When Ferdinand in pious rage,
The Moors afar did chase!
Therefore, thou most excellent good one, quick to business!
Your recommendation seems to point to the Cambridge edition of Dyce. You say that the cost will be about three guineas (i.e. £3. 3s.) therefore—let us stop at Dyce’s—this Cambridge edition. But you do not tell me, however, whether it is one volume or in several. Further, how am I to decide about the binding? I know that in London bookbinding is treated as an art, and I would much like to have a good specimen of London art work for my wife (for I cannot present her with anything else). Acting upon the hypothesis that it is in one volume only, I have forwarded to you six pounds for disposal upon the work, and therefore three pounds less three shillings will be available for the binding. Should there be two volumes, then you must consider whether for the money you can still obtain something remarkably good. If not—then order unhesitatingly what is good, and write to me at once and I will send you a few pounds more immediately. The chief point to be kept in view is that you arrange with the bookbinder so as to have the work finished in time to enable me to present it here on Christmas Eve.
But now, above all, be not angry with me for thus earnestly importuning you. If you but think of Milton Street and Portland Terrace, lobster salad, punch, and Lüders, then shall I be pardoned. And lastly will come your good wife to the rescue, who, notwithstanding that she, as I see, has still little children, may yet have some kind remembrance for me.
I am glad that you write to me about yourself in full; one cannot do anything better than write about one’s self to one’s friends, for the more one reflects the less one seems to know of others. According to this, I ought to write a great deal about myself, but that I must defer for an ocular inspection by you; therefore, come and see me. My son is Helferich Siegfried Richard. My son! Oh, what that says to me!
You have plenty of children’s prattle, are used to it like the English to hanging, but with me the hanging is only just beginning. Now I must prepare to live to a good old age, for then will others profit by it. Outside my home life, one thing only do I propose to accomplish, and that, the performance of my “Nibelungen” drama as I have conceived it. It appears to me that the whole German Empire is only created to aid me in attaining my object. Carlyle’s letter in the “Times” has caused me intense satisfaction. The Messieurs Englishmen I have already learned to know through you. I need but refer to divers data I have from you to be at once clear about the character of this strangely ragged nation.
God make every one happy. Amen! Now greet mamma and children, and tell them of Milton Street. Come next summer into Switzerland and keep me in your heart as I do you.
Yours,
Richard Wagner.
Lucerne, 25th November, 1870.
HIS IDEA OF SHAKESPEARE.