[Munich, mid-January 1865.] Best Child, I think it would be best to send the whole portfolio ; I pledge myself, with all that's dear to me, that it shall return to its lady-owner unimpaired, and rather enriched than diminished. It would fall hard to point out everything that might need copying and despatching to us ; so it's better that I should search among the things themselves. It required a strong inducement, to get me to take any part in this, but my young King is just the man to set it all in order; he has the right pertinacity, and all his instigation springs from his own self. Now Semper has to build me a splendid new theatre (there's nothing else for it already), the best singers are to be fetched from all ends to represent my works, and — all my writings, of no matter when, must be culled from all hidden portfolios. Knowing that he must not give me much to do with it, he [the King] tactfully turns to my friends ; and that's what he has done in this case also [cf. p. 363]. At his often-repeated request, you see, I had had to state what I had written, and whither it had disappeared ; so I had to denounce the big portfolio on the Green Hill too, — I couldn't help myself. But no harm is meant ; simply, he wants everything collected, to take it in his charge and know that he possesses me entire. Ay, child, he loves me ; there's no gainsaying it ! — If things don't go quite right with me despite all that, no doubt there may be reasons. The lighter grows my freight of faith, the higher my insurance, — already I believe in next to nothing, and to fill that void it needs a quite prodigious ballast of royal favour ! Once I was to be had cheaper ; now my clairvoyance is terrible, and the illusion anent that fearful weakness everywhere, which shrunk back from me as from a madman, is becoming hardly possible to me again* Yet I do all I can, and still gladly await something better from men ; in which my young King just assists me. He knows all, and — wills ! — so I myself am bound to will too, tho' it often strikes my soul as strange. — Best greeting to the Green Hill ! — They told me lately, it had been offered for sale this summer ; is that so ? — Whither away then ? — Am I quite too inquisitive ? — Ought I to renew my kind thanks for the Christmas present ? Did the big Micky expect it ? Scarcely ! There's another old letter to read.f — shall I find that in the portfolio ? — Adieu ! I recollect with love ! R. W.
Richard Wagner
Source: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck, translated by Ellis, No. 146