Note 259 — Chapter I · THE MAN (continued 3)
Reading edition
Briefwechsel, ii. 294. The first part of the sentence, as far as "fell to my lot," was suppressed in the first edition of the letters, as well as the succeeding sentences,—"The love of a tender woman has made me happy: she can throw herself into a sea of sorrows and torments in order to say to me 'I love you,'" &c. &c. This was the lady with whom his relations were "merely friendly." The first edition of the Wagner-Liszt correspondence was systematically manipulated so as to keep from the reader all knowledge of the Wesendonck affair.