[Monday, May 9, 1859.] Child, child ! The Zwieback [a kind of rusk] has done the trick : with one tug it landed me over an awkward passage where I had been sticking for a week, unable to move any farther. Yesterday's attempt at work was execrable. My temper was awful, and I gave vent to it in a long letter to Liszt, in which I informed him that it was all up with Pianist, etc. ; see p. 13 and Life iv, 135.— Tr. my composing, and Carlsruhe must think of something else. Neither has the sun helped, and I've had to confess to myself that its shining on Friday morning was a mere gallantry of mine; it was the candle I set to light you home. To-day I stared with utter cheerlessness into the grey vault of the sky, and simply sought a target for some bitter word. As 8 days since I could get no farther with the actual composition (at the transition, in fact, from " vor Sehnsucht nicht zu sterben" to the sick man's voyage), I had then let it be, and taken up instead the working-out of the commencement, which I played to you. To-day, however, I could get no farther with that either, because it seemed to me as if I had done it all much better once before, but no longer could remember exactly how. — As soon as the Zwieback arrived, I knew what the matter was : my rusks were much too sour here, so that nothing decent could occur to me ; but the sweet familiar Zwieback, dipped in milk, at once put all into its groove again. So I cast the working-out aside, and went on with the composing, at the story of " der fernen Aerztin." And now I'm perfectly happy : the transition has succeeded beyond belief, with a quite wonderful concord of two themes. God, what the proper rusk can do ! — Zwieback ! Zwieback ! thou'rt the only medicine for lamed composers, — but it must be the right sort ! — Now I have a fine provision of it ; when you notice that it's running short, please think of a fresh supply : I observe it is a potent drug ! — Friday evening I had to laugh a lot again with Schiller ; he has that absolutely unique humour, which I don't find in this lovableness with Goethe. The laurel-wreath* (his landlady, I believe), the chambers in whose heart are infinitely cheaper than in her house — though there would be more likelihood of damage there — is capital. I thank you very much for these letters ; I should like to read simply nothing but such intimacies. Yesterday was detestable ; I could think of nothing all day long, but the political nonsense. God, how heaven-high one is lifted above these " most momentous questions of the now-time," as soon as one's in one's right senses ! Whoever can occupy himself incessantly with politics, proves incontrovertibly that even He doesn't know what to do with himself: so the outer world must come in, and the broader that stretches, the sublimer he deems the stew. — I wrote Frau Ritter again the day before yesterday, and I believe — for all forbearance — very plainly, helpfully and to the point. Let's hope ! — Just fancy : the letter about the bass-clarinet {Lohengrin ?~\ I only read yesterday. — Literally nothing has happened. While you were being entrained again " vers les Wille's " I amused myself from the balcony with my Lucerne pit, which makes a regular fanaticism of the advantage it enjoys over you — namely, of being able to admire my new dressing-gown daily. It really must be very beautiful ! — Now let me soon hear, not merely taste, from you. Give my kindest regards to the Excited, and thank him again in my name for the visit, also for the champagne to which he treated me ! Zwieback it was not, however — Good Lord ! Zwieback ! ! — A happy week with some sun is wished you by one who has to put up with Sunday without sun. — Adieu !
Richard Wagner
Source: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck, translated by Ellis, No. 72