together with absolute rest and abstention from every effort and excitement.  To speak plainly, you dear people cannot long go on as you do now.  Others would be ruined very soon by this kind of thing, which, at last, must become detrimental to you also.  Listen, my Franz, come to me.  No one shall know of your presence; we will live quite by ourselves, and you must submit to our taking the necessary care of your “cure.”  You will think this very stupid, and will perhaps scarcely believe that it is absolute despair which inspires this advice; but something must be done, and if things appear black to me, the reality of the news which you send me surely does not justify a rosier view.  For Heaven’s sake, calm my fear, and believe me that no triumphs, not even those gained by yourself for yourself, will give me the least pleasure as long as I know how dearly you pay for them.  Well, I must wait for your reply, but please let it not be a superficial, futile one.

Heaven only knows what I have written here; it must be nice stuff.

Finally, I want to thank you for the last three scores received by me; they came to me like old friends.  I shall take them in hand thoroughly; they are to consecrate me a musician once more, and fit me for the beginning of my second act, which I shall precede by my study of them.

As I said before, I do not thank you for the sacrifice you have made for me by your last beautiful performance of lohengrin.  If you had written to me instead, “I have put lohengrin, you, myself, and everything else on the shelf, in order to get thoroughly well again,” I should have thanked you with heartfelt tears.  Let me soon know something of the kind, or else I shall never write to you again, and burn young Siegfried with all his songs of the smithy.

Adieu, you good, wicked Franz.  Greet your dear women from the bottom of my soul; they are to love me, and to get well, the dear, wicked women.

Adieu, my good dear Franz.

R. W.

241.

May 19th, 1857.

Dearest friend,

I received today the enclosed letter from the Hartels.  In it they refer to a letter addressed to you, and in case this latter contains any indications as to how the business might be settled, I should like you to send it to me.  Otherwise it would be of no use to me.

It is a sad thing that, in order to have a certain income for the next few years, I am compelled to offer my work for sale in this manner, and in different circumstances I should calmly bide my time in the firm hope that people would come to me.  As it is, I am compelled to try everything, so as to tempt the Hartels to this purchase.  Above all, I perceive that your time and occupations will not allow you to acquaint those gentlemen thoroughly with my music.  I have, therefore, invited them to come here this summer, and to meet Klindworth, who has announced his visit to me.  With his aid I shall give them a piece of my “Nibelungen,” which will give them some notion of it.