy letters is the 
 power of satisfying your little wants? You might leave 
 me this one satisfaction ! 
 
FROM HER TO HIM 357 
 
 When I am back in Zurich I will get a little dog 
 and train it ; and then, when it has grown very fond of me 
 you shall have it — nicht wahr? 
 
 I leave early on Sunday, perhaps for a few days yet 
 at Homburg, where Otto is taking a " Silence-cure," and 
 we hope to be home again toward the end of next week. 
 If Switzerland should prove beyond your reach in course 
 of the next two or three months, we will come to Vienna 
 or wherever you like. I will not write about your accident, 
 except to say Thank God your life was spared ! 
 
 It has grown late, and I am writing in haste — but I 
 could not stay silent, it made me too miserable. May 
 you be feeling brighter when you receive this ! And now 
 my sincerest remembrances ; I am and shall remain your 
 friend. We will loyally stand fast. 
 
 Your 
 
 Mathilde Wesendonck. 
 
 [Schwalbach] August 9* 63. 
 
 To share each other's joys and sorrows, is still a 
 blessing left us ! 
 
 Septbr. 23. 63. 
 Otto has been laid up for three weeks with rheumatic 
 fever and inflammation of the muscles, and I am nursing 
 him day and night, without, however, having gained much 
 ground as yet. His condition is most painful, and com- 
 plicated by many ups and downs — also, I am afraid, very 
 lingering. Griesinger will be called in consultation tomorrow, 
 and I am hoping great things from his skill. Under these 
 
 * Probably this is meant for "19," as the 9th of August, 1863, was 
 itself a Sunday (see line 4 above); — Tr. 
 
358 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 circumstances you will understand, Friend, why I was 
 silent. The misery of your state of mind chilled my 
 blood itself; I felt that I was helpless there. I was to 
 tell myself forsooth, that all the gifts of Nature, even the 
 most glorious, are squandered if uncrowned by empty 
 external success ; that they are nugatory in and for 
 themselves, and he who owns them above others, possesses 
 but the right to greater wretchedness ! It made me almost 
 bitter, to think you would have me believe that; my 
 religion and my belief (which really are one and the same) 
 are vowed to nothing save the Thing in itself. I cannot 
 understand at all, how anybody can at once scorn and 
 seek what people call success, i.e. applause. Only the 
 sage, methinks, who asks nothing from the world, should 
 venture to despise it ; the man who uses it, becomes its 
 accomplice by mere contact with it, and can no longer be 
 its judge. You are at once a knower and accomplice in 
 the last degree : you rush at every new illusion, apparently 
 to sweep from your breast the disappointment of its pre- 
 decessors ; and yet no one knows better than yourself, 
 that it never can or will be. Friend, how is this to end? 
 Are not fifty years' experience enough, and should the 
 moment not arrive at last, when you will come to full agree- 
 ment with yourself? — 
 
 To-day I have received your welcome message,* which 
 has done me infinite good, and I now can pluck up heart 
 again to believe in your coming. What sincere joy it 
 will give me, to prepare you a nice quiet rest ! In 
 Switzerland the autumn days are often very beautiful, and 
 even in winter it is most pleasant in this home of ours. 
 Should Otto's illness drag on longer than expected — which 
 
 * Between this sentence and the last, she clearly had received his 
 letter of the 20th.— Tr. 
 
FROM HER TO HIM 359 
 
 Heaven forbid !— would it perhaps be possible for you to 
 keep the Christmas holidays with us? Meanwhile I hope 
 with all my heart, both for your sake and our own, that it 
 [i.e. your coming] may be earlier. 
 
 Greeting and love 
 from Your 
 
 Mathilde Wesendonck. 
 
 10. 
 
 Your " yesterday's," to which you refer, unfortunately 
 has not reached me, but I thank you for yours of to-day. 
 [See p. 324.] 
 
 I am hoping to see you soon in Zurich, whether before 
 or after the Carlsruhe performances. Our patient is getting 
 better day by day ; still, we are entering the 8th week 
 now, and his strength returns but slowly. Nevertheless 
 we are hoping that this crisis may have paved the way 
 for a beneficial change in Otto's general health, which long 
 had left much to be desired ; and in that we are supported 
 by the verdict of the doctors. 
 
 Now, auf Wiederseken in good earnest, and greetings 
 from all the heart of 
 
 Your 
 Mathilde Wesendonck. 
 
 Octob. 20. 63. 
 
 11. 
 
 Octob. 27. 63. 
 
 Dear Friend, 
 I am more and more possessed by the thought that 
 we soon shall see you in our midst, and it will be a real 
 sabbath of the heart to me, to make your stay as pleasant 
 as possible. I believe our home contains the elements of 
 a familiar fellowship, without gSne or other sacrifice for 
 
360 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 individuals : la vie est une science, says a clever Frenchman, 
 a science that has to be studied. At times a calm comes 
 o'er the sea, the heavens shew no cloud ; and so in human 
 life are intervals when Fate seems to be holding its breath. 
 May such an interval be ours ! 
 
 What I so sincerely wish and try for, is such a very 
 little thing that perhaps it will only draw a smile from 
 you. It is at least to see you with us once a-year, and 
 so at home that every nook and cranny in the house is 
 quite familiar, and the children don't grow strangers to you. 
 I have constantly striven to keep fresh in their memory 
 your former living with us,, and to this day the children 
 only know the Asyl by the name of Uncle Wagner's garden. 
 The idea of seeing it fall into strange hands had long 
 distressed me, but I am at last beginning to feel safe 
 about that ; for the little house has now been included with 
 the rest, and is treated as belonging to the larger plot by 
 way of kitchen-gardens and the like ; and again, because 
 part of the lower storey has been converted into Carl's 
 schoolroom and his tutor's room. In this way the chalet 
 comes under my special care, and I have been given the 
 duty of guarding it from decay or dilapidation. I need 
 hardly tell you that even this affords me a sort of melancholy 
 pleasure ; you yourself know only too well what a solace 
 the heart seeks in such things, — things which in themselves 
 are nothing, and the crowd so readily calls "useless," yet 
 where all is of weight to the heart. That ever retains its 
 ideal, in which the world has neither part nor lot ; it opens 
 to a golden key, and has vanished when the world imagines 
 it has locked it fast. 
 
 I do hope I shall soon hear about you and your plans ! 
 The lovely iridescent autumn days are over now, and frosty 
 friend Winter stands without the door ; within, however, 
 all grows warm and bright. Otto's recovery goes on as 
 
FROM HER TO HIM 36 1 
 
 fast as we could wish, and I hope the last traces of his illness 
 will soon have disappeared entirely. Keep up your courage 
 also, and hold in affectionate heart 
 
 Your 
 
 Mathilde Wesendonck. 
 
 12. 
 
 To the Black Horse at Prague I send you a kind 
 greeting : I read your brochure yesterday, and could not 
 help laughing, it seemed to me such utter irony [cf. p. 325]. 
 Be sure you send me from there the programme of your 
 performances ; the last thing which reached me from Prague 
 bore the motto of the Faust-symphony* Much in human 
 life is doomed to oblivion, very little is unforgetable, but 
 according to that little is determined the whole worth of 
 existence itself. " To be, or not to be," is the question 
 here also, and the cross is ever laid on the " to be." 
 
 I would very gladly come to Carlsruhe, but Otto's 
 strength is not quite re-established ; he can bear so little 
 yet, that we avoid all excitement. Nevertheless, perhaps 
 it may be possible between this and the 14th.; he displays a 
 wish for it himself. 
 
 And now my sincerest regards to you, and prepare 
 yourself for the green portfolio ; I hope we shall succeed 
 in providing you with quiet. If you should care to bring 
 one of your flock with you, such as Biilow or Cornelius, 
 he will be equally welcome. I trust the green hill will 
 grow dear to you once more ! 
 
 Your 
 
 Mathilde Wesendonck. 
 
 Sunday Evening 
 
 [November 1 (?) 1863]. 
 
 * Meaning " overture," which had been played there last February ; 
 in 1855 he had rejected the idea of dedicating it to herself, on account of 
 this same depressing "motto." — Tr. 
 
362 WAGNER TO MATHELDE WESENDONCK 
 
 13. 
 
 Every scrap of your news, beloved Friend, is a thought 
 from you to me, and as such, the dearest greeting my heart 
 could desire ; so, many thanks for each communication, 
 however short [cf. p. 326]. Between us, indeed, it needs but 
 a token now, as it were a visible bond to lead us through 
 life, in presence of the infinity of that world-of-feeling 
 sto which we both belong. The weft of the mysterious 
 weaver who intertwined the threads of our mutual fate is 
 not to be unravelled, but only to be torn asunder ; " Wisst 
 Ihr, wie das ward ! — " * 
 
 I understand the gloom, the exhaustion you are feeling, 
 and know what it must cost you to go to Russia. Nowhere 
 -can I find rescue or counsel, alas ! for, altho' I wildly 
 rack my brains, no light will come ; so I would rather 
 be silent, than try to comfort you with empty words of 
 hope in which I have no belief myself. It is humanity's 
 most mournful lot, to recognise an ill without the power 
 to root it up ; 'tis born with us, and like a leprous malady 
 we pass it on against our will. 
 
 It was a pleasure to me to hear that you had met 
 Frau v. Bissing [Frau waie's sister] at Lowenberg and Breslau ; 
 blessed are those who do good upon earth ! They are in 
 truth the only blessed! — Our friend [Frau Wille?] has 
 just left me ; she stayed the night here, and we chatted of 
 *ie'er-to-be-forgotten happy hours, 
 
 Father Christmas has also been here ; he said he was 
 going to Vienna, to deck a friend's snug dwelling. I 
 thought that very nice of him, and should dearly like to 
 Jhave kept him company. However, Father Christmas has 
 a special privilege over all the world ; so I only bade him 
 
 * From the Norns-scene GStterdammerung, a motto long since 
 used by Wagner, in another tense, for the " Album Sonata " dedicated to 
 Frau Wesendonck (see Life iv, 131). — Tr. 
 
FROM HER TO HIM 363 
 
 be sure he went to the right man's house, and gave him his 
 address. Now he begs a kindly welcome. 
 
 The children are brimful of anticipation. The tree is 
 to be lit in the dining-room, surrounded by a glory of 
 Raphaels ; the effect will be quite fine. 
 
 Remember me to Cornelius, and do not forget 
 
 Your 
 
 Mathilde Wesendonck. 
 Decbr. 21. 63. 
 
 14. 
 
 My Friend, 
 
 In a letter received to-day, Frau v. Biilow asks for some 
 of your literary manuscripts which are in my possession. I 
 have looked through the portfolio, but of course I cannot 
 think of sending anything away, unless at your personal 
 wish. As it is hardly possible that you will remember 
 which strayed leaves and leaflets are gathered in my port- 
 folio, I am sending you a list of the whole contents ; will 
 you please tell me whether and what I am to forward. 
 
 I conclude, of course, that you are aware of the pro- 
 jected publication of your works by his Majesty [cf. p. 328]. 
 I was so very glad to see from the amiable lady's lines 
 that you are well, and have gathered your dear ones 
 round you. 
 
 And now with greetings from my heart, and hoping to 
 be affectionately remembered, 
 
 Yours 
 
 Mathilde Wesendonck. 
 
 January 13. 65. 
 
 Paris Period 
 
 Der FreischutZ. [Prose Works VII.] 
 
 On German Music, {ibidem.'] 
 
364 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 Caprices esth£tiques ; from the diary of a dead musician 
 [Probably "The Virtuoso and the Artist," which originally 
 appeared in the Gazette Musicale as " Fantaisie esthetique d'un 
 musicien"; see P.W. VII.— Tr.] 
 
