have much to annoy me now, not, it is true, in Magdeburg, but in Leipzig. As for the business of my opera I am sick to death of the whole concern, and if an end is not made of the matter soon I shall take the score of Die Feen away from under these people's very noses. I am coming to Leipzig about November 9th, and if I see then that they are not in earnest about it I shall take my opera to Magdeburg and have it produced here. Have you ever been in Magdeburg? I like it here: a big town with a wide street and some 50 to 60 thousand inhabitants commands respect. And what inhabitants! Nothing but royal Prussians!
I have scarcely begun to practise my art again yet because my trunk did not come, but it arrived to-day and I am at it again. So you see that everything in the history of art depends upon a trunk. Ah, with what rapture I recall my journey with you! You can have no idea how much good it does me to think about it. Peevish as you often were, and I too very much so now and then, all that was completely outweighed by the many incidents of the expedition and by the atmosphere which lay over it all. Those homecomings to Teplitz at dusk filled me with a sense of poetry which remained with me for a long time. What could equal my comical relations with the Raymanns, those singular frolics at the "Black Horse," the trip to Gorkau and the divine idleness at Karlsbad? But it is not so much these details as the whole, the blessed unconstraint of it all, that leaves so fair an impression upon the memory. And this was no more than six weeks in Bohemia, while I am now contemplating a few years in Italy.
Yes, my dearest Theodore, my plan is now fixed and irrevocable. My Feen, by being performed at three or four good theatres, is to give honourable advertisement in advance to my Liebesverbot, which I am now completing. I shall make a hit with this opera and win fame and money. If I am fortunate enough to acquire both I shall take them both, and you too, to Italy without fail in the spring of 1836. In Italy I shall then compose an Italian opera, and according as that goes, others too. Then, brown and strong, we shall go on to France. In Paris I shall compose a French opera and God knows where I shall be then! Who I shall be, I know, certainly no longer a German Philistine. This is my career, and it must be yours, too! The only thing that can upset the plan is misfortune, which is as much as to say lack of fortune, but I have decided once for all to build on my luck.
I have just received your lines and with a couple of affectionate words you have dragged me out of all my despondency. The sense of friendship really is a wonderful thing! You see that I too wanted to write to you, but stopped short at the good resolution. All kinds of stupidity have brought you to this. I am always thinking with real anxiety of you and the ill-bred horde of Philistines that surrounds you, and of your family affairs which will bring you to your grave one of these days, it seems to me. I take it as a special kindness of Heaven that you are at last coming to me. True it is I rather prefer the people and environment in which I move to yours; these merry comedians possess a spirit of poetry and imagination all their own which I often find refreshing, and if I had anything to complain of it would simply be that poetry is becoming hard labour to me. But taking it as a whole it is just a comedy, a narrow circle which with all its gay figures has no trace of the thing that unites us so magically. We will discuss plans for your visit to me by word of mouth in Leipzig. Next Wednesday I shall come to you for a day or two. Give me a good welcome!
Laube is well off. He is in prison in Berlin and is not allowed to read, write or smoke.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 11