At once a Spartan and a voluptuary in body, ready to endure many miseries rather than live any kind of life but the one he desired to live, yet unable to deny himself all sorts of luxuries even when he had not the money to pay for them, he was both a Spartan and a voluptuary in the things of the mind. He cut himself adrift uncompromisingly, even with rudeness, from people he disliked, even though they for their part were not ill-disposed towards him and might have been useful to him. But to his friends he clung with the same hungry passion as to his silks and satins and perfumes, and, it must be confessed, for the same reasons,—because they warmed and refreshed and soothed him. He loved his friends, but for his own sake, not for theirs. This may seem a harsh judgment of him, but his letters and his record admit of no other reading. With his lust for domination, he could never endure independence in anyone round about him. This was Nietzsche\'s great offence, that he dared to think his own way through life, instead of falling into the ranks and becoming simply the instrument of Wagner\'s will.[255] We have seen Wagner commending this person and that for their "devotion," their "fidelity" to himself, and becoming pettishly angry with Cornelius and Tausig for not coming to him the moment he wanted them. In his old age he was as insistent as ever that no one in his circle should follow a desire of his own if it clashed with his. In the later Wahnfried days he used to go through Bach\'s preludes and fugues in the evenings, expatiating upon each of them to an admiring company. One night he was deeply displeased at young Kellermann for having absented himself from Wahnfried, having preferred to go to some concert in the town; Wagner "got violently excited over it, and regretted afterwards that he could not \'give it to\' anyone quietly and calmly, on which account he would rather avoid doing so altogether. On this day it was a long time before we could get to the \'Forty-eight.\'"[256]
The unique correspondence with Liszt thrills us in its better moments even to-day; yet it can hardly be doubted that he loved Liszt selfishly, for the intellectual and emotional warmth his colleague brought into his life. He needs Liszt, we can see, in order that he may talk about and realise himself. After the Wesendonck rupture, in 1858, he goes to Venice. In September Liszt is in the Tyrol with the Princess von Wittgenstein and her daughter. Wagner writes him on the 12th September, asking him, as he is so near, to come to him at Venice, Liszt having been unable to accept a previous invitation to visit him at Zürich, owing to his having to attend the Jena University Jubilee celebrations. There had been some misunderstanding over another proposed meeting-place, and Liszt did not go to Venice. Thereupon Wagner becomes very angry, as usual, and actually writes to this man, to whom he owed such infinite benefactions, in the same half-grieved, half-accusing tone that he adopted towards Tausig. "Your letter of 23rd ult. ... awoke in me the hope that I should soon be able to see you and speak to you. But I doubt whether my letter to you to that effect, addressed to you at the H?tel de Bavière, Munich, reached you in time, for I have neither seen you nor had an answer from you. I now fear that my desire to tell you of many things by word of mouth will not be realised; so I write, as I feel I owe you an explanation with regard to certain points that have not been clear to you. Altogether it cannot amount to much; in conversation it might have been more.
"I will not enlarge upon the moral necessities for my departure from Zürich; they must be known to you, and perhaps I may assume that Cosima or Hans has told you enough about them. To remain in Zürich under the previous conditions was not to be thought of; I had to carry out without any further delay a resolution made some months before. Each new day brought with it new and intolerable torments; only my departure could end them. From day to day I had to postpone this, however, for lack of the necessary means; I had to provide my wife with money, and make our definitive departure from Zürich possible by settling accounts, &c., that otherwise I should not have had to settle until the New Year. It was an unspeakable agony to go through day after day hoping in vain for money to arrive, and to see the troubles and torments that were the cause of my delay increasing. For you to have come to me suddenly at this time would have been a heavenly consolation for me and everyone involved in the conflict.
