However, in this matter also you must do as you like. Before all, take care that you continue to love me, and that we see each other soon.
Farewell, dearest friend.
Your
R. W.
Many greetings from St. George.
ST. MORITZ, CANTON GRISONS, July 26th, 1853.
124.
Truly, writing is a misery, and men of our sort should not write at all. However, your rosy paper and your luminous letters, which looked like Spanish grandees, gave me real pleasure. While you are at Coire, intent upon your water-cure, I sit here in Carlsbad looking at nothing but puffed-up faces, excepting one which shines on me like a bright, comforting sun. Till the 16th I must remain here, and on the 22nd I shall be back at Weymar.
By way of entertainment I enjoy Labitzki and his water-cure
orchestra, Aldridge, the black Roscius, who plays beautifully
Othello, Macbeth, and Fiesco; also spurious Arabs and genuine
Chinese, who howl and tinkle to make one run away.
Passing through Leipzig, I saw B. His new book will appear soon, in which there is a separate chapter entitled "Criticism of R. Wagner." We must see whether he has brewed digestible stuff. At Dresden I visited the R.'s. Frau Kummer and her sister had gained my affection at Zurich, and C., who was summoned specially from Pillnitz to meet me, pleased me very well this time. On my journey back I shall again look up the R.'s, for I like to remain in communication with people who prove real friends of yours. We form a little Church of our own, and edify each other by singing your praises. Take note, dear Richard, and make up your mind to it, for it cannot be otherwise. You are now, and will be still more, the concentric focus of every high endeavour, high feeling, and honest effort in art. This is my true conviction, without pedantry and charlatanism, both of which I abhor. Do not fail to use your powerful influence with C., so that he may exert his faculties with some consistency and regularity. I spoke to him of B.'s plan of an Art Review. If you set him tasks, he may do good service to the cause and himself. How about the "leading programme" which you and H. are to sketch together? This is the corner-stone of the whole enterprise. Do not be deterred; I think it necessary that you should submit to some trouble and tedium for the purpose. Before going to Weymar I shall have some definite talk with B. about the matter. If you want to communicate with me on the subject, address Poste restante, Leipzig, or, better still, to the care of Y., so that the letter arrive in Leipzig on the 19th inst. Perhaps by that time you will have been able to settle the chief heads of the programme of "Blatter fur Gegenwart und Zukunft der Gesammt-Kunst" and to draw the outline of the whole scheme.