Wagner as I Knew Him :: CHAPTER XXIII. LETTERS FROM 1861-1865.

CHAPTER XXIII. LETTERS FROM 1861-1865.

FROM Paris Wagner went to Carlsruhe, whence he wrote to me the following letter. The allusion in the opening phrases of his letter is to my inability to stay for the third performance of “TannhÄuser.”

You never heard such a din. It was a pity indeed you were away. I would it had been possible to prevent it; however, it could not be otherwise. But we did very well, until one whistle more shrill than the rest screamed for fully a minute. It seemed an hour. Horrible! horrible!—and my work was submitted to such an audience! Had I but the strength—but no, my indignation is now nearly over; the joy of being on my native soil once again, a free man, has removed a load from me that really at moments felt insupportable. Aye, those who have kept me from my fatherland little know how dearly they punished me for my, perhaps, imprudence in those early Dresden days. The sight is again reproduced before my vision, but in my joy at being free to go—except in Saxony—where I choose, poor August’s earnest face appears before me; and he is still the political prisoner of a power that could crush him in a moment. It is unkingly. Those days have made me suffer so keenly in what I love the dearest and tenderest on earth, my art, that in my happiness at being once more home I could shut out forever that sad past. Now I may go forward with my work. I shall not rest contented until Saxony once again is free to me as to the birds of the air; but how my hopes are built upon the future, and I feel all the confidence of success. I am sick again in body just now, but I will be conqueror. Was ever work like mine created for no purpose? Is it miserable egoism, the stupidest vanity? It matters not what it is, but of this I feel positive; yes, as positive as that I live, and that is my “Tristan and Isolde,” with which I am now consumed, does not find its equal in the world’s library of music. Oh, how I yearn to hear it! I am feverish; I feel worn; perhaps that causes me to be agitated and anxious, but my “Tristan” has been finished now these three years and has not been heard. When I think of this I wonder whether it will be with this as with “Lohengrin,” which now is more than thirteen years old, and has been as dead to me. But the clouds seem breaking—are breaking. The grand duke is good. He shows himself desirous of befriending me; no doubt intends well, and has even proposed that I shall return to Paris to engage singers to perform “Tristan.” I am going to Vienna soon. There they are going to give me a surprise. It is supposed to be kept a secret from me, but a friend has informed me they are going to bring out “Lohengrin.” You will hear about it.

Ah! I have so run away with my thoughts that I have nearly failed to tell you what I began to say; and that is, strong pressure was brought upon me to consent to a fourth performance of “TannhÄuser.” I was officially informed that all the seats had been taken; the public were strongly desirous of hearing an opera which had caused such a stir in high circles, that the sale of tickets had been so brisk that now not one was unsold. But nothing, nothing would induce me to submit again to such debasing treatment. I would sooner lose all hope of assistance from imperial and noble personages, and fight my battle alone, than again appear before such tribunal. The royalty, £60, I left for Nuiter; it was a poor recompense.... Now commend me to sister LÉonie; tell her that Minna is grateful for her thoughtful kindness, and bids me send her a thousand hearty greetings.

Always thine,
Richard Wagner.

Carlsruhe, April, 1861.

The next letter, August, 1862, is from Biebrich, near Mayence, on the Rhine.

My Dear Friend: It is a long time since I wrote to you; yes, but I have had a worrying, anxious time. I do not seem to be able to forge ahead. Each time I feel now I am within reach of my goal, it flies from me like a “will o’ the wisp.”

No, “Tristan” has not yet been done; but it will, it will soon be done. I have found such a Tristan as charms my soul, such a one as will worthily enact my hero. He has been here with me for a few days studying it. Schnorr! Ah, the alighting upon him was miraculous! At one time last winter, so saddened and broken down was I by successive disappointments, that I had a presentiment of approaching death. I actually had rehearsals of “Tristan” at Vienna, and then the proposed performance does not take place. But now it will. Yet I dare not be too positive. If it does, Schnorr will be grand; then you must come. Why can’t you come now to me? I am going to stay here till the end of the summer; that my poor second self is so weakly as to compel you to go to the seaside, I am concerned deeply. May the sea-breezes invigorate him, and soon give his mother no cause for anxiety. But I intended telling you how I heard Schnorr first.

