Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, vol 1 | Page 7

necessary the administration of such a tonic was to a man who even at
that time could think it necessary to deprecate the "superideal"
character of "Lohengrin", and to advise in a scarcely disguised manner
that the Knight of the Grail should be brought a little more within the
comprehension of ordinary people. All the more beautiful is it to see

how Liszt is ultimately carried away by the enthusiasm of his great
friend, how he also defies the world, and adopts the device "L'art pour
l'art" as his guiding principle. Altogether the two friends might have
said to each other in the words of Juliet:--
"My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I
give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite." A few words
should be said of the spirit in which the translator has undertaken his
extremely difficult task. There are in these pages many things which
are of comparatively little interest to the English reader,--allusions to
circumstances and persons with which he cannot be expected to be
familiar, especially as the latter are frequently veiled by initials. There
is no doubt that judicious omissions might have made these pages more
readable and more amusing. But then such a book as this is not meant
to amuse. It is almost of a monumental character, and his deep respect
for that character has induced the translator to produce its every
feature,--a remark which applies to manner no less than to matter. In
consequence, not a line has been omitted, and the manners and
mannerisms of the writers have been preserved as far as the difference
of the two languages would allow. Such effusions of German
enthusiasm as "dearest, best, most unique of friends," "glorious, great
man," and the italics which both Wagner and Liszt employ with a
profusion of which any lady might be proud, have been scrupulously
preserved. These slight touches give a racy flavour to the letters; and
although they may occasionally call forth a smile, they will, no doubt,
be appreciated by those who with Sterne "can see the precise and
distinguishing marks of national character more in these nonsensical
minutiae than in the most important matters of state."
That the task of reproducing these minutiae without doing too much
violence to the English idiom was an extremely difficult one, the
experienced reader need not be told. Liszt, it is true, writes generally in
a simple and straightforward manner, and his letters, especially those
written in French, present no very great obstacles; but with Wagner the
case is different. He also is plain and lucid enough where the ordinary
affairs of life are concerned, but as soon as he comes upon a topic that
really interests him, be it music or Buddhism, metaphysics or the

iniquities of the Jews, his brain gets on fire, and his pen courses over
the paper with the swiftness and recklessness of a race-horse, regardless
of the obstacles of style and construction, and sometimes of grammar.
His meaning is always deep, but to arrive at that meaning in such
terrible letters, for example, as those numbered 27, 35, 107, 255, and
many others, sometimes seems to set human ingenuity at defiance. It
would of course have been possible, by disentangling dove-tailed
sentences and by giving the approximate meaning where the literal was
impossible, to turn all this into fairly smooth English. But in such a
process all the strength and individual character of the original would
inevitably have been lost. What I have endeavoured to do is to indicate
the diction which a man of Wagner's peculiar turn of mind would have
used, if he had written in English instead of in German.
To sum up, this translation of the correspondence is intended to be an
exact facsimile of the German original. To supply notes and a
serviceable index, to give a clue to the various persons who are hidden
under initials--all this must be left to another occasion, provided always
that the Wagner family consents to such a course, and that the interest
shown by English readers in the work as it stands holds out sufficient
inducement to so toilsome a piece of work.
FRANCIS HUEFFER.

CORRESPONDENCE OF WAGNER AND LISZT, VOLUME 1 (OF
A 2-VOLUME SET)

I.
DEAR SIR,
If I take the liberty to trouble you with these lines, I must in the first
instance rely solely on the great kindness with which you received me
during your last short stay in Paris in the late autumn of last year, when
Herr Schlesinger casually introduced me to you. There is, however, still

another circumstance which encourages me to this step: My friend
Heinrich Laube, the author, wrote to me last summer from Carlsbad
that he had there made the