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Later on I discovered that he deliberately refused to pay me the ten louis d'or due to me for Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft, which I had directed him to send to my wife.
Moreover, he had written the most enthusiastic letters in appreciation of my pamphlets, Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft and Oper und Drama. He maintained that the Karlsruhe Theatre was so poorly equipped, that he thought he could not well entertain the idea of a performance of my operas in that house.
The initiated will therefore not wonder that I dedicated my Kunstwerk der Zukunft to Feuerbach and addressed its preface to him. My friend Sulzer, a thorough disciple of Hegel, was very sorry to see me so interested in Feuerbach, whom he did not even recognise as a philosopher at all.
The fact that he proclaimed what we call 'spirit' to be an aesthetic perception of our senses, together with his statement concerning the futility of philosophy these were the two things in him which rendered me such useful assistance in my conceptions of an all-embracing work of art, of a perfect drama which should appeal to the simplest and most purely human emotions at the very moment when it approached its fulfilment as Kunstwerk der Zukunft.
At first I naturally found his ideas by no means palatable, and felt I could not readily abandon that so-called 'cheerful' Greek aspect of the world, with which I had looked out upon life in my Kunstwerk der Zukunft. As a matter of fact, it was Herwegh who at last, by a well-timed explanation, brought me to a calmer frame of mind about my own sensitive feelings.
I chose for my subject the legend of Wieland der Schmied, upon which I commented with some stress at the end of my recently finished Kunstwerk der Zukunft, and the version of which by Simrock, taken from the Wilkyna legend, had greatly attracted me.
It is true that I had to some extent suggested this name in the title of my book, Kunstwerk der Zukunft; but it only developed into a battle-cry when 'Judaism in Music' unbarred the sluices of wrath upon me and my friends.
He made at this time quite a good pastel portrait of me in his very best and earliest style. While I was sitting I unfortunately spoke to him about my Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft, and thereby laid the foundation for him of troubles that lasted many years, as he tried to instil my new ideas into the Parisian bourgeoisie at whose tables he had hitherto been a welcome guest.
A copy of the Wigand edition of my Kunstwerk der Zukunft was forwarded to me full of horrible misprints, and instead of the expected remuneration of twenty louis d'or, my publisher explained that for the present he could only pay me half this sum, as, owing to the fact that at first the sale of the Kunst und Revolution had been very rapid, he had been led to attach too high a commercial value to my writings, a mistake he had speedily discovered when he found there was no demand for Die Nibelungen.
Dearest Liszt, was I right when in the preface of my "Kunstwerk der Zukunft" I wrote that not the individual, but the community alone, could create genuine works of art? You have done the impossible, but, believe me, all must nowadays do the impossible in order to achieve what is really possible.
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