[...] Yes! I must have complete freedom with this final work; for, like Tell, I am bound to say that if this too slips weakly from my hands, I have no other work to send out into the world. The tremendous effort involved in introducing my Nibelung work to the world in the most stylish way possible left me utterly exhausted, not least because it, too, led ultimately only to the birth of an ordinary child of the theatre; I created nothing by doing so, nothing but an empty shell. Even if I wanted to risk “Parsifal” in this way - as a new experiment, say! - I feel I could not do so since my strength would fail me in the midst of the enterprise, and I should sink to the ground in exhaustion. Worry eats away at my heart, - and what is left is consumed by disgust. The world in which we live does not need my “Parsifal”! - I should be acting in perfect conformity with the world’s behaviour towards me if I were to work away gradually at the instrumentation, ensuring in that way that the evening of my life as an artist were pleasantly spent, before sealing the work away under seven seals and bequeathing it complete to my son, so that, when he considers the time to have come, he may present it to the world at an opportune moment, with all the understanding which he will have inherited from me. What good would it do now to release this most Christian of works of art into a world which recoils in its cowardice in the face of the Jews! - But there is one thing - and there is no doubt but that it is this one consideration alone which persuades me to contemplate ways of bringing about a performance during my lifetime - : it is because I am bound to believe that, by desisting entirely from doing so, I should not be fulfilling a certain wish that is close to the heart of my unique and glorious prince, my kingly lord and friend. And - this is a weighty consideration! It is a question here of the stars which once brought me a kingly heart, and which keep us forever united - no doubt, indeed, until the end of the world. Nothing must remain unfulfilled that is traced out there as fulfillable. And so I await a sign from the stars: and I have a good astrologer at my side; my dear wife bids me not lose heart: the “knowing fool” shall appear. -
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 473