For the present I spend all the good humour I can dispose of on my wife.  I flatter her and take care of her as if she were a bride in her honeymoon.  My reward is that I see her thrive; her bad illness is visibly getting better.  She is recovering, and will, I hope, become a little rational in her old age.  Just after I had received your “Dante”, I wrote to her that we had now got out of Hell; I hope Purgatory will agree with her, in which case we may perhaps, after all, enjoy a little Paradise.  The whole thing is splendid.  Remember me to the Prince of Lowenberg, or whatever his name may be, and tell him that if the German Confederacy does not recall me soon I shall go to Paris and betray the length and breadth of Germany.

God be with you.  I hope you will pardon this absurd letter.  Ever thine,

R. W.

291.

What a terrible storm is your letter, dearest Richard!  How desperately it lashes and knocks down everything.  What can be heard in the midst of this roaring thunder?  Where shall I find, and what is the good of, words, words, words?

And yet my confidence in you is unshaken.  Hamlet’s dilemma does not apply to you, for you are and cannot help being.  Even your mad injustice towards yourself in calling yourself a “miserable musician and blunderer” (!!) is a sign of your greatness.  In the same sense Pascal says, “La vraie eloquence se moque de l’ eloquence.”  It is true that your greatness brings you little comfort and happiness, but where is happiness, in the narrow monotonous sense which is absurdly given to the word?  Resignation and patience alone sustain us in this world.  Let us bear our cross together in Christ—­“the God whom one approaches without pride, before whom one bends the knee without despair.”  But I must not be betrayed into needless Franciscan sermons.

Candidly speaking, I do not think much of your American project, and fear that New York would appear even more uncanny to you than London.  Nevertheless, write to me some particulars about the offer which has been made to you, without the slightest fear of alarming the German Confederacy.  As I frequently said, Carlsruhe is, for the present, your best chance, and I am persuaded that the Grand Duke of Baden, who is very well inclined towards you, will not fail to give you practical proof of his kindness.  Devrient does not expect to give “Tristan” before December, on the birthday of the Grand Duchess.  You need, therefore, be in no particular hurry to finish the work.  In any case, I shall visit you before that at Lucerne, or wherever you like, and will play to you a lot of my stuff if, as you tell me, it amuses you.  The noblest reward of my work would be if it were to bring home to you the truth that you are and remain an immense musician, and if by that means you were incited to renewed industry.

In spite of all the war troubles the meeting of musicians will take place at the beginning of June, as announced, and I have to take up my quarters at Leipzig for that purpose as early as next week.  Do not laugh at me too much because I continue to take an interest in similar things; they are not without influence on your tentiemes, and from that point of view I may ask for your toleration.  I hope the weather will soon be finer on the lake, and a milder spirit will illumine your soul.