[...] I have again been working very hard since you left: it finally affected my health, - but although I do want to get better finally, I simply do not know how to go about it! The most terrible times are those when I am expected to convalesce and relax: for only then do I really notice how things stand with me! Every spark of enjoyment has first to be struck from a whole pile of flint-stones. As long as I work, I can delude myself, - but as soon as I have to convalesce, I can no longer delude myself, and immediately I feel - dreadfully miserable! - My only salvation is to keep on thinking of work, and my only pleasure, on resuming that work, is to wear myself out! What a splendid life for an artist to live! how gladly I’d throw it all away in return for a single week of life! - I feel a dreadful lack of stimulation from my surroundings. With men I am now completely incapable of getting on - and - a woman! - Yes - a woman! -
[...] - For Liszt I have similarly prepared a copy of my new “comic opera libretto”: but whether I shall send it to him, I do not yet know. - I am now making a start on the music and intend to enjoy myself greatly. Things you simply cannot imagine turn up of their own accord: I tell you, the musical phrases turn up around these verses and periods without my needing to make the least effort; everything springs up out of the ground like rank vegetation. The beginning is already in my head; also a few graphic motifs such as Fafner. I am looking forward to working on it uninterruptedly. - [...]
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 125