[...] I am now working on “young Siegfried”, and shall soon have finished it. Then I shall move on to “Siegfried’s Death” - that will hold me up longer; there are two scenes there which will have to be newly written (the Norns and Brünnhilde’s scene with the Valkyries) but above all the ending - in addition to which everything will have to be substantially revised. The whole thing will then be - out with it! I am shameless enough to admit it! - the greatest poem I have ever written! -
I shall tell you about my health some other time: I have to avoid tiring myself, including over-strenuous walks: artist that I am, I can now thrive only in luxurious comfort; who knows, - if I change horses, regard my youth as a thing of the past, and consciously enter upon some entirely new dispensation in life, I may perhaps learn to cope with life for a few more years. (Forget the scrawlings and polemics! Place your hopes - in me!)
Adieu!
Your
Nibelung Prince Alberich.
(Next time I must tell you something quite priceless about Munich.)
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 154