He was going to sing “Lohengrin” at Carlsruhe. I did not want him or anybody to know I should be present, so I went secretly, for I feared a disappointment; he is fat, and picture a corpulent Knight of the Swan! I had not heard him before. I went, and he sang marvellously. He was inspired, and I was enchanted; he realized my ideal. So come now and see him; you will be delighted too.... I am staying here because I want to superintend the printing of my “Meistersinger.”

Yours,
Richard Wagner.

Ah! Dear Ferdinand: I am faring tolerably well; have made some good friends, influential ones too, but that is not what I crave. “Tristan”! that’s it! I am ready to go back to Vienna at any moment, am expecting information from there, but again have feelings that the performance will not take place. Here, as you have doubtless seen through the press notices, my music has been received with an enthusiasm beyond what it ever before achieved in Germany. Tell LÜders that I called on his friends and they behaved in the kindest manner to me. Give the dear fellow my heartiest greetings. I would Minna were here with me; we might, in the excitement that now moves fast around me, grow again the quiescent pair as of yore. The whole thing is annoying. I am not in good spirits. I move about freely, and see a number of people, but my misery is bitter. Can you not arrange to come and be with me in the summer, wherever I may be? Write to me a long letter of how all is with you.

Yours ever,
Richard Wagner.

St. Petersburgh, February, 1863.

I did not see him that year; matters could not be arranged. But since that time the storm was gathering in intensity which was to soon break. Minna had been in correspondence with me. Of her letters I publish nothing. But the next from Wagner tells its own sad story in plain language. It is dated—

Mariafeld, April, 1864.

And so she has written to you? Whose fault was it? How could she have expected I was to be shackled and fettered as any ordinary cold common mortal. My inspirations carried me into a sphere she could not follow, and then the exuberance of my heated enthusiasm was met by a cold douche. But still there was no reason for the extreme step; everything might have been arranged between us, and it would have been better had it been so. Now there is a dark void, and my misery is deep. It has struck into my health, though I carefully attend to what you ever insist is the root of my ills—diet. Yet I do not sleep, and am altogether in a feverish state. It is now that I feel I have sounded my lowest note of dark despair. What is before me? I know not! Unless I can shortly and quickly rescue myself from this quicksand of gloom, it will engulf me and all will then be over. Change of scene I must have. If I do not I fear I shall sink from inanition. I like comfort, luxury—she fettered me there—How will it end?

Write to me soon.

Richard Wagner.

LUDWIG’S PRINCELY HELP.

But a startling change was nigh at hand. The curtain was about to rise upon the “Wahnfried” act of the hitherto stormy drama of Richard Wagner’s life. As far as the wit of man could devise, Wagner was henceforth to be relieved from all care and anxiety as to the future. His wants—and be it remembered they were not few, for, on his own confession, he stands described as “more luxurious than Sardanapalus”—were all about to be provided for with regal liberality. But the following extracts from a letter which conveyed to me the news, will be noted with interest, since they give a vivid picture of the man and his feelings, in a word, paint the human being in characters so striking, and lay bare the workings of the heart in a manner which was impossible for his most intimate friend to hope to achieve. It was not wealth he wanted. Luxury when he possessed it in abundance did not comfort him: the worship and close intimacy of a king solaced him not: the void was sympathy, such as only a loving woman could give. The gloomy picture he draws of desolation amidst plenty invokes our heartiest compassion.

