Your
Richard Wagner.
Greet your dear wife heartily for me; she is to continue to hold me in good remembrance. Happiness and prosperity to my godchild!
Kiss poor Lüders a thousand times; I shall soon inquire more precisely after Bumpus.
Adieu,
R. W.
ZURICH, 28th March, 1856.
TROUBLED BY SCHOPENHAUER.
The next letter is again dated from Zurich:—
That’s right, dearest Ferdinandus, to determine to leave Richard Wagner of the future to come to the R. W. of the present. My alter ego will not regret it. When you are here I will hammer out the “Walküre” to you, and I hope it will force its way from ear to heart. Then there is a bit of the “Siegfried,” and that, too, must I sing to you. How my head is full of projects for work!
Minna is very delighted at the prospect of seeing you, and says she will treat you as a brother. I have told her how heartily you enter into the mysteries of household matters, and are of just that temperament to agree with her, and appreciate that domestic skill for which I am totally unfitted. To me also your presence will be a delight, for I can talk to you with open heart, and have much to say to you. Now see that you do not let anything intervene that shall prevent your coming. I am just now full of work, and when you are here I shall work all the same. Some hours during the morning shall be devoted to work while you shall be sent upstairs to deeply study Schopenhauer, and then shall we not argue and discuss like orators in the old Athenian lyceum! Two months, and you will be with me! ah! that is good! Then bring all your brain-power, all your keen penetration, for you shall explain to me some obscure passages in that best of writers, Schopenhauer, which now torment me exceedingly. He will, perhaps, cause you many researches of the heart, so you must come fully equipped with all your intellectual faculties in the full vigorous glow of health, and then I promise myself some happy hours. And what shall be your reward? Well, the “Walküre” shall entreat you, and man, the original man, “Siegfried” shall show you what he is! Now, good, dear friend, come!
Mind, now, no English restraint and propriety; bother that invisible old lady, Mrs. Grundy, that hovers over the English horizon, ruling with a rod of iron what is supposed to be proper and virtuous!