 A Pilgrimage to Beethoven, weighty recollections from 
 
 the life of a German Musician ; 
 A Pilgrimage to Beethoven (Conclusion), [ibidem.] 
 How a poor Musician came to grief in Paris : tale 
 
 [" An End in Paris," ibid.} 
 A Happy Evening. [Ibid.] 
 Queen of Cyprus (Abendzeitung) ; 
 Queen of Cyprus (continuation). [Ibid.] 
 Rossini's Stabat Mater (Zeitschrift f. Musik). {Ibid.] 
 Revue critique, Gazette musicale. [" Pergolesi's Stabat Mater " ; 
 
 ibid.] 
 
 Die Feen. Grand romantic opera in 3 acts. — * 
 
 Der Venusberg, romantic opera in 3 acts ; draft 
 
 [Tannhauser.] 
 
 Draft for Wieland the Smith [Prose Works I.] 
 
 * It should be observed that from this point forward Frau Wesen- 
 donck's classification into '"periods" is wholly inadequate, and for the 
 greater part incorrect. Most of the contents, excepting the " drafts," have 
 been incorporated in Wagner's Gesammelte Schriften; of the remainder 
 only the "letters'" remain unclear, especially the enigmatic "Siegfried's 
 Brief," which I can but imagine to be a lapsus calami for that concept 
 of a letter to Schopenhauer reproduced p. 76 sup. At Frau Wesendonck's 
 death the only item still preserved among her papers was the Meister- 
 singer draft of 1845 ; the rest had merely been "taken care of" by her, 
 as we may gather from Wagner's letter of June 1871 (at which date 
 he was publishing vol. ii of the Ges. Schr.), and undoubtedly were 
 restored in course of time to Wahnfried — after being returned to her 
 in the interval between his last two printed letters. The Tristan 
 sketches etc., and those for the first three members of the Sing des 
 Nibelungen, together with the 1861-2 manuscript of the Meistersinger 
 poem, were former presents to Frau Wesendonck, and therefore not 
 included in her list. Of special interest in the above are the drafts etc. 
 for the Ring poem, which it is to be hoped may soon be given to the 
 world. — Tr. 
 
FROM HER TO HIM 365 
 
 Draft for the Young Siegfried. 
 
 The Young Siegfried (poem). 
 
 Draft for Siegfried's Tod. 
 
 Siegfried's Tod I. (poem). [Prose Works VIII.] 
 
 Preface to Siegfried's Tod. 
 
 Siegfried's Tod II. (poem). [Gotterdammerung?~\ 
 
 The Saga of the Nibelungs. [" Nibelungen Myth," p.w. vil.] 
 
 Das Rheingold (draft). 
 
 Das Rheingold (poem). 
 
 Die Walkure (draft). 
 
 Die Walkure (poem). 
 
 Letter on the Goethestiftung, to Liszt. — [Prose Works III. 
 
 Siegfried's letter.— [? !] 
 
 To Herr von Ziegesar. [A letter-concept ?] 
 
 On a Zeitschrift f. Musik. [" On Musical Criticism," P. W. III.] 
 
 Dresden Period 
 
 Draft for Lohengrin. 
 
 Art and the Revolution. [Prose Works I.] 
 
 The arts of Poetry, Sculpture etc. 
 
 Artistry of the future. [For the last two headings see " Art-work of 
 
 the Future," Prose Works I.— Tr.] 
 The Genius of Community. [See " Communication," ibid.] 
 Judaism in Music. [Prose Works III.] 
 Letter to * * * 
 
 To the Dresden Kapelle.— [" Toast " etc, ibid, vil.] 
 To a State-functionary (poem). [1848-9.] 
 Dame Want (poem). [Ditto.] 
 Theatre-reform (Dresdener Anzeiger Jan. 16, 49). 
 
 [Prose Works VIII.] 
 What relation bear Republican endeavours to the King- 
 ship ? (Dresdener Anzeiger). [" Vaterlandsverein" address, 
 ibid. IV.] 
 
366 WAGNER TO MATHILDE WESENDONCK 
 
 Artist and Critic, with reference to a particular case 
 
 (Dresdener Anzeiger). [Ibid. VIII.] 
 Programme to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. — [Ibid. VII.] 
 Beethoven's overture to Coriolanus. [ibid, in.] 
 Beethoven's Heroic symphony, [/bid.'] 
 Gluck's overture to Iphigenia in Aulis. — [Ibid.] 
 A close for Gluck's overture to Iphigenia in Aulis. 
 
 [Full score?] 
 
 Remarks for the performance of the opera " Der fliegende 
 
 Hollander." [Prose Works III.] 
 Draft of Die Meistersinger, comic opera in 3 acts. — [1845.] 
 Speech at Weber's last resting-place in the cemetery 
 
 at Dresden. [Prose Works VII.] 
 , Cantata sung at Weber's grave-side [,composed] Novbr. 
 
 10, 44, Dresden. — [Ibid. ; cf. p. 331 sup.] 
 
VALEDICTORY 
 
 (W. A. E.) 
 $8 
 
 367 
 
VALEDICTORY 
 
 Upon closing this unique correspondence, instinctively one asks 
 oneself : Would Wagner and Frau Wesendonck have been happier 
 in the long run, had they adopted the alternative suggested on 
 page 25 and left their respective homes together? As with all 
 conjectures regarding things which might have been, one cannot 
 answer positively; yet I believe, such happiness might have been 
 possible in 1852-3 indeed, but not in 1858 and onward. Otto would 
 certainly have been riper for that separation in the later year ; but 
 — leaving aside all danger from the physical and mental condition, 
 into which Minna had gradually fallen — the love of Richard and 
 Mathilde had sublimated into something too ethereal by the time- 
 of its declaration, not to run risk of dispersion by the inevitable 
 shocks of daily intercourse. Besides a gifted brain and inbred tact,, 
 it needed an unusually strong character, really to be a prop and! 
 moderator to a genius whose ideas of practical life had become 
 so largely tinged with that transcendency which stamps his artworks. 
 In 1868 he asks his sister Clara: "Whence could it come, that 
 I fashion something different from others, were I not also different 
 myself ? " Absolute poverty, complete retirement from the world, 
 might have charmed him with its grand simplicity; for that, how- 
 ever, I doubt if Mathilde's bringing up, and more especially her 
 sumptuous surroundings, had well prepared her. Affluence was 
 unattainable by Wagner, to the end of his days : in its absence the 
 delicate hothouse plant might uncomplainingly have drooped and 
 pined away. — And later, three years later? The spiritual enact- 
 ment of Sawitri was very beautiful, most holy; but it could not 
 fit for ever with existing claims upon a matron. When Mathilde 
 gave it up at last against her will (p. 347) involuntarily she took 
 the wiser path — for her husband and herself at least. 
 
 Terrible were the perils to which she thus exposed her hero, 
 robbed at almost the same moment of all home in this world — for 
 
 369 24 
 
370 VALEDICTORY 
 
 a second time— and all hope for the next. Awhile he might drown 
 his sorrows in a masterwork of comedy that owes its lovable chief 
 character, and even some traits in its heroine, to his chastened 
 " resignation " ; just as he had told Frau Ritter close on three 
 years back, he was living " only since the deepest self-experienced 
 woe again and again presented itself as but another artwork to 
 be shaped." But sooner or later a reaction from this objectiveness 
 was bound to set in : for a spell he " hardly knew himself," and 
 the blackest of palls might have shut him in at any instant. Thrice 
 happy he, that then at last he found the chosen vessel of companion 
 gold, after an act of sacrifice that raises "good Hans" of flesh 
 and blood to a higher plane than ever reached by Ludwig, Liszt 
 or Otto : " She knew that help could be extended me, and 
 helped she has." 
 
 Perhaps the highest evidence of that companion vessel's true 
 nobility is furnished by the bare existence of the present book. 
 "It had been Richard Wagner's wish " — a preamble to the German 
 edition informs us — " that the accompanying leaves should be 
 destroyed. — Frau Wesendonck did not regard herself as exclusive 
 owner of the letters addressed to her ; she silently preserved them 
 for posterity, and willed their publication. — The Wagner family 
 renounced all author's rights, in this exceptional case, and ceded 
 them to the departed lady's son and grandson, who have arranged 
 that the Stipendiary Fund [for enabling needy artists etc. to visit] 
 Bayreuth shall benefit thereby." This step's impersonality is an 
 honour in itself to all concerned, yet it might have been easy to 
 devise a mode whereby the identity of the whilom owner should 
 have been hidden from all but an intimate few : in that such a 
 mode was not adopted, we have not alone another proof of the 
 devotion of Richard Wagner's widow to his memory, but also of 
 her splendid sense of justice. Only by publication in full could 
 vulgar slanderers, who had dared to fret Frau Wesendonck's last 
 span of life, be put to shame ; only thus could the good name 
 of that sweet friend and her descendants be cleared triumphantly. 
 Ah yes, ye glib resuscitators of forgotten hearsay, — ye who recked 
 naught that your silver-haired prey was neither blind nor deaf as 
 yet, — when ye killed her your doom was sealed ! 
 
 When death so suddenly descended on her in the month of 
 
VALEDICTORY 37 1 
 
 August 1902, Mathilde Wesendonck was making ready for presenta- 
 tion of these letters to posterity.* Their accomplished German 
 editor, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Golther, tells us that in autumn 1903 
 her heirs entrusted him with the precious legacy : " Frau Wesendonk 
 herself had partly prepared the edition, t Everything was to be 
 published unabridged and unaltered, and direct from the originals 
 that lay before me. A few letters, which I have specially noted, 
 only existed in Frau Wesendonk's transcription; their originals 
 appear to have been lost. Merely a handful of quite immaterial 
 and minor omissions have been effected, out of regard for living 
 persons ; omissions indicated every time by ' . . . ' The letters and 
 leaves were to be arranged, explained and introduced [see later]. . . . 
 Among them lay a few to Frau Wille and Otto Wesendonk, which 
 have been included as directly bearing on the rest. . . . The 14 
 letters by Mathilde Wesendonk are the only answers preserved." 
 
 * It is most touching, to learn from Dr. Golther's preface that the 
 pencilled ' composition-drafts ' of Tristan und Isolde had been carefully gone 
 over by Frau Wesendonck with pen and ink, to ensure their permanence ; 
 how we should like to know when ! They are dated by the master 
 himself: act. i, Oct. I to Dec. 31, 1857; act ii, May 4 to July i, 1858; 
 act iii, Lucerne, April 9 to July 16, 1859. For the first act he wrote the 
 verses reproduced page 17 sup.; above the second act, the words " Noch im 
 Asyl " — " Still in my haven." Only in a very few passages of the second 
 act did the voice-part differ from its final form, whilst the introduction 
 of that act began with what is now its ninth bar. — The 'orchestral 
 sketches,' i.e. the phase immediately before fair copy of the final score, 
 were never among Frau Wesendonck's belongings (see p. 234), but their 
 dates are also given us: act i, Nov. 5, 1857, to Jan. 13, 1858; act ii, 
 July S, 1858, Zurich, to March 9, 1859, Venice ; act iii, May 1 to July 19, 
 1859, Lucerne. The last pages of the fair copy were completed Aug. 6, 
 '59 (P- 161), and despatched to Hartel's next day. — On her printed copy of 
 the poem, a birthday present 1858 (p. 94), Mathilde inscribed Isolde's words : 
 " Mir erkoren — Mir verloren — Heil und hehr, kilhn und feig — Todgeweihtes 
 Haupt! Todgeweihtes Herz!" — The pencilled 'composition-drafts' of 
 Rheingold, Walkilre and the first two acts of Siegfried, with many a brief 
 personal jotting or hieroglyph on their margins, were also preserved by 
 the lady, in dainty cases of red leather ; their dates will be found 
 elsewhere. 
 
 f Her preparation, Dr. Golther privately informs me, consisted in the 
 said transcription (about \ of the whole) and a few marginal notes. — N.B. 
 Here I have respected Dr. G.'s omission of the " c " from the surname 
 for the same reason that I retain it in the letters themselves, — vid. inf. 
 
