[Mid-December 1858.*] Our letters have crossed : yours came just after I had posted mine ! — I have been quite alone for some time past ; Karl Ritter left me to congratulate his sick mother on her birthday [cf. p. 72]. When he went, I was just recovering from an illness that had interrupted my work — then scarce commenced ; I promised him, if he returned, to have another large slice of the Tristan ready, but I had to reconcile myself once more to keeping my room, and this time — in consequence of an outer lesion on my leg — a captive even to my chair, on which I had to get myself carried to bed. That lasted more or less till now ; only the last few days have I been out in the gondola again. I tell you this, to link to this chapter of misfortunes the tidings that I did not lose my patience for a moment, although I had to give up work again, but kept my mind free and cheerful through it all. I didn't see a creature all the time except my doctor, Louisa — my Donna di servente, who nursed and bandaged me very well — and Pietro, who had much stoking to do, fetched me food, and with aid of a gondolier, morning and night, bore me out of and into bed again upon my chair: a manoeuvre I called the " traghetto " and always gave orders for with the habitual Venice " Popp6h." Louisa and Pietro were surprised and delighted to find me in such constant good spirits ; what particularly pleased them, was my explanation why I was such a bad hand at talking with them, namely, because they had the Venetian dialect, whereas I knew nothing but pure Tuscan. — A good-natured, well-informed and intelligent man, a Prince Dolgorucki, called on me one day ; I was pleased when he came, still more so when he went away, I feel so happy not to be amused and distracted. I didn't do much reading, however — even in such predicaments I read, tho' little — yet I sent for W. v. Humboldt's letters, which didn't particularly please me. In fact I found it difficult to read much of them, as I already knew their best part through an extract : four lines of that were dearer to me than all the diffuse, confused remainder. I wonder if you will guess the four lines? — I am more interested in Schiller. With him I'm uncommonly fond of consorting now : Goethe has had a hard job to hold his own beside this intensely sympathetic nature. How everything here is pure ardour for knowledge ! One fancies, this man never existed at all, but was simply always on the watch for intellectual light and warmth. Apparently his ailing health didn't stand at all in his way: at his maturity, though, he also appears to have been altogether free from overpowering moral sorrows ; in that quarter all seems to have gone fairly well with him. And then there was so much still. for him to know — at a time when Kant had left such weighty points unsettled — so much that it was difficult to acquire, especially for a poet who also tries to be quite clear in his thinking (im Begriffe). One thing lacks to all these men, though — Music ; albeit they felt a need thereof, a presage. This often comes out quite distinctly, for instance in that most happy substitution of the antithesis of " plastic " and " musical " poetry for that of "epic" and "lyric." With Music, however, a puissance has been won compared wherewith the poets of that wondrous seeking, strenuous age of evolution were but as outline-draughtsmen in their works ; and that is just why they belong so intimately to me, they're my incarnate heritage. Happy were they, tho' — happier without music: the intellectual concept {Begriff) gives no pain, but in music Begriff becomes Feeling; that consumes and burns, until it bursts into bright flame and the wonderful new light can laugh aloud ! — Then I did a lot of philosophy, and arrived at some big results, supplementing and correcting my friend Schopenhauer : I prefer to ruminate a thing like that in my head, however, to writing it down. On the other hand, poetic schemes are looming again very lifelike before me. The Parzival has occupied me much : in particular a singular creation, a strangely world-dsemonic woman (the Grail's messenger), is dawning upon me with ever greater life and fascination — if I bring this poem off some day,* I should have to do something very original with that. Only, I have no idea how much longer I ought to live, to carry out all my various plans. Were I really in love with life, I might fancy quite a long existence guaranteed me by this multitude of projects ; yet it does not necessarily follow — Humboldt tells us that Kant still proposed to work out quite a mass of ideas, from which, however, and very naturally at his great age, death stopped him. — Even against the completion of Tristan I remark quite a fatalistic opposition, this time. Not that that can induce me to scamp it : on the contrary, I'm composing away as if I meant to work at nothing else my whole life long, and in return it will be finer than anything I've ever done ; the smallest phrase has the import to me of a whole act, with such attention am I carrying it out. And as I happen to be speaking of the Tristan, I must tell you of my delight at having just received a first copy of the newly-printed poem, in the nick of time to send it you as birthday present.t — t "Angebinde," i.e. for Dec. 23. Presumably there was more than this in the original letter, of which the above appears to be but a stray fragment, as it does not come to a full close, and one would naturally expect some sort of signature. — Tr.
Richard Wagner
Source: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck, translated by Ellis, Letter 58a, No. 58