Mother, whom I think of with the most heartfelt love, you alone evoke the deepest emotion in me. I know well enough that brothers and sisters go their own ways; each thinks of himself and his own future and affairs connected with these. It is so, and I feel it myself. When we meet, we approach each other from the business standpoint; we have become a concourse of friendly diplomats. We are silent when it seems to us politic; we speak when in our view matters demand it, and we speak most when we are away from each other. Oh, how far above all this is the love of a mother!
I am one of those who cannot always speak as the heart prompts at the moment; otherwise you would often have learned to know a much softer side of my nature. But the emotions are there all the same, and see, Mother, now that I am away from you, I am so overcome by feelings of thankfulness for that wonderful love of your child which you have once again shown him with such heartfelt warmth, that I want to write and speak of them to you in the tenderest tones of a lover to his beloved. Ah, but more than these, for is not the love of a mother far purer than any other? No, I do not wish to philosophise here; I will only thank you again and again, and I should like to recount each separate proof of the love for which I thank you were there not too many of them. Yet well I know that no heart broods over me with such utter sympathy, with such care, as does yours. Indeed, it is perhaps the only one that watches my every step, and not indeed coldly to criticise, no, but to follow me with your prayers.
Were you not always the only one to remain unchangeably true to me when others, judging merely by outward results, sagely turned their backs on me? I should indeed be uncommonly arrogant if I were to expect a like love from all. I know that is impossible; I know it well. With you it all springs from the heart, from your dear kind heart, and may God ever preserve its inclination towards me, for I know that if all forsook me, it would be my last and dearest refuge. Oh, Mother, if you were to die too soon, before I can give you full proof that it is upon a worthy and immeasurably grateful man that you have bestowed so much love! No, it could not be; you must yet live to enjoy many sweetnesses. Ah, when I think of these last eight days of our intercourse! It is perfect balm to me, true refreshment, to recall to my soul each aspect of your loving-kindness! My dear, dear Mother, what a wretch were I if I could ever grow cold towards you! For the future I shall not give you much news of my doings. Those of you who judge by outward results will find out about them without my help. Whatever comes about I am now independent and intend to be self-sufficient. Oh, this humiliation before Fritz Brockhaus has bitten deep into my heart, and I am tortured by the bitterest self-reproaches that I ever gave him the right to humiliate me. I will have a complete settlement with him, but I will not be reconciled to him now or ever, and if I am wrong in this matter I prefer to die wrong. I will shun them all utterly.
Everybody cannot be right and I was wrong, but I will never admit it to them and shall adopt the attitude that I have nothing to admit. My worst sin was to have played into their hands and to have got myself into a position where they had the least right over me. Besides, we are so widely sundered in everything that it would be ridiculous for me to try to be reconciled to him. And yet I am glad about this catastrophe, because it has brought me to full consciousness of the fact that I have nothing to expect of anyone in the world, but must depend entirely upon my own resources. Now at last I feel independent. For what I have lacked, what has made me sleepy and casual, has been just this, a certain undefined, unconscious reliance upon support, foolishly not confined to Apel's, but taking all sorts of other quaint directions, over which I must almost laugh, so great has been my stupidity. I am disillusioned about all that now and am very glad of it. My softness brought these experiences about, and now they will be useful to me in all human relations. All I ask from the outset is that people should deny me their sympathy; it would only annoy me, and may you, your heart, your love be my sole refuge, where I may seek comfort and healing at need through the coming years. Mother-love needs no reasons; other loves want to know why they love and therefore become nothing but esteem.
I have been in Teplitz and Prague and found nothing to worry about except the confirmation of my plan of not going to Vienna, but I have found further indications that I ought to continue in the course I have now marked out. Moritz was in Prague and gave me a helping hand in this respect. I wrote from Prague to all the people I have been considering, so that I may know beforehand where I am with them and need make no journey in vain. I expect their answers at Nürnberg, where I go to-morrow or the day after, for I am awaiting only one more letter from Magdeburg, which will conclude my business here. I shall stay in Nürnberg. When the affairs of a theatre are being wound up, one may light upon all sorts of things, and, besides, the Wolframs can give me a lot of information and their judgment may save me many a journey.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 21