DEAREST RICHARD,
I had nothing to tell you that was pleasant or important, and therefore did not write to you for a long time. During these last weeks I have spun myself into my mass, and yesterday at last I got it done. I do not know how it will sound, but may say that I have PRAYED it rather than COMPOSED it. On my return from Hungary in September, I shall bring you the mass and my symphonic bubbles and troubles, half of which will by that time be in print. If my scores should bore you, that will not prevent me from deriving sweetest enjoyment from your creations, and you must not refuse me the favour of singing the whole "Rhinegold" and "Valkyrie" to me. In the meanwhile all other musical things appear to me "stupid stuff."
How do you feel in London?
Troublesome though it may be, one must try to bear the inevitable and immutable; to take pleasure in it would be a lie.
The English edition of Philistinism is not a whit pleasanter than the German, and the chasm between the public and ourselves is equally wide everywhere.
How, in our wretched conditions, could enthusiasm, love, and art have their true effect?
"Patience and resignation" is our device, and to it we sing
[Here, Liszt illustrates with a music score excerpt]
Pardon me for being your hollow echo, and let us endure what cannot be cured.
I am very grateful to you for being so kind to Klindworth. In a few days his cousin will come to London and bring you news of me, as she has spent the whole winter at Weymar. Your letter about the sonata has highly delighted me, and you must excuse me for not having thanked you at once. You are often so near to me that I almost forget writing to you, and I am seldom at the right temperature for correspondence. Well, in September I shall be with you; and (D.V.) we will have some bright, comforting days together.
Your
F. L.
WEYMAR, May 2nd, 1855.
186.
DEAR POET, DEAR FRIEND,
Our hearts are with you, and suffer with you; that you know, and cannot be ignorant of.
Let us hear from you soon, and forgive me if, in the midst of the preoccupations of your heart and of your grief, I ask you for a trifle; but it will cost you so little to grant it me, and you will give such great, such very great, pleasure by it. It is the fate of poets and women sometimes to give what they have not themselves—I mean happiness. Take a piece of paper and write on it the following verses, which, as you know, appear to me written with the purest blood of my veins:-
"Nicht Gut, nicht Gold, noch gottliche Pracht; nicht Haus, nicht Hof, nicht herrischer Prunk, nicht truber Vertrage trugender Bund, noch heuchelnder Sitte hartes Gesetz: selig in Lust und Leid lasst—die Liebe nur sein!—" Sign this with your name, your great name, enclose it in an envelope, address it to me, and put it in the post. Forgive me for asking you this small thing—small in its material aspect, but great as the world in its significance.
I press your two hands with mine, dear, dear, great man.
CAROLYNE.
May 7th, 1855.
187.
Cordial thanks, dearest Franz, for your kind note, which I had been expecting a long time. The hope which you open to me of seeing you in September is my only light in the night of this sad year. I live here like one of the lost souls in hell. I never thought that I could sink again so low. The misery I feel in having to live in these disgusting surroundings is beyond description, and I now realise that it was a sin, a crime, to accept this invitation to London, which in the luckiest case must have led me far away from my real path. I need not expatiate to you upon my actual situation. It is the consistent outgrowth of the greatest inconsistency I ever committed. I am compelled to conduct an English concert programme right down to the end; that says everything. I have got into the middle of a slough of conventionalities and customs, in which I stick up to the ears, without being able to lead into it the least drop of pure water for my recreation. "Sir, we are not accustomed to this"—that is the eternal echo I hear. Neither can the orchestra recompense me. It consists almost exclusively of Englishmen, that is clever machines which cannot be got into the right swing; handicraft and business kill everything. Then there is the public, which, I am assured, is very favourably inclined towards me, but can never be got out of itself, which accepts the most emotional and the most tedious things without ever showing that it has received a real impression. And, in addition to this, the ridiculous Mendelssohn worship!