372 VALEDICTORY 
 
 What a pity it seems, that there should be no more than those 
 fourteen ; and how mysterious ! Had they all been destroyed, one 
 could have understood it so much better, for that was the case with 
 Frau Charlotte von Stein's to Goethe ; she asked for them back, 
 and burnt them. Perhaps Frau Wesendonck did ask for hers ; but 
 why preserve none of earlier date than June 1861 ? Her diary of 
 1858, with sad infrequent letters down to the Wiedersehen of April 
 1859, — a begging of these back, though Wagner had once decreed 
 that they " shall not be given out again " (p. 34), we could easily 
 understand on the eve of his departure to rejoin his wife next 
 autumn ; their prompt destruction also. But her letters from Rome 
 of winter 1859-60 : surely there can have been as little reason for 
 depriving us of these, as for withholding those now published. 
 Looked at from whichever side, I am forced to the conclusion that 
 Minna destroyed the whole bundle just before laudanuming Mathilde's 
 living present, Fips, — a doing to death so plainly hinted page 273.* 
 It is too long an argument to set forth here, but Minna's final 
 letter to her Berlin friend, of the next December, most distinctly 
 connects the Paris ' catastrophe ' of summer 1861 with sudden 
 discovery that "the pair remain in love" (her epithets shall not 
 sully this sheet). That terrible shadow ; are we never to emerge 
 from it ? — Let us return to pleasanter parting thoughts. 
 
 Had Frau Wesendonck lived long enough to finish her labour of 
 love, I think an introduction to this correspondence would have been 
 written by herself. Knowing her fondness for the letters of Wilhelm 
 von Humboldt to his Freundin (p. 79) — most incorporeal of all 
 platonics — I fancy she would have taken as text the following 
 passage from that Freundin's preface : — " For a length of years this 
 correspondence was my highest boon. What I required of sympathy 
 and solace, of counsel and encouragement, of cheer and elevation, 
 and finally of knowledge and enlightenment on higher truths, I drew 
 from this exhaustless store that ever lay nigh to my hand. Such 
 
 * As to the " It is presumed " on that page — which would scarcely 
 harmonise with the directly-preceding rathselhaft ("mysteriously," or 
 11 unintelligibly,' - "inexplicably") if Wagner meant to convey his own 
 surmise — it is quite possible that the original MS. had " Vermeintlich," 
 i.e. "Allegedly," where the German now reads " Vermuthlich." He had 
 used this " Vermeintlich" before, to Liszt (p. xxxiv sup.), concerning 
 Minna's opium-habit. 
 
VALEDICTORY 373 
 
 a correspondence is society which leads to closer insight into 
 character. It cannot be a secret, the whole world might know its 
 contents ; but it was written to myself, and thus the ark of my life's 
 covenant ; so I kept in silence and concealment what was penned 
 for me alone, what indemnified me for serious deprivations, rewarded 
 me for many griefs. ... I viewed it as a never-stanching fount of 
 higher life, whence for long years I drew strength and courage, and 
 won whatever ripeness I might gain. In truth I needed for my mind 
 no further sustenance, for my meditation no more copious matter, 
 for my instruction no other book, for my soul no clearer light. 
 Most kindly would the noble friend subdue his powers to my 
 apprehension ; and thus, whatever He might talk to me about, to 
 me He ever was intelligible, lucid, and convincing. If we differed 
 at times in opinion, that difference arose from the externals of our 
 
 lives [they never met but once, a quarter of a century before]. But my soul's- 
 
 friend remained the guiding principle of all my spiritual life ; from 
 one letter to the next I lived in thought with him, and, broken 
 as my health was, that formed for me a thriving inner life. . . . 
 
 "For years since his death have I lived on these letters. 
 Plunged in my friend's ideas, and pondering withal on this unique 
 relation and what had thereby ripened in me for all time and all 
 eternity, it often seemed to me not right that so much truth, such 
 greatness and such goodness, should perish wholly with myself. 
 True, for me alone had it been written, adapted to my individual 
 sense; but the truths were expressed so lucidly, the sure paths to 
 inner calm and happiness so gently and so clearly pointed out, 
 that a knowledge of them must be salutary for every seeking mind. 
 — And all this to descend into the grave with me, with me be 
 turned to dust? — " 
 
 So Mathilde's legacy has been fulfilled; the wish of Richard 
 Wagner also, — for the originals exist no longer. 
 
 And now for the needful final word on my own humble share 
 in this production. 
 
 First as to the spelling of the lady's name. In face not only of 
 the letter facsimiled herewith and several others addressed to myself 
 (of no interest whatever to the public), but also of all her published 
 works and the volume of Wagner's letters to her husband — I 
 cannot bring myself to follow the example of her heirs and deprive 
 
374 VALEDICTORY 
 
 her marriage-surname of its "c."* To my mind, such a step is 
 an interference with literary documents, for there can be no possible 
 doubt that Wagner never wrote about, or to Mathilde or her husband, 
 with elision of that "c"; notwithstanding that family pedigrees 
 now may prove the simple "k" to be the true orthography. As 
 Mathilde Wesendonck, then, shall she still be known at least in 
 England — with due apologies to her descendants. 
 
 Then as to punctuation — by which I do not mean the commas, 
 but full stops and suchlike. It is always a moot point when 
 letters come before an editor for publication, and there is no 
 fixed rule for its settlement, since private correspondence is hardly 
 ever over-careful with these aids to sense. In the present case I 
 find Wagner's sentences often divided up in a manner unfamiliar 
 to me ; wherefore I have exercised a faithful translator's liberty, 
 and punctuated as I myself deemed most in keeping with the 
 context. Here and there it has been a choice between two evils, 
 I admit ; but the German edition stands always open to the more 
 exacting inquirer, and he may be left to strike the balance on 
 these minor matters, as also on an occasional (a very occasional) 
 redistribution of paragraphs. 
 
 Chronology. — Except with letters "58a" and "m-112," I 
 have made no alteration in the order of any subsequent to no. 55 ; 
 before that number I have radically rearranged the Zurich group in 
 the light of internal evidence. Naturally my rearrangement can claim 
 no other authority than that of a working hypothesis ; I believe, how- 
 ever, it will be found an assistance to the reader, and Dr. Golther 
 himself has courteously given prominence in the eleventh and 
 following German editions to a table of comparison which I sub- 
 mitted to him some six months since. Broadly speaking, the said 
 table (unnecessary to reproduce here) will be found a sufficient guide 
 to any student who may desire to check my work ; unfortunately, 
 however, I have revised my own arrangement since in three or 
 four particulars. My best apologies to long-suffering Dr. Golther. 
 
 * As the German edition of these letters appeared on the very eve 
 of my going to press with vol. iv of the Life of Richard Wagner, I 
 hastily struck out the "c" from every mention of this surname that 
 was not an actual quotation there ; but I have since repented of my 
 baste, and now the "c"s are all restored in readiness for a possible (?) 
 reprint. 
 
VALEDICTORY 375 
 
 — N.B. The letters of Wagner constituting my first and last 
 groups will be found subdivided into smaller grouplets in the 
 German edition. 
 
 To conclude, I have grateful thanks to tender to my publishers ; 
 to Dr. Golther and my friend Herr C. F. Glasenapp, for various 
 elucidations ; and above all to an English friend, " Evelyn Pyne," 
 for her assistance in giving the due feminine flavour to our joint 
 translation of Frau Wesendonck's tales and letters, also for her sole 
 and beautiful translation of that lady's poems. Just seventeen years 
 ago I had the honour to publish in the now defunct Meister an 
 Anniversary Ode by " Evelyn Pyne " ; four lines therefrom shall 
 now form my apostrophe : — 
 
 " Sing of strong Love the redeemer, 
 Self-less who comes but to save : — 
 Deathless he lives in thy music — 
 Tearless we stand by thy grave." — 
 
 Wm. Ashton Ellis 
 
 Easter C905. 
 
 HORSTED KEYNBS. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Following a plan which I have found work satisfactorily in similar 
 cases before, I do not repeat in this index the figures denoting 
 tens and hundreds for one and the same reference, excepting 
 where the numerals run into a fresh line of type : thus 
 
 Calderon, 14, 6, 23, 65, 201, 67, will stand for 
 Calderon, pages 14, 16, 23, 65, 201, 267. 
 
 Numerals followed by " n " are references to footnotes, whilst those 
 enclosed within brackets indicate that the subject is only indirectly 
 mentioned in the text. — W. A. E. 
 
 A. 
 
 A., Madame, 175. 
 
 d'Agoult, Countess, 53 (?). 
 
 Ahasuerus, xli, 147. 
 
 Aldridge, Ira, 9. 
 
 All Souls' day, 69, 72, 182. 
 
 Allg. Musikzeitung, xxxvii, ix, lii, 
 
 194K. 
 Almasy, Count, 280. 
 Alps, lix, 32, 5, 58, 100, 1, 7, 11, 2, 
 
 113, 62, 207, 309, 13, 21, 45, 52. 
 Altenburg, Weimar, 164. 
 Altmann, Dr "Wilhelm, xxxii, 179B, 
 
 292K. 
 America, xxii, xxxviii, 105, io«, (126), 
 
 128, 278^, 319; see New York. 
 Ananda and Sawitri, (xxxvii, xl), Iv, 
 
 lxii, 8, (25, 42), S4-6, (82), 97, (117), 
 
 239, (288, 306, 20). 
 Ander, tenor, 277, 80, 1, 4, 5. 
 Anfortas, 140-3, 242. 
 Apollo, birth of, 150 ; Delphi, 165. 
 Arthur, King, xxxvi, 244. 
 "Asyl" (Zurich), viii-xi, xvii, xxx, 
 
 xlv, lvi-lxi, 12-5, 26-8, 31-2, 57, 61, 
 
 64, 88, 99, 147, 52, 9, 92, 6, 206, 67, 
 
 283, 9. 309, 13. 2i«, 7. 3°. 56. 60, 
 
 37IK. 
 Austria, 87, 90, 129 ; see Vienna. 
 
 B. 
 
 Bach, J. S., 155. 
 
 Baden, Gd Duke and Duchess, 64, 
 
 101, 79, 96, 268, 9, (277), 300, 22, 
 
 343 ; see also Carlsruhe. 
 Badenweiler, 343. 
 Basle, 4, 292, 343. 
 Baudelaire, 207. 
 
 Baumgartner, W., xix, 11, 160, 98. 
 Baur, 10 ; see Hotel. 
 Bayreuth, xl., (179-80), 330, 2, 70. 
 Bayreuther Blatter, xiii, 76», 229K. 
 Beckmesser, 292. 
 Beethoven, xlviii, 209; Egmont, 133; 
 
 Fidelio, 228-9; last sonatas etc., 
 
 193 ; symphonies, "]n, 8, 20«, 356. 
 Belloni, (214). 
 Berlin, lx, 175, 89, 317 ; opera-house, 
 
 186, 315. 
 Berlin friend, Minna's, xxii, v-vi, xxxiv, 
 
 lix, 254*2, 372. 
 Berlioz, 182, (184?), 193, 207-9, 28-30, 
 
 263 ; Romeo, 121 ; Troy ens, 208 ; 
 
 wife, xxxv, 208. 
 Berne, 11, I2k. 
 Bethlen, Countess, 314. 
 Bible, 8, 79, 145, 225, 304. 
 Biebrich on Rhine, 293-305. 
 Bingen on Rhine, 309. 
 
