Matters have been smoothed over, so that I am not compelled to leave here. I hope we shall be quite free from annoyance in a short time; but ach, the virulence, the cruel maliciousness of some of my enemies....
I can testify Wagner suffered severely from thoughtlessness.
From the time I left Zurich in the autumn of 1856, to the untoward fate of “Tannhäuser,” at Paris, in March, 1861, of the several letters which passed between Richard Wagner and me I reproduce the few following, as possessing more than a personal interest.
Hard have I toiled at “Siegfried,” for work, work, is my only comfort. Unable to return to the fatherland! Cruel! cruel! and why? The efforts of the grand duke[24] are fruitless; one hopes for the best, but that best comes not. Eh! is not Schopenhauer right? Is not the degree of my torment more intense than that of any joy I have experienced? Here I am working alone, with no seeming probability of my compositions ever being performed as I yearn for. My efforts are in vain, and then when I look round and see what is being done at the theatres,--the list of their representations _fills me with rage_,--such unrealities!
You tell me that Goethe says, “The genius cannot help himself, and that the demon of fate seizes him by the nape of the neck, and forces him to work _nolens volens_.” And must I work on without a chance of being heard? _Nous verrons_....
But listen, Ferdinandus! I am pondering over the Tristan legend. It is marvellous how that work constantly leaps from out the darkness into full life, before my mental vision. Wait until next summer, and then you shall “hear something”! But now my health is poor, and I am out of spirits....
Not long after the above reached me, Wagner’s health did begin to give way, so that his next letter is dated:--
Yes; I have been long in writing, but you are a second me and understand the cause. Since I have been here I have been very ill. I have sought to avoid all correspondence, and have endeavoured to restore my somewhat shattered self. Thank sister Léonie for her account of my _alter ego_. Poor little fellow! he is in terribly wondrous sympathy with me. Perhaps, were he here, we might together come through our pains triumphantly.... What was good news for me was that “Lohengrin” was done at Vienna, though I cannot understand how it can be adequately given without me. Only “hearty love and good-will could conquer....