[555W-{50-1/51} Opera and Drama: PW Vol. II, p. 376]
[P. 376] {FEUER} “So neither can the artist prescribe from his own Will, nor summon into being, that Life of the Future which once shall redeem him: for it is the Other, the antithesis of himself, for which he yearns, toward which he is thrust … . Yet again, this living ocean of the Future cannot beget the mirror-image by its unaided self: it is a mother-element, which can bear alone what it has first received. This fecundating seed, which in it alone can thrive, is brought it by the Poet, i.e. the Artist of the Present; and this seed is the quintessence of all rarest life-sap, which the Past has gathered up therein, to bring it to the Future as its necessary, its fertilising germ: for this Future is not thinkable, except as stipulated by the Past.(…) And just as this verse, will the prophetic Artwork of the yearning Artist of the Present once wed itself with the ocean of the Life of the Future.” [555W-{50-1/51} Opera and Drama: PW Vol. II, p. 376]
[556W-{4/18/51}Letter to Franz Liszt: SLRW, p. 222]
[P. 222] “Meyerbeer is a special case, as far as I am concerned: it is not that I hate him, but that I find him infinitely repugnant. This perpetually kind and obliging man reminds me of the darkest – I might almost say the most wicked – period of my life, when he still made a show of protecting me; it was a period of connections and back-staircases, when we were treated like fools by patrons whom we inwardly deeply despised. That is a relationship of the most utter dishonesty: neither party is sincere in its dealings with the other; each assumes an air of devotion, but they use each other only so long as it profits them to do so. I do not reproach Meyerbeer in the least for the intentional ineffectiveness of his kindness towards me, -- on the contrary, I am glad that I am not as deeply in his debt as Berlioz, for ex. But it was time for me to break away completely from so dishonest a relationship: superficially, I did not have the least occasion for doing so, for even the discovery that he was playing me false could not surprise me or, indeed, justify my action, since it was basically I who had to reproach myself for having wilfully allowed myself to be deceived concerning him. No, it was for more deep-seated reasons that I felt the need to abandon all the usual considerations of common sense in my dealings with him: I cannot exist as an artist in my own eyes or in those of my friends, I cannot think or feel anything without sensing in Meyerbeer my total antithesis, a contrast I am driven loudly to proclaim by the genuine despair that I feel whenever I encounter, even among many of my friends, the mistaken view that I have something in common with Meyerbeer. With all that I want and feel, I cannot appear before any of these friends with the requisite pureness and clarity until such time as I distance myself completely from this vague image with which so many people still associate me. This is a necessary act if my mature self is to be fully born, and – if God wills it – I think I shall have been of service to many another person in having performed this act with such zeal!“ [556W-{4/18/51}Letter to Franz Liszt: SLRW, p. 222]
[557W-{5/31/51}Letter to Adolf Stahr: SLRW, p. 225]
[P. 225] “At present we have only inadequately formed verse, not the real thing. My musical expression, moreover, continues to be related only supersensually to language: a substantial, sensual relationship between the two has escaped me until