 376 
 
INDEX 
 
 \ii 
 
 Bissing, Frau von, 326, 62 ; Myrrha, 
 
 io8w. 
 Bodmers, the, 10. 
 Bonapartism, 129, 81. 
 Bordeaux " episode," xl, i, viii-ix. 
 Bourgeois et Dennery, I9«. 
 Brahm, the, 225. 
 Breitkopf and Hartel, see H. 
 Brendel, 175M. 
 Breslau concerts, 324, 6, 62. 
 Briihl ravine, 280. 
 Brunnen, 168. 
 Briinnhilde, 13 (81), 100, 44, 56, 68, 
 
 177, 241. 
 Brussels, 218, 30» ; concerts, 214, 9, 
 
 232 ; photo., 223, 32-3. 
 Buddha, 53-5, 103, 56, 7, ; and Art, 
 
 56, cf. 69. 
 Buddhism, lv, 8, 53, 156-7, (197), 213, 
 
 22 5> 39 j mendicancy, 73-4, 103-4. 
 Biilow, Cosima von, lx-i, 328, 63, 9, 
 
 37°- 
 „ Hans von, lx-u, 175, 8, S4«, 
 198, 203, 14, 30, 55, 67, 8, 76, 99», 
 328, 61, 70 ; daughter (Blandine), 
 317- 
 
 Cakya-Muni, 53-5. 
 
 Calderon, 14, 6, 23, 65, 201, 67. 
 
 Carlsruhe, 101, 30, (163?), 177, 83, 
 
 202, 68, 9, 70, 3, 92K, 300 ; concerts, 
 
 3 2I -5> S9> 61. See Devrient. 
 Carvalho, 176, 9. 
 Cervantes, 19, 22, 286, 8, 349. 
 Challemel-Lacour, xxxv, 174. 
 Chamberlain, H. S., Richard Wagner, 
 
 45«, 233», 3og«. 
 Champfleury, 207. 
 Charnace, Countess, 175, 93. 
 Chemnitz, xxi, xxvi. 
 Chillon, 1. 
 
 Chrgtien de Troyes, 143, 244«. 
 Clara, Wagner's sister, see Wolfram. 
 Cleobis and Biton, 159. 
 Como, no. 
 
 Constitutionelk Zeitung, Dresden, 19IK. 
 Cornelius, painter, 301, 45 ; Nibelungen, 
 192, 299. 
 ,, Peter, composer, 300-1, 26, 
 
 328, 61, 3. . 
 
 Courrier du Dimanche, Pans, 206. 
 Crespi, painter, 112. 
 Czechs, 315. 
 
 D. 
 
 Dante, xl, 8, 165, 211. 
 
 Danube, accident on, 314. 
 Darmstadt theatre, 29872, 321. 
 David, King, 304. 
 
 „ Meistersinger, 292. 
 Del os, island of, 150. 
 Delphi, oracle at, 165. 
 Deutsche Allg. Ztg., 136, 268«. 
 Devrient, Eduard, 14, 164, 79, 83, 
 
 196 ; see Carlsruhe. 
 Dolgorucki, Prince, 77, 92. 
 Donner, Rheingold, 133. 
 Dore, Gustave, 207. 
 Draseke, Felix, 160, 6, 8. 
 Dresden, xiii-iv, xxi, iv, xxx, 100-1, 
 
 153, 89«, 91, 205-6, 12, 44, 73, 98- 
 
 299B, 307, 24. 
 Dunkirk, xxxviii. 
 Diisseldorf, xxxviii, 284. 
 
 E. 
 
 Eddas, the, xxxix, l8l«. 
 
 Egmont, see Beethoven, Goethe. 
 
 Egypt, Pasha of, 346. 
 
 Elberfeld, xxxviii. 
 
 Elisabeth(7a»»A.), 186, 221,49, 3i8». 
 
 Elsa (Loh.), 239, 319. 
 
 " Engel, Der," 16. 
 
 English, 7, 10, 28, 156, 251, 348 ; 
 
 journals, 233 ; " God save the King," 
 
 137. See London. 
 Erard, Mme, 57. 
 
 ,, pianoforte, 35, 41, 56-8, 69, 71, 2, 
 
 80, 7. 8, 95, 113. 7. 23. 58, 64, 7. 92, 
 
 299. 
 Erda-scene, Siegfried, l68«. 
 Erec and Enide, 244-6. 
 Eschenburg, Prof., 7. 
 Eschmann, Zurich musician, 356. 
 Ettmuller, Prof., 181. 
 European culture, 8, 157, 9, 218. 
 Eva (Meistersinger), 291, 370. 
 " Evelyn Pyne," 33S», 75- 
 
 Fafher, 13, 4. 
 
 Faust-overture, li-ii, 7«, 361. 
 
 Fazy, Maison, Geneva, 33«. 
 
 Feen, Die, MS. (score?), 364. 
 
 Fichtelberger, Zurich conductor, 356. 
 
 Fiddle-note, long-drawn, 42. 
 
 Fips, dog, 175, 237; death, 273, 4», 
 
 (278), 312, 72. 
 Fischer, Dr Georg, xxxi. 
 
 „ W., Dresden, xxx, iii ; death, 
 
 191. 
 Flying Dutchman, see Hollander. 
 Fontainebleau, 235. 
 
378 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Franck-Marie, 207. 
 
 Franz, Robert, 14. 
 
 Frederick the Great, xxxix, 142. 
 
 French : art, 37-8, 184, 206-7, 16-8 ; 
 language, xxiii-iv, 174, 9, 213, 4, 7, 
 238, 360; nation, 178-9, 207, 11, 6, 
 21S ; poetry, medieval, 143, 244. 
 
 Fricka ( Walkure), 8. 
 
 Frickhoffer, Biebrich, 297, 8, gn. 
 
 Frommann, Alwine, xxvi, 276. 
 
 Fugues, 8. 
 
 Fiinf Gedichte, xxxix, 16-7, 307 ; see 
 Traume. 
 
 Ganges, the, 157. 
 
 Garcia- Viardot, Mme, 263. 
 
 Garibaldi, 137, 45. 
 
 Garrigues, Malvina, 179ft, (330). 
 
 Gasperini, Dr, 178, 206, 11, 54ft. 
 
 Gegenwart, Die, xxii, v, viii, xxxiv, 
 
 2S4», (372). 
 Geibel, dram, or dramatic poet, 144. 
 Genelli, 222-3. 
 
 Geneva, vii, xii, 31-4, 284??, 3I2«. 
 Genius, xlii, iv, Ix, i, 75-6, 95-6, 120, 
 
 148, 82, 216, 24-5, 9-30, 347, 58, 69. 
 German art, 37-8, 147, 51, 5. 
 Germany, xxxviii, xlii, iii, 27, 64, 87, 
 
 100, 4, 28-9, 79, 96, 208, 12, 9, 32, 
 
 236, 43) 67, 87, 8, 309, io, S, 9, 22, 
 
 348. 
 Geyer, Ludwig, 45ft. 
 Gipsy music, 193, 279, 80. 
 Giulay, Count, 153. 
 Glarus, Alps, (lix), 6«. 
 Glasenapp, C. F., 189ft, 205ft, "jin, 
 
 326«, 75. 
 Gluck, 6, 208, 17 ; Orpheus, 344 ; see 
 
 Iphig. 
 Goethe, vi, Ixi-ii, I9», 79, 93, 112, 30, 
 
 200-2, 70, 372 ; Egmont, 122-3, 33" 
 
 '35) 7 5 Faust, li, 72,174, 200 ; Tasso, 
 
 120-3, 5. 35. 57 ; Werther, l8«. 
 Golther, Dr Wolfgang, xxxix, lii, 18ft, 
 
 22, 94«, 238/2, 52«, 92«, 300ft, 29», 
 
 371, 4-5- 
 Gondola, 36, 42, 4-5, 77, 88-92, 100. 
 
 GoTTERDAMMERUNG, lv, 362; pfte. 
 
 score, 332 ; poem, MS., 365. 
 Gottfried von Strassburg, 142. 
 Gould, Dr. G. M., 2oo«, 40ft. 
 Gounod, 193, 207. 
 Graces, Three {Tannh.), 221-2. 
 Grail, Holy, 23, 94, 140-4, 241. 
 Greek art etc., xxix, xxxix, 150, 9, 65. 
 Green Hill, the, viii, xi, xix, xxxviii, 
 
 lvi, viii, ix, 13, 7, 8, 20, 5, 32, 3, 4, 
 38, 44, 51, 7, 81-2, 8, 99, 101, 9, 11, 
 113, 8, 22, 44, 6, 9, 59-63, 9, 73«, 86- 
 187, 223, 69-70, 2, 4, 87, 97, 313,20- 
 332, 43-6, 8, 56-63 ; photo., 177, 84, 
 283, 99. 3io. 
 
 Gries, 126. 
 
 Griesbach, Frau, Jena, 130ft. 
 
 Griesinger, Dr, 357. 
 
 Grimm, Bros., 20, 74M, 106. 
 
 Gurnemanz (Parsifal), 241. 
 
 Gwinner, W., 349». 
 
 H. 
 
 Hagenbuch, F., Zurich, xix. 
 Hamburg, xlvi ; Exchange, 137. 
 Hanover theatre, xxxi, 324. 
 Hanslick, E., 318ft. 
 Hartels, xxxii, lviii, i8«, 2i«, 135, 46, 
 
 151. 5. 7. 67», 98«, 206, 30», 55, 
 
 37i»- 
 Hartenfels, Dr, I28«. 
 Hartmann von Aue, i8i», 244ft. 
 Haydn, Creation, 344. 
 Hechingen, Prince Hohenzollern-, 324, 
 
 326. 
 Heim, Emilie, xxvi, xlix, 1, 7. 
 
 „ Ignaz, xxvi, 1, 20«, 72, 126, 75, 
 344. 56. 
 Heine, Heinrich, xliii, 137. 
 Heinrich, H6tel Baur, 10. 
 Heinse's Ardinghello, xliii. 
 Heisterhagen, Zurich musician, 356. 
 Helene, Gd Duchess, Russia, 310. 
 Heller, Stephen, 207. 
 Herold, Mme, 176. 
 Herwegh, Georg, 4, 14-5, 148-50, 61, 
 
 325, 48- 
 Hewitz, Frau, 179ft, (183). 
 Hilpert, Zurich musician, 356. 
 Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst, Prince, 164. 
 Hollander, Der Fliegende, xliii: — 
 
 French translations : prose, 238 ; 
 verse, for score, 272ft. 
 
 Hero, xli, vi, 28, 96, 283. 
 
 Overture : new close, 209, 20. 
 
 Vienna perf., 272, 81, 4. 
 Holtzmann, Adolf, 8. 
 Homburg, 357. 
 Homer, 6. 
 Hornstein, Robert von, xxv, xliii, v-vi, 
 
 1, iii-v, viii. 
 Hotel Baur au Lac, Zurich, xxxviii, 
 
 liii, vii, ix, 10. 
 Hotels : Geneva, 33», Prague, 324, 61 ; 
 
 Vienna, 282, 305. 
 Hugo, Victor, 184. 
 
INDEX 
 
 379 
 
 Humboldt, W. von, 78-9, 90, 2, 4, 9, 
 r 372-3- 
 
 Hungarians, 279-80, 313-6, 9. 
 Hutten, Ulrich von, 281, 304. 
 
 Idea, Platonic, 75, 96-7. 
 
 Idealism, xlii, 37-8, 48-9, 52-3, 65, 82, 
 
 8Si 95-8, 112, 2i, 52, 94, 200, 24, 
 
 233, 9-40, 61, 81-2, 360, 9. 
 Illustration, Paris, 207, 33». 
 Illustrirte, Leipziger, 268. 
 Indian legends, lxi, 8 ; cf. 81, 152, 93. 
 Intelligenzblatt, Zurich, 148. 
 Iphigenia in Aulis, Wagner's revision 
 
 of Gluck's, xxxii, 19, 287, 366. 
 Isola bella, 35. 
 Italian : art, 37-8, 87, 9, 112, 99, 217, 
 
 227 ; language, 88, 92. 
 Italy, xii, 33, 99, 122, 9, 94, 202, 
 
 314 ; see Rome, Venice. 
 