Dearest Ferdinand: I owe it to you that you should be informed of what my joy—clouded though it is by certain thoughts—has been during the last few weeks. Such a state of intoxication have I been cast into, that it has been as though I were another being than myself, and I but a dazed reflection of the real mortal. It is a state of living in another atmosphere, like that induced by the drinking of hasheesh. A message from the sun-god has come to me; the young king of Bavaria, a young man not yet twenty years of age, has sent for me, and resolves to give me all I require in this life, I in return to do nothing but compose and advise him. He urges me strongly to be near him; sends for me sometimes two and even three times in one day; talks with me for hours, and is, as far as I can see, devoted heart and soul to me. There is but one name for him—a god-like youth. But though I have now at my command a profusion of unlimited means, my feeling of isolation is torturing. With no one to realize and enjoy with me this limitless comfort, a feeling of weariness and desolation is induced which keeps me in a constant state of dejection terrible to bear. The commonest domestic details now must be done by me; the purchasing of kitchen utensils and such kindred matters am I driven to—Ah! poor Beethoven! Now is it forcibly brought home to me what his discomforts were with his washing-book, and engaging of housekeepers, etc., etc. I who have praised woman more than Frauenlob, have not one for my companion. The truth is, I have spoilt Minna: too much did I indulge her, too much did I yield to her; but it were better not to talk upon a subject which never ceases to vex me. The king strives his utmost to gratify me, and if I do not seem happy when with him and show my appreciation of his wondrous goodness, I should deserve to be branded as “ingrate.”

There is one good being who brightens my household—the wife of BÜlow; she has been with her children. If you can come to see me I shall be happy. My god-child, Richard Wagner, is now eight years old, you tell me; bring him; the talk of a dear innocent child will do me good; to have him near me will, perhaps, comfort me.

Your unhappy
Richard Wagner.

Starnberg, June, 1864.

The preceding letter is to me a landmark in Wagner’s life. The facts have only to be recited for it to be clearly perceived what a striking climax had been reached. Upon them I make no comment. They speak for themselves—the sudden transformation from a state of hardship into one of security; the powerful patronage and friendship of the king of Bavaria; the absence of Minna; the presence of Madame von BÜlow.

THE LOVE OF A KING.

New influences were now beginning to work upon Wagner; and—they were not weak. I did not see Wagner until the next year, when the change was pronounced. During the winter the attachment of the king grew in warmth, until in a manner Wagner may be said to have dominated the youthful monarch completely. In the early spring of 1865, Wagner wrote me the following short note. It was in reply to one from me, urging him to find some occupation for August Roeckel, who had been released since the January of 1862. When Roeckel was at Dresden, in 1849, with Richard Wagner, he had effaced himself entirely for his friend. Then Wagner was appreciative of sacrifices upon the altar of friendship, and regarded them as done on his behalf entirely; but he later grew so absorbed with his mission that no sacrifice did he regard as done to himself, but for the glory of his art, and in this no sacrifice could be too great. The short note after a private reference to Roeckel runs as follows:—

...At present I cannot. Time may be when the good August shall feel that his old friend lives—now, all I can say is that the king loves me with a love beyond description. I feel as sure of his love for me till the end, as I am conscious of his unbounded goodness to me now. It is a trial, though, of the heaviest; the formation of his mind I feel it a duty to undertake. He is so strikingly handsome that he might pose as the King of the Jews (and—this in confidence—I am seriously reflecting on the Christian tragedy; possibly something may come of it). But you must forgive me any more correspondence just now, I am busy.

Yours,
Richard Wagner.

Munich (London post-mark), 8th April, 1865.

It appeared later that he was deeply engrossed in preparations for “Tristan’s” performance, his next letter—but a short invitation—bearing on the subject.

Dear Praeger: 15, 18, 22 May: Wonderfully fine representations of “Tristan” at Munich. Come, if you can, and write first. I should be heartily glad to know you present at them.

Yours,
Richard Wagner.

Munich, 7th May, 1865.

I found it impossible to be present at the “Tristan” performances, and was compelled to postpone my visit to the summer of the same year. On the 27th July, Madame von BÜlow wrote to me for “her friend,” explaining that he was so much touched by the death of poor Schnorr (the Tristan of the recent performances), that he was unable to write any letters, but that Wagner would be at Munich up to the 8th August—though she “had advised Richard very strongly to retire to the mountains there to strengthen his nerves.”

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