Alas! I am often tired of life, yet life is ever returning in a new guise, alluring us anew to pain and sorrow. With me now it is sublime nature which ever impels me to cling to life as a new love, and thus it is I have begun once more to work. You have again been presented with a new-born life. I wish you happiness with all my heart. I feel as though I had some claim to the boy, for it was during the last four months prior to his entering the world that I came a new member into your household. The affection I sought was vouchsafed to me in the highest degree; the mother’s mind was no doubt much occupied with that strange, whimsical individual, whom, to his great joy, she so heartily welcomed. May it not be, perhaps, that before he saw the light, this may have influenced the little stranger! if so, my heartiest wish is that it may bring him blessings. Now give my best greetings to sister Léonie, and thank her heartily for all the kindness she showed me. I can but wish her the happiest motherly joys; remember me to Henry; he is to care for his little brother as if it were a sister.
Farewell, and let me soon know how you all are, Keep up, and above all, see well that you come to visit me next year; kindly remember me also to my few London friends. Lüders and Sainton I thank for their friendly letter; you will soon hear from me. Farewell, dear brother,
P.S. Liszt will not come until October. Ask Klindworth to write to me. Thousand kind things from my wife.
In the next letter he speaks sorrowfully of the demon of ill-health which had settled in his house. Poor Minna suffered with heart-disease, an illness to which she eventually succumbed, whilst he, too, was somewhat broken down, and shortly to be laid upon a sick-bed. His only relief from worry and trouble was work. Indeed, the major portion of his work was done at times when the horizon was dark for him.
Best thanks, dear friend, for your letter, which was, alas, sad enough to make me sad too. The worst of misfortune in a life like yours is that in surveying all circumstances, it is positively unrectifiable: to revolt against it, even at the best, has still something ridiculous in it. To him, who like you suffers keenly (and amongst your surroundings must perforce suffer the most), all I can say is, think, dear friend, no man is happy except he who is foolish enough to think that he is. You and I are not fit for this life except to be tired of it; he who becomes so the soonest finishes his task the quickest. All so-called “fortunate events” are but deceptive palliations, making the evil worse. I know this is capable of being understood in a double sense, so that it might be interpreted either as a trivial commonplace or the deepest possible reflection. I must leave it to chance how you will understand it. The only ray of light in the dark night of our life is that which sympathy affords us. We only lose consciousness of our own misery when we feel that of others. Entire freedom from one’s own sorrow is only possible if one could live solely for the sorrows of others, but the evil of it is, that one cannot do this continually, as one’s own troubles always return the stronger to attack the feelings. I, for my part, must say that since in London I have never had my mind free from troubles. The demon of sickness has come to lodge in my house. My wife, particularly, causes me great anxieties. Her ever-increasing ill-health helps to render me very sad. Worried and troubled, I resumed work. I struggle at it, as work is the only power that brings to me oblivion and makes me free. Only look to it that next year you come to Switzerland; meanwhile amuse yourself as much as you can in your polemical war against London music-artists and critics, not on my account, however, but only as I believe it is a good channel to absorb your otherwise sad thoughts.