 Jesus Christ, 8, 79, 140, 3, 225, 304. 
 Joseph of Arimathea, 140, 2. 
 Journal des Dibats, 208, 28. 
 
 K. 
 
 Kalergis, Countess, 234-572, 63. 
 Kant, 79, 93, 4, (95, 239-40). 
 Kaulbach, 192. 
 Keller, Gottfried, vi, Iv, u», 344, 7; 
 
 Der griine Heinrich, 215, 347. 
 Keller, Zurich photographer, 282. 
 Kieff, 324. 
 
 Kilchberg, near Zurich, lviii, 100. 
 Kirch ner, Theodor, 13, 1 29. 
 Klindworth, Karl, li, 128*2, 263. 
 
 „ " Papa," 218. 
 
 "Kobold," (20), 74, 80, 105, 6, 18, 
 
 (35°)- 
 Kochly, Prof., 12772, 344. 
 Kolatschek, 272. 
 Konigsberg, xxii. 
 Koppen's Hist, of Buddhism, 53, 156, 
 
 '57- 
 Kreutzer, Leon, 207. 
 Kundry {Parsifal), 94, 241-2. 
 Kurwenal (7>. u. Is.), 77, 119, 58. 
 Kutter, New York, 14. 
 
 L. 
 
 Lacombe, Louis, 207. 
 
 Latin, 227. 
 
 Latona, 150. 
 
 Laussot, Mme, xl, cf. xlviii. 
 
 "Lazarus," 15. 
 
 Leipzig, xlix, 147, 51, 3, 7, 3I3«. 
 
 Lessing (?), 343. 
 
 Liechtenstein, Prince R., 279, 80. 
 
 Lindau, R., 23872. 
 
 Liszt, Franz, xxxiv, xlvi, 1, iii, vii, 12, 
 
 65-6, 87, io6«, 29, 33, 4, 55, 64, 8o», 
 
 (22972), 230-1, 472, (260), 269, 71, 4,, 
 
 2 76-7, 345, 70 ; Bohemiens, 193 ; mu- 
 sic, 144, 7, (184 ?) — Faust, 271, 4, 6. 
 Literary works, Wagner's : — 
 
 Art-work of the Future, 365. 
 
 Beethoven, 3772, 7872. 
 
 Communication, xli-iii, (xlvi), 365. 
 
 German Art and Policy, 3I5». 
 
 Homage to Fischer, 191. 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth, 22572, 30472. 
 
 Judaism in Music, 23572, 365 ; cf. Iii. 
 
 Liszfs Symphonic poems, 1372, 121. 
 
 Manuscripts of, 328, 31, 63-6. 
 
 " Music of the Future," 20672, 38-$,, 
 248. 
 
 Opera and Drama, xliii, (xlvi), 27272. 
 
 Vienna Opera-house, 32172, 5, 61. 
 Lohengrin, xliii, 5, 131, 280 : — 
 
 Hero, 57, 97, 239. 
 
 Performances : Dresden, 153 ; Leip- 
 zig, xlix ; Vienna, 105, 268-9, 72, 
 284, 344 : — contemplated : Lon- 
 don, 251 ; Paris, 201, 3, 13. 
 
 Poem, 239 ; draft of, 365 ; French 
 prose- transl., 238. 
 
 Selections: concert, xlvii, 20472, 10,. 
 319 ; milit., 90. 
 
 Wagner hears for first time, 268-9,. 
 cf. 251. 
 London, li, ii, 7-9, 128, 20072, 14, 62,. 
 
 263, 82 ; Covent Garden, 251. 
 Lope de Vega, 1872, 972, 20. 
 Lowenberg concerts, 324, 6, 62. 
 Lucerne, xix. 20, (26), 81, 105, 12-69, 
 
 174. 7, 91. 2. 283. 3'8. 
 Luckemeyer (Mathilde's parents), 
 
 xxxviii, 38 ; mother, 284, — death, 
 
 297-8; brother, 1472, 126, 8, 8072 y 
 
 sister Marie, 9. 
 Ludwig II. of Bavaria, 327-9, 63, 70. 
 Lugano, no. 
 
 Luther, Sachs' ode to, 293, 302. 
 Liittichau, von, xxviii, 189. 
 
 M. 
 
 Mabinogion, 244. 
 Magdalene, Mary, 8. 
 Magdeburg theatre, xxi-ii. 
 Magenta, battle, 153. 
 Magnan, Marechal, 208. 
 
38o 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Mainz, 17, 292*2, 3, 300, 26. 
 Mannheim theatre, xxxii, 103. 
 Marat, " sentimental," 233. 
 Maria Stuart, see Schiller. 
 Mariafeld, (87), 150, 327, 30. 
 Marriage, youthful etc., xli-ii, 45-6, 73, 
 
 79. 8S. (93), 134- 
 Marseilles, 19411; magnate, 210-1. 
 Maurice, Paris servant, 228, 52-3. 
 Maya, veil of, 197, 277. 
 Mayer, Elisa, Humboldt, 78. 
 Mayer-Dustmann, Frau, 201, 77. 
 Max, Archduke, Austria, 104. 
 Mecca, 142. 
 Medea, 37. 
 Meister, The, 375. 
 Meistersinger, Die : — 
 
 Concert excerpts, 3I3», 6, 25. 
 
 Music, 297, 9, 302 : act i, comp., 
 298, 304,— scoring, 308, 10, 1, 3, 
 317, 24, 7, 56 ; act iii, chorus and 
 introduction, 301-2; unused theme, 
 300. 
 
 Overture, 286 : performed, Carlsruhe, 
 325 ; Leipzig and Pesth, 31372, 6. 
 
 Pfte score, 331. 
 
 Poem, 285-300, 50-1, 64B, 70; "Tabu- 
 latur," 300. 
 
 Scenario 1845, 290, 348, 64«, 6; 1861, 
 292*2. 
 Melot (7>. u. Is.), 77, 158. 
 Messiahs, 219, 304. 
 Metternich, Princess, 285, 35072. 
 Meyer, Johanna C. (Planer), xxi. 
 Meysenbug, Malwida von, xlii, vi, 262, 
 
 27272, 30472. 
 Milan, 35, 110-2. 
 Minna, see Wagner. 
 Mires, 211. 
 Mitleid (compassion), xii, v, xx, xxxii- 
 
 xxxiii, liii, v, vii, 27, 47-51, 63, 73, 
 
 85, 120, 67, 24272, 75, 8, 9, 84, 98, 
 
 307, 14, 38, 54, 7. 
 Modling, near Vienna, 280. 
 Moleschott, Prof., 347. 
 Moon, the, 36, 42, 4-5, 309, 43. 
 Morelli, barytone, 249. 
 Mornex, 11, 2«. 
 Moscow, 308, 9 ; snuffbox, 312. 
 Mozart, Zauberflbteov., "jn. 
 Mrazeks, Wagner's servants, 312, 26. 
 Miiller, Alex., xvi, xix. 
 
 ,, Franz, 12. 
 Munich, xxxv, I9», io8«, 54«, 79«, 278, 
 
 31272, 27-9. 
 Muotta-Thal, 6«. 
 Murillo, engravings after, 192. 
 Music, 44-5, 208, 47, 82, 319; of the 
 
 Future, 147, 208, 39 ; and Poetry, 
 36-7, 93, i8i, 65, 78, 84, 217-8, 38, 
 240, 300. 
 
 Musik, Die, 10472, 22272, 3872, 52*2, 90«. 
 
 Myth, xxxix, 142, 50, 7, 9, 65-6, 351. 
 
 N. 
 
 Nako, Ct & Ctss, 279-80. 
 
 Naples, 348. 
 
 Napoleon III., 129, 81, 208, 13. 
 
 Nassau, Duke of, 297, 9. 
 
 Nature, egoism of, xliii, 46, 52-4, 8-9. 
 
 Nesselrode, 263. 
 
 Neuefreie Presse, xlv. 
 
 Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, xxii, 13, 
 
 147. 75«> 9 ln > 8 «- 
 
 Ney, Frau, soprano, 201. 
 
 New York, xxxvi, viii, 1472, 12872 ; see 
 America. 
 
 Nibelungen, Ring des, xliv, (8), 
 219, (226-7), 259, 63, (308) ; com- 
 pos, sketches, 36472, 7172; concert 
 excerpts, 316; poem, 1, v, 1222, 97, 
 168, 94, — sent to Schopenhauer, 
 23772 ; sale of, lviii, lx, 157, 6772, 8. 
 See also Rheingold etc. 
 
 Nicker, 22172, 303. 
 
 Niemann, Albert, 201, 49, 65. 
 
 Night, 31-2, 6, 45, 69, 81, 107, 212, 
 224, 31, 43. 83. 6, 98. 
 
 Nirvana,, xl, 213, 353. 
 
 Nuitter, Chas., 23872, (248), 7272. 
 
 Nuremberg, 286. 
 
 O. 
 
 Odessa, 324. 
 Oederan register, xxi. 
 Olliviers, xxxiv, 262, 78. 
 Oratorio, 8. 
 Orpheus, 222, 344. 
 Otto, Kaiser, 19. 
 Overbeck, 345. 
 
 Palazzo Giustiniani, Venice, xv, viii, 
 xxx, 35, 44, 77-8, 87-9, 99 ; photo., 
 177. 283, 99. 
 
 Palestrina, 227. 
 
 Palleske's Schiller, 102-3, 63, 8. 
 
 Paris, xxiii-iv, xxx, iv, xli, ii, lv, vii, 
 6, 18, 57, 68, 105, 28, 54, 9-62, 173- 
 275, 82, 3, 5-92, 8, 300, 30, 43, 50 ; 
 Bois de Boulogne, 237, 43 ; catas- 
 trophe, 269-75, 369, 72 ; Champs 
 Elysees, 181, 254 ; Concerts, Wjs, 
 198-21 1, 3, 9, 28; Conservatoire, 
 
INDEX 
 
 38l 
 
 217 ; German Opera plan, 201, II ; 
 
 Grand Opera, 207, 13, 7 — see 
 
 Tannk. ; House, W.'s, xxxiv, 180-3, 
 
 189, 92-3, 242«, 51, 4, 72«, 3. 85. 9 1 ; 
 
 Jockey Club, 220, 65 ; Louvre, 206- 
 
 207, 46, 86 ; Salle Ventadour, 201 ; 
 
 Seine and Tuileries, 272, 86 ; Theatre 
 
 lyrique, 176, 9. 
 Parzival, lx, 239, 41 : ideas for drama, 
 
 S°, 93-4. 7, 136, 40-4, (226), 240-2, 
 
 244 ; mus. theme, 22-3. 
 Parsifal, see last reference. 
 Patrie, Paris, 204. 
 Patti, Adelina, I28«. 
 Penelope, xli. 
 Penzing, Vienna, 305-27. 
 Peps' death (dog), 9, 312. 
 Perrin, Paris dir., 207. 
 Pesth : boat-accident, 314 ; concerts, 
 
 313, 5-8, 24. 
 Philharmonic concerts, London, 7-9. 
 Pianoforte works, Wagner's, 4«, 5, 
 
 198, 272«, 362». 
 Pilatus, Lucerne, 113, 59, 60, 4, 7. 
 Planers, the, xxi-v, xxx, xliii ; mother's 
 
 death, xiv. 
 Plato, 136 ; see Idea. 
 Plutarch, 177, 81. 
 Pogner (Meister singer), 291. 
 Pohl, dog, 312, 7, 26. 
 
