Note 165 — Chapter I · THE MAN (continued 2)
Reading edition
In Mein Leben Wagner tells the story of the purchase of the "Asyl" somewhat differently. There is not a word there of Wesendonck having been persuaded by his wife into buying the property for Wagner, or of the trouble in the Wesendonck household over him. See Mein Leben, p. 645.
The passage I have just quoted from Wagner's letter to his sister Clara has been suppressed in the German edition of the Familienbriefe (p. 218). Mr. Ashton Ellis, in his English version (Family Letters of Richard Wagner, p. 215), opines that Glasenapp, the German editor of the Familienbriefe, omitted the passage in compliance "with Wahnfried wishes." It is one more evidence of the utter untrustworthiness of the Wahnfried coterie. The letter was originally published in the Deutsche Rundschau in 1902. A complete English version of it will be found in the opening of Mr. Ellis' translation of the Wagner-Wesendonck correspondence. The German of the passage quoted above is given in Kapp's Richard Wagner und die Frauen, pp. 116, 117.