Best Friend,
Once more my warmest thanks for the friendly rendezvous in Berne, with which you gave me a great joy. Since my return to Zurich, I already have thoroughly recovered, and can trace the results of my cure more distinctly every day. I found my household, as you already knew, increased by a few ladies; of whom one, my sister, is particularly agreeable to me. Beyond these, my Weimar Regierungsrath and red-hot enthusiast [Franz Müller] had arrived, bringing me news already hinted me by Liszt, of such a kind as to set my plans for a housely future once more staggering. The other experience I herewith convey to you through Breitkopf und Härtel's letter, from which you will gather that no reasonable human being desires to league himself with me when once he comes to reason. My laboriously built up hope, nay, well-nigh certainty, I have to regard as demolished again, and anew I must resign myself to the tortoise-march of my sluggish destiny.
By an extraordinary coincidence, on the self-same day I heard through a most discreet, and at present confidential, channel, that the Grand Duke of Weimar quite seriously intends to draw me to Weimar by hook or by crook, and — informed of my pressing need of a thoroughly quiet, undisturbed and refreshing place of sojourn — thinks of offering it to me at the Wartburg or one of his pleasure-castles. Now, if this solitary wish, which I absolutely am not to see fulfilled in Zurich and its environs, should finally decide me to abandon an asylum that has become almost unforegoably dear to me through the presence of few but irreplaceable friends — perhaps to enter obligations which, even if not expressly stipulated, must still be implied — it would be a fresh proof what trifles (taken broadly) often determine, rule and domineer the life of an artist of my stamp.
Otherwise I have nothing worth telling to report to you; here everything is as it was. Let me hear what you propose doing, and be ever assured that I remain with gratitude and friendship,
Your
Richard Wagner.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to Wesendonck et al., trans. and indexed by William Ashton Ellis (Grant Richards, 1899), No. 10