And even if all this were better than it is, what business have I with such concerts? I am not fit for them. It is quite a different thing if I conduct one of Beethoven's symphonies before a few friends, but to be a regular concert conductor, before whom they place the scores of concert pieces, etc., so that he may beat the time to them—that, I feel, is the deepest disgrace. This thoroughly inappropriate character of my position led me to the resolution of sending in my resignation after the fourth concert. But of course I was talked out of it, and especially my regard for my wife, who would have heard of this sudden resignation and of all that would have been written about it with great grief, determined me to hold out till the last concert. The infernal torture this is to me I cannot express. All my pleasure in my work is disappearing more and more. I had made up my mind to finish the score of the "Valkyrie" during the four months here, but that is out of the question. I shall not even finish the second act, in so terribly dispiriting a manner does this false position act upon me. In July I wanted to begin "Young Siegfried" at Seelisberg, on the lake of Lucerne, but now I think of delaying that beginning till next spring. This dislike of work is the worst feature of all. I feel as if with it eternal night were closing around me, for what have I still to do in this world if I cannot do my work?
Through this hell my study of Dante, to which I could not settle down before, has accompanied me. I have passed through his Inferno, and am now at the gate of Purgatory. Really I am in need of this purgatory; for if I consider it rightly, I was brought to London by a really sinful degree of thoughtlessness, which now I have to repent with fervour. I must, I must be resigned; my experience long ago convinced me of the necessity of resignation in the widest sense of the word, and I must now subdue altogether this terrible, wild desire of life, which again and again dims my vision and throws me into a chaos of contradictions. I must hope that I may at some future time rise from purgatory to paradise; the fresh air of my Seelisberg will perhaps help me to this. I do not deny that I should like to meet Beatrice there.
In all other respects things are going badly and crookedly. Poor Klindworth has been ill all along, and the fact that I could undertake nothing with him has deprived me of a great pleasure. He is better now, but not yet allowed to take a walk with me. Besides him, my intercourse is limited to Sainton, the leader of the orchestra, who caused my ill-fated appointment here, and a certain Luders, who lives with him. Both are ardently devoted to me, and do all in their power to make my stay here pleasant. Apart from this, I frequently go to Prager. Quite recently a Mr. Ellerton, a rich amateur, approached me very cordially. He has heard my operas in Germany, and my portrait has been hanging in his room for two years. He is the first Englishman I have seen who does not care particularly for Mendelssohn. A fine, amiable mind.
Klindworth has made the pianoforte arrangement of the first act of the "Valkyrie," which he plays beautifully. Unfortunately I have lost my voice entirely, and can sing very little, so that I am afraid I shall not be able to be of much service to you in that way.
You will have to do all the work next September. You owe me a great debt, you reticent man. If I look forward to anything in the future as pure happiness, it is my becoming acquainted through your means with your new compositions. Do not forget to bring me every one of them. I congratulate you on your mass from the bottom of my heart. Let us hope that you will derive much pleasure from it at Gran.
And how is the Princess? Joyful and sorrowful? Does she still preserve her bright enthusiasm? And Beatrice—I mean the Child? Greet her for me a thousand times.
Farewell, dearest, most unique of friends. Believe me that the thought of you is an ever-new delight to my heart. Be thanked for your love!
Farewell.
Your
R. W.
LONDON, May 16th, 1855.
188.
22, PORTLAND TERRACE, REGENT'S PARK, LONDON,
May 26th, 1855.
Once more, dearest Franz, I must make a complaint about the "Faust" overture. The Hartels have sent me an abominable arrangement for four hands, of which I cannot possibly approve. Did not you tell them that B., who, I believe, had already made a be ginning, would best be able to make this arrangement? Klindworth also would be prepared for it. In any case it should be a pianist of that type. The actual arrangement, which I yesterday returned to the Hartels through a music-seller, must not appear.
However, some wrong notes in this arrangement have drawn my attention to the fact that very probably there are many errors in the score as well. You will remember that it was a copy which I sent to you for your own use, asking you to correct such errors as might occur in your mind, or else to have them corrected, because it would be tedious for me to revise the copy. For the same reason I urgently requested the Hartels, if they printed the score, to send me a proof. You are in frequent communication with the Hartels, and the edition of this overture is really your doing. Be not angry therefore if I ask you to set the matter completely right when convenient. For heaven's sake, forgive me for troubling you with this trifle. The day after tomorrow I have my sixth concert, and a month afterwards I start for home.
Shall I hear from you soon?
A thousand greetings.
Your R. W.