I left Paris tranquillised and even stimulated. For the first time I made sympathetic acquaintances among the French, a thing which seemed almost unthinkable to me previously. Among these I count the Herold family, to whom Ollivier introduced me. The memory of Tannhäuser was alive among them, they having seen it with the greatest satisfaction in Vienna and with great dissatisfaction in Berlin. I was exceedingly surprised by the fervent enthusiasm of this family. I even managed to get a certain amount of cordiality from the Erard family. A very moving adventure, which happened to me in the Strasburg theatre at a surprisingly good performance of the Tannhäuser Overture, had been reported in Paris and directed special interest towards me. I will tell you some time by word of mouth about this adventure, which touched me profoundly; it has had a very decided effect upon my frame of mind. Under such favourable conditions I did not find it difficult to coax a beautiful grand piano for myself out of Madame Erard. I may expect it in a month or six weeks and brother Franz will no longer be able to minister to his pride in being able to manipulate bad pianos in my house so that they sound like good ones. I am looking forward eagerly to the newcomer. I have promised Madame Erard the dedication of the first opera of mine to appear in Paris. Ollivier, as you will have found out, is a most engagingly amiable fellow; his behaviour to me is above all praise. It did me a great deal of good, and moreover the affairs in which I have empowered him to act for me are now so secure in his guardianship that I know that if anyone in Paris wants to have dealings with me the business will be dealt with under the most satisfactory conditions possible. Blandine, as gifted and as deep as her sister, captivates one by her meekness and stillness; her eyes express her father's loving-kindness, while Cosima's, rather, shine with his inspiration. When I remember Daniel as well as the two daughters, I have to acknowledge with amazement that here Nature has for once departed very thoroughly from her rule of giving insignificant children to a great father. This must have some particular cause and I can only explain it by the particular character of our Franz. There is some unconscious power in him which induces people to imitate him. I have remarked it as plainly as possible in my own case. Changes occur in my nature, my conduct and behaviour which I often recognise even in exterior ways as sheer reproductions of impressions made on me by Liszt. I often notice traits in myself, particularly as regards dignity and assurance in the presence of others, which on consideration remind me so definitely of Liszt that I laughingly recognise myself as his copy. I almost think it will strike you when you visit me again. I shall be very well satisfied if it does, because for me it is a definite advance towards perfection.
On the day I left I had to spend a considerable time with Ollivier in the Palais de Justice; I paced up and down the Salle des Pas Perdus an hour long with advocates in cap and gown, giving them, at their own wish, an explanation of Tannhäuser which they received with great favour. Altogether I have derived a real sense of well-being from this last visit to Paris; I am a much-loved man!
The admiration which people accord to a great artist passes me by almost entirely, for I lack sharply defined extraordinary talents. What I have is simply the unitive power which binds and fuses ordinary talents so that their combined strength when exerted achieves things technically impossible by an individual talent. This unitive principle is, I believe, complete absorption, forgetfulness of self and of the world about me, a capacity to saturate all my being unreservedly with my subject, which protected thus from trivial contacts grows in depth and intensity. This became all the clearer to me for contemplating my opposite, Berlioz. He has, there is no doubt of it, the gifts of genius without the very essence of them, this unitive power I speak of. He never sees anything but the detail of his subject and his greatness consists in his ability to master this detail vitally. He read aloud to me his operatic libretto, The Trojan Woman, and thereby heightened my sorrow on his account to the extent of wishing that I might never see him again, for it must become unbearably painful to be utterly helpless to help a friend. This libretto is manifestly the very acme of his misfortune; it really cannot be outdone. To see this obviously disastrous makeshift delivered by him as the highest, ultimate achievement of his artistic career, the one to which he sacrifices everything, and which he intends shall be his final work, cannot but be more than distressing. The manner in which he delivered the text was to me significant. He read with great energy, with strong emphasis, with all the trappings of inspiration but without a convincing sign of true inspiration, so that his methods often reminded me of a bad actor wrongly cast. The only passion in him was the passion of a self-willed purpose, which, however, never seemed to be entirely certain. I took pains not to let him see my amazement at the unheard-of oddities of the whole, except through my misgivings as to details, by means of which, after all, when the thing has to stand on its own merits in the opera, it can never be rendered intelligible. I took my leave of him in great distress, any expression of which, possibly depressing for him, he rendered superfluous, since he never shows genuine interest or sympathy. It is just that there is no love in him; that is the key to the disheartening riddle of his nature. It is a difficult business for his friends to satisfy him. He puts us in the very difficult dilemma of having to deceive ourselves, and ultimately the world too, in order to preserve for him his illusion about himself and us. One can see at the first glance that any attempt at disillusionment must instantly cause a breach and the loss of his friendship, for there was never a soul in this world for whom he would sacrifice himself or his opinions. Under certain conditions, and by means of strict silence, one may leave the world to its illusions, but to set out to deceive oneself is another matter and this kind of ingenious empiricism is utterly repugnant to me. As, however, it is the only way to bolster up Berlioz's illusions about himself, I am constrained to wish that I may never again be in the painful position of being unable to do a friend service except so. God, what a blessing by contrast is relation to Liszt!
You are right indeed to idolise our friendship; its like will not soon be seen again. Franz wrote to me recently about Calderon and asked me for advice as to where he ought to make a beginning with him. The theme of honour and of Catholicism which struck him most forcibly in my remarks is certainly not to be found clearly displayed in one particular work of art, as he appears to suppose; the sense of its importance came to me rather from the cumulative impression of the whole course of Spanish literature. In those works where honour is the principal theme, the sense of longing for its saving antithesis exists rather as the poet's unexpressed secret; the actual presentation, however, almost always ends with outward homage to the national sentiment, while we are left with a painful realisation that pity has been immolated. In this, no one is more objective than Calderon. Nevertheless this pain is resolved in the spiritual dramas, and it is here that Franz will find what he desires.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 348