 „ Richard, lx. 
 Politics, xxiv, xxxvi, 79, 87, 129, 31, 
 
 136, 48-9, 53, 9h 280. 
 Pollert, Frau, soprano, 13. 
 Posa {Don Carlos'), 175, 89. 
 Poniatowski, Prince, 217. 
 Pourtales, Countess, 263, 72, 83. 
 Praeger, Ferd., xlviii-ix, lix-lx. 
 Prague : concerts, 315, 24, 61 — H.v. 
 
 B.'s, 198^; theatre, 206. 
 Prakitri, 193 ; see Sawitri. 
 Professors, 7, 18, 21, 56, 144, 60, 347-8. 
 " Providence," xxviii, 79, 135. 
 Prussia, 146, 263, 72, 83; Princess, 
 
 xxxv, 247K. 
 Pusinelli, Dr Anton, xiii, xxvi, ix, xxx, 
 
 xxxiv, 102. 
 Pythia, 165. 
 
 Q- 
 Quai Voltaire, Paris, 285, 91. 
 Queen Victoria, England, 251. 
 
 R. 
 Raphael, 112; Mad. d. Sedia, 192; 
 
 Green Hill copies, 246, 346, 63. 
 Reichenhall, 278. 
 
 Reincarnation, lvii, lxi-ii, 51, 4-5, 239, 
 
 37°- 
 
 Revolution, xxiv, xlii, vi, 185. 
 
 Revue Europienne, Paris, 207. 
 
 Rheingold, Das, \\n, 133; compos, 
 mus., xlvii-viii, — MS., 37i»; pfte 
 score, 344 ; poem and draft, xliv, 
 
 365. 
 Rhine, the, xxxviii, 247, 51, 70, 97, 9, 
 
 313, 21, 43. 
 Rich, the, xlv, 47-50, 73. 9. 197, 203, 
 
 211, 23, 308, 69. 
 Richard, C, 19. 
 Rienzi, lvii, n«, 2 ; Darmstadt, 298*2 ; 
 
 Dresden, xxiv ; Hanover, xxxi. 
 Riga, xxii-iii, 37». 
 Rigi, 113, 27-8, 32-3, 7, 45; Kaltbad, 
 
 162, 4. 
 Ring, see Nibelungen. 
 Ristori, 37-8. 
 Ritter, Frau, xxxi, xl, vii, lx, 72, 91, 
 
 I3 1 , 4, 37° 5 daughters, xl, vi. 
 Ritter, Karl, xxxi-ii, 1, iii, iv, 32, 45», 
 
 72, 4, 6, 88, 9, 91, 101, 6, 10, 28, 
 
 134, 8. 
 Roche, Edmond, 177-8, 238K. 
 Roeckel, August, xxxv, xli, vii-ix, lii, 
 
 lv, 298-9». 
 Rolandseck, 251. 
 Rome, 39, 1 10, 38, 94«, 7, 9, 201, 2, 
 
 204, 15, 23, 4, 8, 31K, 345, 72; 
 
 Sixtine chapel, 227 ; fountain of 
 
 Trevi, 233. 
 Roses, 18, 26, 81, 103, 52. 
 Rossini, 208, 19. 
 Rotterdam to Pesth, 314. 
 Royer, op. dir., 218, 9, 86. 
 Rue d'Aumale, 251. 
 
 „ de Lille, 272. 
 
 ,, Newton, 181. 
 Ruge, Arnold, 315. 
 Russia, 77, 219, 62, 308-10, 4, 5, 21, 
 
 326, 62. 
 Rtttli, 163. 
 
 Sachs, Hans, 290-3, 302, 13, 70. 
 
 S. Anthony, 112, 3. 
 
 S. Gallen, (lvii), 274. 
 
 S. Gothard, 20, no, 2, 7, 287. 
 
 S. Petersburg, 219, 308, 9, 24. 
 
 Saint-Saens, 207. 
 
 Saints, lv-vi, 54, 82, 112-3, 7, 48, 51, 
 
 314, 39- 
 Salzburg, 278. 
 San Marte, I36«, 42. 
 de Sanctis, 21, 126, 37, 348. 
 
382 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Sawitri, 8, 193, 369; and Elsa, 239. 
 
 See Ananda. 
 Sax, Marie (Sasse), 249, S4«. 
 Saxony, King, xxxv, 13, 100, 898. 
 Schack, Count A. F., 19. 
 Schandau, xx. 
 Schiller, 78, 9, 93, 5, 102-3, 63, 8, 90, 
 
 201 ; Committee's invit. to W., 189 ; 
 
 Don Carlos, 175, 89; Letters to 
 
 Lotte, xxix, lii, 129, 30-1, 81 ; Maid 
 
 of Orleans, 189 ; Maria Stttart, 37-8. 
 Schirmer (?), 343. 
 Schleich, Zurich musician, 356. 
 " Schmerzen," 16. 
 Schmid, A., Gluck, 6. 
 Schmidt, basso, Vienna, 344. 
 Schnorr, Ludwig and Malvida, 1798, 
 
 (330). 
 Schopenhauer, xlv, li-v, (42, 6-9), 52, 
 
 59. 75-6, 8, 93, (97-8, 112, 48, 52, 
 
 165), 181, 2, (224-7), 23'. 7. (261), 
 
 347. 9. (353), 648. 
 Schott, 17, 2928, 3, 300, 4, 27. 
 
 „ Frau Betty, 2988. 
 Schulthess, Zurich bookseller, 19. 
 Schwalbach, 313, 57. 
 Schwarzau, near Vienna, 279, 80. 
 Schweizerhof, xxi, 132, 50, 3, 4, 6, 63, 
 
 164, 7 ; see Lucerne. 
 Seebach, Frau von, (2478), 263. 
 Seefeld, Zurich, 10. 
 Seegessern (Schweizerhof), 153, 4. 
 Seelisberg, liii-iv, 9, 113. 
 Semper, Gottfried, 15, 140, 86-7, 2068, 
 
 328. 
 Senta (Holl.~), xli, 28, 281. 
 Sex-problem, xlii-iii, viii, 46, 8, 53-5, 
 
 75-6 ; see Woman. 
 Shakespeare, 148, 50 ; Hamlet, 361 ; 
 
 Othello, 9. 
 Sicily, 181, 3. 
 Sieger, Die, lv, vi, lxi-ii, (28, 41), 54- 
 
 55. 239- 
 
 Siegfried, 100, 18, (336) : music, Iviii- 
 Ix, 13, 2i«, 56, 68«, 77, (270, 1),— 
 box missing, 122, 8, 36 ; pfte score, 
 331 ; poem and draft, xliv, 365 ; 
 ' sketches,' 3718. 
 
 Siegfried's Tod, poems, draft and pre- 
 face, xliv, 365. 
 
 Sihl-Thal, lviii, 100, 237. 
 
 Silence, 22, 43, 5, 86, 9, 98, 163, 81, 
 260, 4, 6, 75, 80-1, 352, 8, 62; 
 "sounding," 64, 189, 286. 
 
 Simplon, 35. 
 
 Sina (Baron?), Venice, 87. 
 
 Soden baths, 2478, 728. 
 ,, Count J., 188. 
 
 Solferino, 158. 
 
 Spanish literature, 18-23, '4 2 > 22 7 > see 
 
 Calderon. 
 Stachelberg, 68. 
 
 Standhartner, Dr, 277, 83, 317, 25, 51. 
 Stars, 36, 44, 88, 90, 277 ; comet, 44; 
 
 Jupiter, 231, 3. 
 " Stehe still," 17, 58, 6o«. 
 Stein, Charlotte von, vi, lxi-ii, 198, 
 
 372- 
 Steiner, A., Neujahrsblatt, xiii, xxvi, 
 
 2828. 
 Strakosch, 1288. 
 Strassburg, 19. 
 Stromkarl, 221, 2. 
 Stiinzig (?), Zurich, 223. 
 Stttrmer, (?), Paris, 273. 
 Sulzer, Jakob, xvi, xxxvii, 14, 346, 7. 
 "Swan" (pfte), 57, 71, 2, 113, 334; 
 
 see Erard. 
 Swans, The black, 2728. 
 Switzerland, lii, 28, 72, IOI, 5, 60, 77, 
 
 217, 79, 310, 3, 21, 56, 8. 
 
 Tdgliche Rundschau, Berlin, xiii. 
 Tannhauser, xliii, 238, 50, 3038 : — 
 Ballet, 219-23. 
 Cut in act ii, 186. 
 French translations, 174-5, 88, 213, 
 
 238, 48 ; prose, 238. 
 Hero, 97, 186, 221, 2, 38. 
 March, 208, 9. 
 
 Overture : perf., Paris, 210 ; Strass- 
 burg, 198 ; Zurich, xliv ; — time- 
 length, 206. 
 Paris : hopes of, 179, 82, 201, 3, 13 ; 
 Grand Opera production, 216-20, 
 243, 8-9, 53-68, (286). 
 Paris version, 220-3, 38. 46, 8, 
 
 250, 2. 
 Performances (other) : Prague, 206 ; 
 
 Vienna, 272. 
 Poem, 238 ; draft, 364. 
 Selections, concert: Paris, 204, 9-10; 
 Zurich, xlvii — milit., Venice, 90. 
 Tappert, Wilhelm, xxi, xxxv. 
 Tasso, Jerus. Delivered, 123, 6, 8. 
 Tasso, see Goethe. 
 Tausig, Carl, 24, 136, 270, I. 
 Tedesco, Mme, 249, (2548). 
 Tichatschek, Joseph, xiv, xxx, 189s, 
 
 201 ; wife, xxvii. 
 " Transitions," artistic etc., 184-8. 
 " Trdume," 16, 7, 80, 283. 
 Traunblick, Salzkammergut, xxxviii. 
 " Treibhaus, Im," 17, 23. 
 
INDEX 
 
 383 
 
 Treviso, 107. 
 
 Tribschen, lake of Lucerne, I54«, 331. 
 Tristan und Isolde, 64, 82, 105, 
 288 :— 
 
 Composition-draft, mus. : act i, 15-7, 
 283; act ii, 22», 4, 57, 118, 52, 
 185 ; act iii, xii, xix, xx, 105, 17- 
 J 39> 4^-55, 8, 9 (completed), 220, 
 — themes, 123, 7 : — M.S., 158, 
 204, 36472, 7 IB. 
 
 Hero and heroine, xxvii, xl, lxi, 17, 
 36, 77», 96-7, 140, S3-S, 220. 
 
 Mabinogion, 244. 
 
 Music, Wagner on, 79, 105, 24, 65, 
 168, 77, 85, 90-1, 240, 75, 88; 
 sings, 263. 
 
 Orchestral draft : act i, 18, 21 ; act 
 ii, xviii, 24B, 36, 41, 64, 7, 71, 5, 
 79. 80, 7, 92-1 1 1 ; act iii, 130, 2, 9, 
 144, 5. 56. 8— fair copy, 132, 46, 
 151, 5, 60, l» :— MS. 234», 371B. 
 
 Pfte (vocal) score, 255. 
 
 Poem, viii, lx-lxi, 14, 42, 65, (81), 
 121-2, 42, 52, 243, 85, 352, 7i« ; 
 first idea, li, lv ; prose-draft, lx ; 
 publication, xxxii, ai», 4, 121-2, 
 237«, 371B ; translation, French 
 prose, 238. 
 
 Prelude, 130, 213 : concert-close, 
 198-9, 209, 32 ; perf. : — Leipzig, 
 I47», 98»; Paris, 198-9, 202-4, 
 210 ; Pesth, 316 ; Prague, I98«, 
 203, (313 — also at W.'s other concerts 
 of that year). 
 
