Biebrich, March 12, 1862. I wrote you once from Paris lately that you should hear little of my life thenceforward, but solely of my handiwork, because the first could never have a meaning more. But how when I cannot get to work, when life takes all my energy ? Must the solution then be such a dubious gap as this, when I have kept you so long waiting for a thankful sign of life in answer to your letters, to your gift ? — Even to-day I can tell you nothing further, than, I hope to start work at last to-morrow ; there has been an interruption of six weeks, during which I have done nothing but "live" — if so one may call it* I am thoroughly settled here now, have two chambers hired for a year, the pianoforte, book-case, renowned divan, the three Roman engravings and the old Nibelungen print ; facing my desk hangs the photograph of the Green Hill also, in a window-recess the Palazzo Giustiniani. The site is extraordinarily beautiful, hard by the Rhine, the [ducal] palace close beside it. The house itself stands quite alone, and may God preserve it from further inmates ! It is very handsomely built, on speculation, and contains one lovely big suite, which I would gladly see occupied by some decent body.* A beautiful, quite spacious garden ; the birds in the [duke's] park keep up a contest of song with those on the island opposite ; the nightingales are numberless, they say, and positively deafening in their season. So here will I await my Mastersinger destiny ! Best thanks for the letter with which you really shamed me ! You read too soon, and wrote to me too early ; you should still have left me in the corner for a while. For the rest, I couldn't help remarking that this was in fact the first time you had made acquaintance with a poem of mine on paper, and not through my reading it out ; also, the difficult manuscript must have given you much ado, — eh ! it all is so different, when one has to struggle on alone. I've read it several times aloud, though, lastly at the Grand Hof, and at the beginning of March he writes to Biilow, according to the latter, " in a terrible fit of the blues. 1 ' Minna appears to have been bent on getting him back to live with her, since Roeckel is informed April 5 : " My wife has now obtained the full Dresden amnesty for me [Saxony had been excepted in i860], but I shall not budge from here; where I have housed myself quite endurably, and — down to the present — have splendid calm for work." — Tr. 30o Duke's in Carlsruhe [March 7], when they listened very well, if nothing like so well as great big Micky,* and the rules of the Tabulatur were the very things that made them laugh most. Why, child ! thats just the point of all the strange pedantic stuff ; one has got to laugh. With Walther's songs you lack the melody, by all means there the indispensable affair ; I set these verses to the melody all ready in my head, and that of course you can't conceive. Just hear how easily it runs tho' ; e.g. fl 0'"^*0. £ m Fern mei-ner Ju-gend gold-nen Tho - ren Far from my youth-hood's golden por-tals zog ich einst forth I one* ? 2 Lhh H — r*-| — rr- fe;^i j » J ^ '"■J-J n i 0.8.7. f ans in Betrachtungganz ver-lo - ren. fa/red, lost in thought, away from mortal*. Of the whole affair the Folk hears nothing but the melody : guess my riddle who can ! — The first time I read it, was at Schott's in Mainz, the 5th of February. I had had to abandon the idea of reading it first to yourself, but was determined to have some compensation for you ; so before my departure from Paris I wrote to Vienna, telling Cornelius (from whom you'll hear more in due time) that he must be at Schott's in Mainz T Of course one must supply a flat b for key-signature, but the above, so Dr. Golther tells me, is a faithful copy of Wagner's MS. sketch. Alike words and music entirely differ from the finished work. — Tr. on the evening of the 5th or I should call him " Sie " again. That was as good as leg-bail ! All the rivers had flowed over, as you know, many trains stopped running, great danger everywhere : no matter, on the tick of 7 my good Cornelius enters, and travels back to Vienna next day! Now I would have you know what a poor devil he is, how he plagues his soul with lesson-giving to earn 40 fl. a month ; but — he loves me dearly, and you have seen what store I set by him.* Do write him, child ; he loves you too. — He lives at " Weissgarber-Pfefferhofgasse 30 Wien," his full name is " Peter Cornelius," and he's also a nephew of the celebrated painter. Now fare you well, and accept my very best greetings. I could not write before to-day ; I had to wait for good humour. Adieu, my Child ! R. W. P. S. Ah, the lovely pillow ! Look at me, now ; to pocket such a thing as that without a word ! Nicely spoilt ! !
Richard Wagner
Source: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck, translated by Ellis, No. 131