I forgot to ask you something.  At Zurich I told you that that poor devil Rockel was longing to see one of my new scores.  Recently he has again reminded me of it, therefore I repeat my request to you to lend him your score of “Rhinegold” for six or eight weeks.  His wife, who lives at Weimar, will, no doubt, gladly undertake to send him the score.  He is a clever fellow, and I should like to count him amongst those who occupy themselves with my recent works.  It will cheer him up considerably, and I see from his last letter that he is gradually becoming low-spirited.  You would, no doubt, increase his delight if you were to add copies of all, or some of your symphonic poems.  I have drawn his attention to them, and he is very curious to know something of them.  You might let him have them just as a loan.  Do not be angry with me for troubling you with this.

How are you, and have you any comforting news of the Princess for me?

The Grand Duke of Baden recently wrote me a surprisingly amiable and friendly letter, which is of real value to me, as the first sign of a breach in the timid or courtly etiquette hitherto observed towards me.  The occasion was a little attention which I showed to the young Grand Duchess, and for which he thanks me in a moved and moving manner in her name and his own.

Eduard Dervient stayed with me for three days last week, and inaugurated my little guest-chamber.  To him I also spoke of my “Tristan” scheme; he highly approved of it, but was against Strassburg, and undertook, although generally a careful and timid man, to arrange about its first performance at Carlsruhe under my direction.  The Grand Duke also seems to have got wind of something of the kind, probably through Devrient, for in one passage of his letter he pointedly alludes to his confident hope of seeing me soon at Carlsruhe.

Well, as God wills.  This much I see, that I must, once more, perform a little miracle to make people believe in me.

About my work I am, as you may imagine, in a state of great and continual excitement.

Let it be settled that I have you in September; that is the chief thing.

A thousand cordial greetings to your dear home.

Ever thine,

Richard Wagner.

246.

Dearest Richard,

At your recommendation I am reading the Correspondence between Schiller and Goethe.  Your last letter found me at this passage:  “It is one of the greatest happinesses of my existence that I live to see the completion of these works, that they fall into the period of my activity, and that I am enabled to drink at this pure fountain.  The beautiful relation existing between us constitutes a kind of religious duty on my part to make your cause my own, to develop every reality in my being to the purest mirror of the spirit which lives in this body, and to deserve by that means the name of your friend in a higher sense of the word” (p. 163, vol. i.).