 Production contemplated, xxvii, 86, 
 119, 204, 19, 40, 3, 50, 5, 9, 88: 
 Carlsruhe, 64, 101, 30, 77, 9, 81, 
 183, 96, 202, 68, 73, 92»; Dres- 
 den, l89« ; Munich (effected), 
 179B, 329-30; Paris, 201-2, 1 1-3; 
 Vienna, 271, 2, 5, 7-8, 284, 5, 7, 
 304-5, 15, 46. 
 
 Score, proofs, 166, 90; pubd, 206, 
 230B, l». 
 
 Sketches, prelim., 283, 307, 11. 
 Triimplers, the, 10. 
 Tschandalas, 54, 193. 
 Tschudi, Fauna of the Alps, 279. 
 Turin University, 347. 
 Tyrol, loo. 
 
 U. 
 
 Uhlig, Th., xxiv-v, xl-vii, i67». 
 Ullmann, B., manager, 128. 
 Urich, see Hutten. 
 
 „ Frln, 344. 
 Usinar, 8. 
 
 V. 
 
 Vandyck, 112, 279. 
 
 Venice, xii, iii, viii, xxvii, xxx-ii, 34-5, 
 41-2, 86-7, 9, 100, I, 4-5, 11-2, 8, 
 128, 36, 227, 84, 6, 9, 90, 306, 7, 47, 
 348: Cafed.l. Rot., 89; Giard. publ., 
 
 35, 88, 100 ; Grand Canal, xviii, 35, 
 
 36, 44, 69, 77, 87, 8, 9, 107 ; Lido, 
 42, 4, 88 ; Piazza S. Marco, 35, 77, 
 88, 90 ; Piazzetta, 35, 44, 87, 8, 100, 
 —lion, 350; Rialto, Foscari, Grassi, 
 87 ; Riva, 100. See Pal. Giust. 
 
 Venus, 112 : Tannh., 220-2, 38, 46, 9, 
 250. 
 
 Venusberg, (186), 220-3, 364. 
 
 Verdi, 316. 
 
 Verona, 100, 10. 
 
 Vicenza, 107. 
 
 Victoria, Queen, 251. 
 
 Vienna, xxxv, 87, 105, 201, 68-70, 4- 
 286, 92B, 301, 4-27, 44, 5-9, 55, 7, 
 362 ; concerts, 305, 16 ; Schonbrunn, 
 309; Theatre, 268, 81, 315, 23,— see 
 Tristan. 
 
 Villemarque, Ct de la, 244. 
 
 Villot, F., 206-7. 
 
 Violin, 42, 209, 21, 2, 50. 
 
 Vischer, Prof. F. T., 18. 
 
 Vreneli, (126), 154, 61, 7, 9, 76, 318. 
 
 W. 
 Wagner, Cosima, 330-1, 69, 70. 
 Wagner, Minna, vii, ix-xxxvi, xliii, vii, 
 xlix, lii-lxi, 3, 4J9-14, 22«, 5-6, 32, 
 37», 51, (63), 7°-i, 85, 101, 2, 175- 
 176, 89/z, 90B, 1, 2», (214, 24, 8), 
 247B, (249, 58, 62, 3, 4, 5, 7, 70-2), 
 273. 4». (278), 283-4B, 98-9W, 307, 
 316, 69, 72: — birth and marriage, 
 xxi-ii; brother-in-law, xiv,xxiii,v, vii, 
 70 ; death, xxxv, 330B ; laudanum, 
 xv, xxxiii-iv, 372 ; letters, xviii, ix- 
 xx, ii, iii, v-xxxiv, lix, lx, (160, 2, 4), 
 200», 54«, 372. 
 Wagner, Richard :— 
 
 Abode, viii, xi, ii, vi-viii, xx, iii-v, 
 xxxiv, liii, vi-ix, 3, 4, 10-3, 26-8, 
 33, 5, 6, 8, 44, 56, 61, 87-8, 99, 
 105, 13, 8, 24, 6-7, 35, 5°. 3-6, 63, 
 164, 7» 75-8, 80-3, 9, 92-3, 247, 51, 
 254, 69, 7i-3, 7, 9, 83, 5, 9, 9°. 
 293, 7-9, 3°5, 7-17, 2i», 5, 6, 50, 
 355-6, 62. 
 Animals, xxv, lv, 19, 47-50, 169, 278, 
 279 :— birds, 12, 3, 26, 98, 117, 43, 
 167, 247-8, 99 (cf. 302, 52) ; dogs, 
 9, 86, 255-6, 79, 99», 357,— see 
 Fips; horses, 107, 46-7, 280. 
 
384 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Wagner, Richard {continued) : — 
 
 Box lost, 122, 8, 36. 
 
 Christianity, 32, 79, 141, 3, 5, 51, 
 166, 238, 304. 
 
 Colour, 18, 64, 88, 126, 32, 92, 258. 
 
 Conducting, xxi-iv, xliv, 8, i6», 20, 
 62, 4, 128, 79-80, 2, 93, 5, 202-10, 
 257-60, 305, 13-27, 55, 6, 62. 
 
 Creations, xi, xx, xlvii-ix, lv-vi, 24, 
 37-8, 42, 8, 54-6, 75. 8, 93-7, 106, 
 121, 4-5, 44, 5, 7, 50, 2, 6, 65, 73, 
 184-6, 8, 91, 7, 200, 2, 16-8, 26-7, 
 238-41, 50, 86-7, 90, 8, 303, 22, 7, 
 370 ; their performance, xiii, xxiv, 
 xxxi, xliii, 60, 2, 86, 101, 5, 10, 
 125, 8«, 74, 8-80, 95-6, 202-4, 1 1-3, 
 219, 20, 5-7, 43, 8, 55, 9, 66, 72, 
 277-8, 81, 304, 15-6, 9, 28, 55, 8. 
 
 "Daemon," xii, 22, 31, 43, 58, 85, 
 
 173, 4, 97, 204, 13, 9, 2 4-7, 73- 
 Death, xli, h, 23-4, 6, 8, 31, 4, 42, 
 
 46, 7, 5°, 7, 8, 61, 4, 6-71, 9, 81, 
 82, 94, 109, 18, 40-1, 4, 53, 4, 82.3, 
 185, 90, 1, 2, 203, 12, 4, 24, 41, 
 267, 73, 5-8, 86, 8, 97-8, 313, 4-8, 
 322, 7, 70. 
 
 Diary, 31, 4, 9, 40, 3, 64, 5, 7, 70, 
 gin. 
 
 Disputing, xli, 3-4, (20), 47, (89), 
 97, 126, 35-6, 66, 85-8, 91, 259, 
 
 3i9- 
 Dreams, 31, 3-4, 64, 81-2, 90, 111-2, 
 152, 66, 83, 200, 15, 26, 8, 59, 69, 
 
 305, 6, Si- 
 Dress, 105, 31, 54, 3i8«. 
 Engravings (presents), 192, 254, 99. 
 Exile and amnesty, xii, ix, xxiv, 
 
 xxxv, 13, 27, 64, 87, 90, 100-1,3-4, 
 
 151, 8-60, 77, 8o, 8-9, 212, 3, 26, 36, 
 
 2 9 9«, 315. 
 Eye-strain, xliv, 138, 54, 99-200, 40B, 
 
 253-4, 86 ; cf. 232-3. 
 Fame, 11, 73, 87, 90, 103, 5, 11, 39, 
 
 174, 8, 93, 5, 204-10, 58, 76, 9, 80, 
 287, 308-9, 18-9, 22, 55, 8. 
 
 Flowers, lix, 17, 21, 6, 80-1, 108,12, 
 118, 52, 61, 301, 3. 
 
 Friendship, male, xiii-vi, ix, xxxvi, 
 xli, iv, vi, lvii, lx-i, 52, 60, 2-3, 
 65-6, 85-7, 9, 144, 5, 7, 55, 61, 4, 
 
 175, 87-9, 9 1 , 4, 6, 206-8, 17, 30-2, 
 236, 59, 62, 71, 4, 6, 7, 300-1, 10, 
 
 329- 
 
 Ghosts, 32, 63, 81, 2. 
 
 Gratitude, xv, xxi, xxxvi, lvi-viii, 5, 
 i5> 43, 65, 73, 7, 104, 18, 35, 55, 
 162, 93, 223, 30B, 7, 54, 7, 65, 88, 
 301, 3, 8, 14, 9, 20, 9, 31-2. 
 
 Wagner, Richard (continued) : — 
 " Grey," 28, 32, 272, 82, 6, 92, 9, 
 
 344- 
 
 Handwriting, 1, liv, 103, 8, 9, 34, 
 198, 304, 72«. 
 
 Health, xviii, xx, vii, xxxii, iii, xliv, 
 lv, 5, 9, I2«, 20-2, 4, 36, 9, 45, 6, 
 64, 8, 74-7, 92, 3, 8-9, 107, 10, 2, 
 122, 4, 32-3, 5, 8, 45, 6, 56, 8, 60, 
 162, 6-9, 75, 6, 80, 2-3, 90, 231, 4, 
 246, 53-8, 78, 301, 9, 17, 21, 3, 4, 
 326, 50, 62. 
 
 Lamp, xxv, 36, 44, 77, 89, 107, 314, 
 316, 7, 55 ; shade, 18. 
 
 Laughter and smiles, 1, iv, 6, 13, 78, 
 92, 102, 9, 30, 7, 45, 8-9, 56, 8, 65, 
 175, 93, 2I 9, 28, 31, 7, 67, 70, 5, 
 276, 86, 92, 300, 15, 7, 9, 21, 35, 
 350-1, 61. 
 
 Letters missing, 18, 24, 34, 9-40, 
 59«, 68, 9IK, 4«, 103, 90, 2o7«, 
 284, 92», 323-4, 7, 4 6», 59, 73. 
 
 Loneliness and retirement, xi, ii, v, 
 xviii, xx, v, xlvi, vii, liii-iv, vii, 3, 
 4, 32-3, 5, 6, 44-5, 60-1, 4, 71, 7, 
 85, 6, 9, 90-2, 117, 29, 31, 7, 44, 
 145, 7, 5°, 5, 9> 6 3, 4, 74-5- 80, 2, 
 187-8, 93, 213-4, 23, 8, 35, 48, 50, 
 271-5, 80-1, 5-6, 8, 99, 301, 4, 7, 8, 
 31 1-2, 5-9, 22,43, 5°- 
 
 " Marquise," 127, 53, 4. 
 
 Misunderstood, vii, xi-iii, vi, xlii-iii, 
 38-44, 51-3, 6, 62, 6, 79, 85, 97, 
 106, 20, 75, 85-8, 91, 4, 212, 29, 
 
 234-5, 43- 57, 9- 6°, 75- 6, 355, 8. 
 Money-matters, vii-viii, xx, i, iii, iv, 
 xxvi, vii, xxx-ii, v, vii-viii, xlv, lvi, 
 lviii, 5, 15, 43, 52, 60, 73-4, 104, 5, 
 126, 54, 6, 7, 61, 7», 76, 95-7, 201, 
 
 203, low, 1, 4, 9, 23, 6, 34«, 5, 42«, 
 243«, 51, 8, 66-7, 9», 78, 85, 3oi«, 
 307, 10, 2, 4, 7, 8, 20-2, 6, 7, 62, 9. 
 
 "Muse," lix, 13, 22, 80, 189, 273. 
 Paintings etc., on, 87, 9, 112, 99-200, 
 
 204, 7, 22-3, 7, 35, 46, 61, 79, 86. 
 " Palm," 103, 6. 
 
