My dear Minna,
Here I am, sitting in this same city of Paris where we arrived once before, ten years ago, & where we spent a joyless existence living a life of anxious care from one day to the next! No words can describe what is going on inside me! The long journey, the terrible heat - memory, present & future, everything weighs heavily upon me. I loathe almost all towns, so why should Paris be able to exercise a more favourable impression on me? - I thought I had moved to a relatively quiet part of the city, instead of which I find the noise here as great as in the densest hubbub of city life. And the heat, the excitement, the commotion, - my mind is utterly confused, - for how long is it since I last heard from you! Ah, my Swiss courage has already failed me & the only desire I have left is to be reunited with you & with the familiar remains of our former household in some quiet secluded spot! I want to work, & to work creatively, to write verses & compose music, whatever else the world may demand of me: but to have to run after it & hunt it down, to be expected to submit myself to all this din, - why? - I should have preferred to leave it all to other people who like loud noise & bustle! - You see, my dear, Paris for me is not a city of pleasure & delight! But in Switzerland, in the glorious & comforting bosom of nature, in a small & friendly town, in the company of a handful of friends, there could I sooner seize on the notion of finding happiness with you! But here? here I have no other thought in mind than of coming back to you & to a quiet home! But I know only too well, - I must first earn this happiness, & so I shall shrink from no effort, no step - however repugnant I may find it - which may bring me to the point where I can choose freely, & what I shall choose - I already know - : always to remain at your side! [...] But everything that has now to be done here can only be by way of preparation: my real purpose can probably not be realized until the autumn, when the Paris season begins. All I can do in the mean time is to make a decent name for myself through the newspapers & journals, & prepare to face the countless intrigues to which I shall be exposed and whose threads for the most part are held by Meierbeer. Now that Liszt’s article on Tannhäuser has appeared in print, Meierbeer must have a pretty clear idea where things are heading: when I went into Schlesinger’s shop, I was given a very friendly reception; Meierbeer was there, too, but he happened to be concealed by a screen, where he remained hidden when he heard my voice, so that it looked as if what was holding him back was his shock at my sudden appearance & a guilty conscience at his intrigues in Berlin: when I finally discovered he was there, I went behind the screen, all affability & smiles, & drew him forth: he was embarrassed & at a loss for words, but I know enough to be on my guard against him.
[...]
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 89