[...] What I want: a tiny little house, with a meadow and garden! - To work with enjoyment and pleasure, - but not just now. Great plans for Siegfried: three dramas, with a three-act prelude. - When all the German theatres collapse in ruins, I shall run up a new one on the Rhine, summon people together and perform the whole thing in the space of a week. - Rest! Rest! Rest! - Countryside! Countryside! a cow, a goat, etc. - then - sound health - cheerful high spirits - hope! - otherwise - Everything’s lost! I don’t want to go on! - You must come here! -
Yours,
R.W.
[...]
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 127