 Passport, 90, 160, 1, 4, 7. 
 Patience, vii, xi, vii, 27, 32, 85, 92, 
 
 98, 137, 51, 64, 89, 95, 232, 42, 54, 
 
 258, 70, 8, 8. 
 Pen, 1, liv, 95, 152. 
 Pessimism, Iii, 46, 52-3, 8-9, 125-6, 
 
 149, 50, 263, 76-8, 86, 9-90, 8, 314- 
 
 322, 8-9, 46, 55-8, 62 ; see Schop. 
 Pfte-playing, xlvii, 1-i, iii, lx, 7, 16, 
 
 57-8, 65, 72, 80, 118, 23-4, 30, 2, 
 
 137, 45, 55, 60, 79, 98, 232, 80; 
 
 see Erard. 
 
INDEX 
 
 385 
 
 Wagner, Richard {continued) : — 
 
 Pillow, 23, 135, 64, 301, 3. 
 
 Portfolios, 34, 274B, 325, 8-9, 63, 
 372 :— brown,. 310-2, 6, 7, 55, 6 ; 
 green, 283-4, 307, 11, 51, 61 ; red, 
 J49..S', cf. 37i«. 
 
 Portraits of self, 207, 23, 32-3, 74, 
 309, 45, 8. 
 
 Presentation plate, 4c, 205-6, 312. 
 
 Reading, xliii, liv, 6, 8, 14, 8-23, 36, 
 44, 53. 78-9, 92-3. 102, 20, 2-3, 6, 
 129-31, 6, 41-3, 8-50, 6, 63, 8, 77, 
 i8i, 9, 207, 27, 56, 70, 9, 87, (33i)» 
 350:— aloud xlvii, 14-5, 9, (182), 
 267, 92, 9-300. 
 
 Rest, quiet and repose : inner, x.x, 
 Iviii, 8, 24-5, 7-8, 35, 41-3, 56, 60- 
 64, 6-7, 70, 6, 106, 9, 18, 45, 6, 
 152-3, 63, 73, 81, 3, 6, 9, 200-1, 
 
 225, 8, 31-3, 6, 7, 42, 58, 60, 1, 
 281, 99«, 302, 1 1-2, 23, 7, 46, 58 ; 
 outer, xi, iii, viii, xxxiii, xlv, liv, 
 lvi-vii, ix, 1 1-3, 33, 5, 43, 52, 62, 
 64, 89, 139. 5°. 4, 80, 8, 9, 92, 5, 
 
 226, 7, 51, 7, 8, 67, 73, 304, 7, 8, 
 309, 11-3,24, 7, 56,61. 
 
 Riding, 113, 46-7, 54, 80. 
 
 Servants, 32, 77, 8, 92, 126, 54, 61, 
 
 i6g, 76, 7, 228, 52-3, 312, 8, 26. 
 Singing, 1, 13, 133, 68, 74, 9, 82, 257, 
 
 263. 
 Sleep, 16-9, 31-4, 6, 46, 64, 9, 107, 
 
 135. 237. 5°. 6- 
 
 Spring, xliv, 69, 123, 9, 66, 77, 228, 
 247. 
 
 Tea-set etc., 43, 88, 118, 297, 317, 
 356. 
 
 Travel and trips, xii, xlvi, 1, 11, in, 6, 
 9, 11, 8, 20, 7-8, 31-5. 57. 68, 9, 
 72, 4, 101, 7, 1 1-3, 22, 7-8, 32, 3, 
 '37, 45. 7, 57, 9, 60, 2-4, 73«, 7, 94, 
 197, 202, 33, 5, 47, 68-79, 84-7, 9°- 
 293, 8«, 305, 8, 9, 13-27, 55,. 62. 
 
 Walking, xviii, xlvii, liii, iv, vii, ix, 6, 
 35, 88, 100, 7, 17, 38-9, 44, 52, 75, 
 228, 37, 54, 80, 301, 3, 12. 
 
 Weather, lix, 3, 6-7, 35, 57, 65, 80, 
 100, 7, 12, 7, 20-39, 45, 6, 51-60, 4, 
 166, 99, 202, 28, 31-4, 42, 8-50, 4, 
 255, 80, 326, 43- 
 
 Weeping, 1, 9, 32, 67, 8, 109, 19, 91, 
 228, 76, 92, 306. 
 
 Working-hours, xvlii, liii, lx, 14, 124, 
 135, 8-9, 46, 52-4- 8, 60, 74, 256. 
 
 Zwieback, 129-31, 5, 44, 8, 64, 76. 
 "Wahlheim," 18. 
 Wahnfried, 364W. 
 Walkure, Die, uri, 32172 : — Music, li, 
 
 lii, iv, v, 8, — privately sung, 1, 12-3, — 
 
 theme from act i, 7, — 'sketches,* 
 
 37i«, pencilled dedic, li ; Scenario 
 
 and Poem, MS., xliv, 365. 
 Wallis, 35. 
 
 Walther (Meistersgr.), 29m, 300. 
 Walther v. d. Vogelweide, 355. 
 War, 126, 8», 34-7, 46, 8-9, 57, 8, 85. 
 Weber : Freischutz, 137 ; Chant at 
 
 grave, 331, 66. 
 Weiland, Richard, 205-6. 
 Weimar, xlvi, 62, 6, (131 ?), 271, 4-7, 
 
 345 ; Gd Duke, lvi, 26, 277. 
 Wesendonck, Guido, xxxviii, liii, 14 ; 
 
 death, xxvii- viii, xxxvii, 66-7, 71, 108- 
 
 109. 
 Wesendonck, Hans, xxxviii, 288», 9172, 
 
 347»- 
 Wesendonck, Mathilde, vii-xi, xvi- 
 xvii, xx, v-viii, xxxiii, viii-xl, iv-v, 
 xlvii, 1-lxii, 369-74 : — 
 
 Death, xiii, xxxix, 370, 2. 
 
 Diary, 32-3, 50, 6, 67, 372. 
 
 Health, 4, 7, 13, 39, 82, 139, 75, 81, 
 183, 90, 237, 56, 75, 97, 3°2, 45, 5i. 
 369- 
 
 Letters missing, 24, 34, 40-1, 5, 50, 9, 
 64, 7, 8, 86, 91, 109, 10, 7, 24, 34, 
 136,8,44,6,9,51,3,64,5,8,75,81, 
 190, 1, 4, 9, 201, 9, 14-5, 23, 4, 8, 
 232, 46, 52-3, 6, 7, 64, 6, 9, 70, 5, 
 281, 3-4», 97», 300», 13;?, 2011, 2, 7, 
 334, 46B, 50«, in, 71-2. 
 
 Poems, xxxix, 16-7, 58, 80, 133, 7, 
 22i», 303, 7, 13;?, 34, 5», 51-4, 75. 
 
 Portraits, 45, 228, 32, 51, 82-4, 310, 
 
 345- 
 Tales, xxxix, 95, 8, 106, 11, 58, 9, 
 
 334-42, 75. 
 
 Wiedersehen, xxxvii, 25, 7-8, 36, 9, 
 
 69, 72, 81-2, 101, 11-3, 8, 22, 3, 6, 
 
 128-31, 44, 6, 9-51, 5, 7, 9, 60-3, 6, 7, 
 
 I73», 86-7, 97, 233, 51, 7, 64-5, 7, 
 
 269, 74-5, 8, 82, 4-7, 90, 2, 300, 6, 
 
 321-7,30-1,45-8, 56-61,72. 
 
 Wesendonck, Myrrha, 9, 14, 103, 13, 8, 
 
 135, 51,60-1, 3, 251, 300, 4, 29 ; letters 
 
 to, 108-10, 34, 302. 
 
 Wesendonck, Otto, vii-x, ix, xxvi, xxxvi- 
 
 xxxviii, xlv, lvi-ix, 3-15, 9, 25, 39,63- 
 
 65, 9, i°3> 5> 6> 9, 1 1, 3, 8, 22-8, 31, 5-6, 
 
 139, 45, 6 > 53, 7, 60, 7, 75, 83, 204, 23, 
 
 227, 32, 43», 64-8,71, 4, 8, 91-2, 305-7, 
 
 312-3, 8-20, 3, 7,30-2,47, 56, 69, 70 : 
 
 — Carriage and horses, 3, 6, 100, 22, 
 
 146 ; Children, viii, xxxviii, lviii, 24, 
 
 38,63,8,9,82,5,6, 113, 59, 74,7, 
 
 191,202, 14,23,35, 51, 70, 2,4,8,84, 
 
 25 
 
3 86 
 
 INDEX 
 
 287, 98, 320, 5, 7, 34, 60, 3 ; Health, 
 287, 3>3. 9> 2 4. 5. 57-6i » Letters to, 
 5, 15, 20, 308-10, — pubd vol., xxxvi, 
 190K, 21572, e/ passim ; Surname, 
 spelling of, 371W, 3-4. — Also, simple 
 'kind regards,' 151, 9, 61, 77, 81, 2, 
 201, 2, 14, 46, 51, 6, 7, 70, 2, 84, 98, 
 304, 20. 
 
 Wesendonk, Karl, xxxviii, 13s, 4, 108- 
 110, 52, 77, 360, 70, r, 3 ; christening, 
 lviii, 1 1 8-9. 
 
 Wiesbaden, 291, 3. 
 
 Wille, Eliza, xlv, 38-41, 51, 65, 8, io8«, 
 131, 61, 77, 255, 7, 326, 7, 9», 30, 44, 
 262 ; letters to, 22, 34, 85-91, 144, 305- 
 308, 71, — pubd collection, 8s», 327. 
 
 Wille, Dr Francois, 74», 86-7, 131, 44, 
 150, 61, 3«, 327, 44. 
 
 Winkelried, 181. 
 
 Winterberger, Alex., 106, 10, 38. 
 
 Winterthur, Switzerland, 346. 
 
 " Wish," ix, xlviii, 24, 7, 8, 36, 42, 60-3, 
 78, 81, 98, 112, 35, 49, 83, 225-7, 33, 
 242, 55, 8, 65, 90, 304, 12, 7. 
 
 Wittgenstein, Pss Carolyne Sayn-, 
 xxxiv, liii, vii, 13, 147", 93", 229K, 
 230-1, 4», 345 ; daughter Marie, liii, 
 lvii, I3«, 164. 
 
 Wolfram, Clara, xxvi, 11, 2n; letters 
 to, vii, xix, xxxiii, v, 33, 369. 
 
 Wolfram von Eschenbach, 136, 41- 
 
 144. 
 Woman, xl-lvi, 28, 42, 6, 8, 53-5, 60, 
 
 75. 9. i°3. «2. 4°> 55. 73. 6, 96, 240, 
 
 242, 8, 50, 62-3, 77, 9, 306-8, 11, 4, 
 
 307-9, 26, 55, 72-3. 
 Wotan, 8, 13, 97, 168, 241. 
 
 Z. 
 
 Zehringen, Princes of, 343. 
 
 Zeller, Dr, I75«. 
 
 Zeltweg, Zurich, xxvi, xlvii, (4), 13. 
 
 Zichy, Count, 280. 
 
 Ziegesar, Weimar, 365. 
 
 Zurich, xxiv, xxxviii, liii, 3-28, 63, 
 122, 6, 52, 60, 7, 79-80, 250, 5, 82, 
 287, 330, 46 :— 
 ' Catastrophe,' vii-xix, xxv-viii, xxx, 
 xxxvii, xlviii-ix, lx, 22, 4-8, 31-3, 41, 
 43. 4. 5«. 7, 60, 1, 9, 125, 47, 52, 
 (189, 92, 4), 260, 7, 73, (284, 9), 
 303, 6, 8, 13, 4, 30, 69. 
 Concerts, xliv, vii, I, 6, 7«, 8, 204K, 
 
 209. 317. 44, 56- 
 Lake, lix, 74, 85», 313. 
 Rathhaus, 144. 
 Villa, Enge, see Green Hill. 
 Zwickau, xxi, iii, v, vi, (70). 
 
 Printed by Hasell, Watson * Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury, England. 
 
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