Dear Wesendonck,
The very resolve to turn to you for help had a tranquillising effect on my mood and situation, as I know from experience your undiminished patience — despite the sacrifices you have made me — and continuance in sympathy with my strange and everlasting worries.
Let me give you a brief report on the state of my work. When I took it up, I yielded to the hope of being able to finish it with all speed, so as to hand it to the theatres for the coming winter. In part, however, I was so engrossed by cares and troubles of every kind, that for a length of time I was absolutely incapable of production; in part I soon learned so thoroughly to recognise my attitude towards my present works (which I cannot possibly throw off post-haste, but only find pleasure in when I owe their very smallest detail to good fancies, and work them out accordingly) — that I had to renounce all idea of such a scamped and sketchy work as alone would have been possible in so short a time! — And now: through you I've won fresh breathing-room and outlook! On the Viennese performance of Tristan, to take place in the late autumn, I don't count much; yet I expect to have done a good half of my work by then. At present I am in the finale of the first act. Latterly I have been very much torn from the mood required for my work by the visit of the Schnorrs, who were here for a fortnight studying the Tristan with me with great success; and just now I can do no more than instrument what I had ready. But I shall soon collect my wits again, and — thanks to your fresh proof of friendship — am hoping for an energetic resumption of the work.
My friend! The Grand Duchess of Baden believed she recognised a fond experience in my Pogner, which I read out with especial warmth, and her last words were the advice to choose a first-rate representative for this rôle in my distribution of the parts. I was quite peculiarly pleased by this impression. To myself, in the affection with which I have handled this part — now in the music too — it really is as if I had been setting up a monument to a friend!
God grant good tidings of your poor dear wife! Else were all cheering and enlivening news in vain! — May it all end well!
A thousand good, but sorely anxious greetings from
Your
Richard Wagner.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to Wesendonck et al., trans. and indexed by William Ashton Ellis (Grant Richards, 1899), No. 35