Volume I Part 6 (1/2)

Whether you ought to show her my manuscript I am not quite certain; in it I am so much of a Greek that I have not been able quite to convert myself to Christianity But what nonsense I talk! As if you were not the right people! Pardon me

Farewell, dear, unique friend! Remember me in kindness

Your

RICHARD WAGNER

ZURICH, August 4th, 1849

Have you been good enough to see about the forwarding toseen anything of them

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DEAREST FRIEND,

A thousand thanks for your letter, and for kindly taking care ofto be hidden from me Thank hi article; probably you have read it I aree to your wish to dedicate ”Tannhauser” to the Grand Duke without the slightest abnegation of my principles, for I hope you will see that I care for so else than the stupid political questions of the day

It would be best if you could have the dedication page and the special copy done through Meser, in which case youexpense, for of that copyright not a single note is mine I hope you like the verses

Will you put the letter to the Grand Duke in an addressed envelope?

Oh,mechanic, you would have pleasure in my undisturbed work, which should all be yours

Thanks for sending the scores ”Lohengrin” will be especially useful to me, for I hope to pawn the score here for some hundreds of florins, so as to have money for myself and my wife for the next few months

Your doubts as to a satisfactory effect of the performance of the opera have frequently occurred to me I think, however, that if the perfor even the end--will be all right One reetings, and return theood Liszt, I also thank you most cordially for all the care you take ofbetter in return than the best I can accomplish Give me perfect peace, and you shall be satisfied I hope ood news of me

Farewell, and continue to be ust 7th, 1849

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MY DEAR FRIEND,

After a silence of severalyou once more with all my heart for the friendly assistance which enabled ain By this assistancewith her some favourite trifles of our forrand piano We are settled here as well as possible; and after a long interruption, full of pain and unrest, I areat artistic plans for the future

After this final reunion with reater pleasure than to learn about the produce of your artistic activity The pieces written by you for the centenary of Goethe's birth I have now seen in the pianoforte score, and have occupied myself with thelad--especially also in sympathy with your friend--that you behave so valiantly in this field of honour, selected by you with glorious consistency What I felt most vividly, after my acquaintance with these co an opera or finishi+ng one already begun The aphoristic nature of such tasks as those set you by this Goethe celebration must involuntarily be transferred to the artistic production, which therefore cannot attain to perfect warmth Creative power in er it is is the less able to give forth its full tone, unless an adequate power has set it in motion This power is internal, and where it does not exist internally it does not exist at all The purely internal, however, cannot operate unless it is sti external, related to it and yet different Creative power in music surely requires this stireat incitement alone can reat, I desire for it the corresponding great incite here can be arbitrarily substituted or added: genuine strength can only create from necessity Wherever in the series of your pieces Goethe hith, the bell resounds with its natural full tone, and the clapper beats in it as the heart does in the body If you had been able to ring the whole ”Faust”-bell (I know this was ireat whole, then that great whole would have thrown on the single pieces a reflex which is exactly the certain soreat whole, but not fros we never attain repose; only in a great whole is great power self- contained, strong, and therefore, in spite of all excitement, reposeful Unrest in e do is a proof that our activity is not perfectly self-contained, that not our whole power, but only a detached particle of that power, is in action This unrest I have found in your compositions, even as you must have found it too often in mine without better cause With this unrest I was, however, better pleased than if comfortable self-contentment had been their pronize the lion; but now I call out to you, Show us the complete lion: in other words, write or finish soon an opera

Dear friend, look upon lance! All the ills that have happened to me were the natural and necessary consequences of the discord ofand indivisible By its nature it takes violent revenge when I try to turn or divide it by external force To be wholly what I can be, and therefore, no doubt, should be, is only possible for ain by dint of the aforesaid external force That force would always enuine poould always conjure up the sa but artist If I am to throw myself into our modern publicity, I cannot conquer it as an artist, and God preservewith it as a politician

Poor and without e, as I am, I should be compelled to think only of acquisition; but I have learnt nothing but my art, and that I cannot possibly use for the purpose of acquiring nowadays; I cannot seek publicity, and ht about one day only by publicity seeking me The publicity for which alone I can work is a small nucleus of individuals who constitute my whole publicity at present To these individuals, therefore, I must turn, and put the question to them whether they love me and my art-work sufficiently to make it possible for me, as far as in them lies, to be myself, and to develop my activity without disturbance