"You had to attend to University celebrations, &c., which, pardon me for saying so, appeared incredibly trivial to me in the mood I was in then. I did not press you any more, and was angry with Bülow for pressing you; but I must confess that when at last I received the news of your coming on the 20th, I had already become indifferent (unempfindlich) about it."[257]
In short, he was in trouble, thought that Liszt would be able to console him, and was angry with him for not coming to him at the instant he needed him. Liszt, always long-suffering and courteous, chides him gently in his reply of the 9th October.
"Another point in your letter, dearest Richard, has almost hurt me, though I can quite understand that you, in the midst of the griefs and agitations that embittered your last days in Zürich, should think the official impediments in the way of my coming to Zürich \'trivial,\' and that you should not attach sufficient importance to the Jena University Jubilee and to the many considerations which I have to observe with regard to the Grand Duke,—were it only in order that I may be useful to you now and then in small matters. In a calmer mood, however, you will easily understand that I cannot and ought not to leave Weimar at every moment, and you will certainly feel that the delay of my journey to Zürich was not motived by any sort of \'triviality.\' When I wrote that I should be with you on the 20th August I took it for certain that even in case of your earlier departure from Zürich you would appoint some other place. Lucerne or Geneva, for our meeting. I came to the conclusion which, however, I gladly put aside on your assurance, although, as I told you a little while ago, for years I have had to endure many incredible and deeply wounding things from the Countess d\'Agoult.
"Enough of this, dearest Richard; we shall remain what we are,—inseparable, true friends, and such another pair will not be found soon."[258]
But Wagner was unappeasable. He does indeed write back to Liszt in cordial terms—"Thanks, dear friend! After the profoundest solace through the noblest, tenderest love that fell to my lot [i.e. Mathilde Wesendonck], your beautiful friendship alone can make any impression on me."[259] But that he still cherished some rancour against Liszt is evident from the account he gives of the episode in Mein Leben, written some years later. Liszt had carefully explained that he could not come to Zürich just at the time Wagner wanted him. That is not sufficient for Richard. Liszt had no right to have other engagements or other wishes when he had need of his society; when he was in tears, was it not the duty of the heavens themselves to weep with him? "It seemed to me that there must be one human being specially qualified to bring light and solace, or at all events tolerable order, into the confusion that enveloped us all. Liszt had promised us a visit; he stood so fortunately outside these dreadful relations and conditions, knew the world so well, and had in such a high degree what is called \'aplomb\' of personality, that I could not help feeling he was just the man to approach these discords in a rational spirit.[260] I was almost inclined to make my last resolutions depend on the effect of his expected visit. In vain we urged him to hasten his journey: he gave me a rendezvous for a month later at the Lake of Geneva"![261] It is clear that he thought Liszt still in the wrong in not setting everything aside in order to fly to him at once.
A year later he is sending Liszt congratulations on his birthday, and talking very beautifully about friendship. It soon becomes clear, however, that he is using the word in a sense of his own. "Your friendship is an absolute necessity for me; I hold on to it with my last vital strength. When shall I see you at last? Have you any idea of the position I am in,—what miracles of love and fidelity I need in order to win ever new courage and patience? Ponder upon this yourself, so that I need not say it to you! You must know me sufficiently now to be able to say it to yourself, although we have not lived much together."[262]
To this Liszt evidently replied that he could not come to Paris just then for any length of time, but that he would be glad to meet Wagner in Strassburg for a couple of days. This proposal Wagner curtly rejects. "What will be the use, to me, of these Strassburg days? I have nothing hurried to say to you, nothing that makes a discussion necessary. I want to enjoy you, to live with you for a while, as we have hitherto lived so little with each other.... My poor deserted life makes me incapable of understanding an existence that has the whole world in view at every step. You must pardon me, but I decline the Strassburg meeting, greatly as I value the sacrifice you thereby offer me; it is just this sacrifice that seems to me too great at the price of a few hurried days in a Strassburg hotel."[263]
That is to say, he loved Liszt, and valued his friendship above everything else in the world; but he must have Liszt on his own terms and at his own time or not at all............