[...] I have now assembled round me quite a host of relics of my past, which had hitherto been scattered heedless far and wide. Thus I now possess the capital oil-portraits of my mother, my uncle [Adolf Wagner] and my stepfather [Ludwig Geyer]: of the second I have laboriously collected all his printed writings, of the last some letters and a very charming comedy [the Slaughter of the Innocents]. Of my own life, many a souvenir from earliest days has been recovered. In times of untold stir it has afforded me a soothing refuge, since about four years, to dictate my entire Life, which I will bequeath some day to him who shall frame my biography — long after my death, unless the magnitude and repulsiveness of the current distortions should decide me even earlier to give some qualified person the necessary material from my dictations to correct single points. To save this manuscript from disappearance, it lately occurred to me to have half a dozen copies of it printed at my own expense. One of the first proof-sheets, just received, I now forward you herewith, but with the earnest request not to view it as a presumptuous appeal to your sympathy.
Whatever else may occur to interest you in my life and doings, shall always be faithfully transmitted to you. I needs must wish to reach a good old age, as my duties in life have infinitely increased, and only now are my painful experiences to be requited by that repose to which I shall owe at last, I hope, the completion of all the works in which I was so sadly hindered in my bygone life — almost with solitary exception of the time when I lived in your neighbourhood and under shelter of your friendship.
The Götterdämmerung is begun: after a little rest and self-collection, Parzival shall follow; whilst much besides is shaping hopefully within me for further creation.
So, Friends on the Green Hill, be heartily greeted for this new year also from
Your devoted
Richard Wagner.
Do you recognise the pen with which I have written this letter? — It still is going, and got smoothly over the Meistersinger too!
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to Wesendonck et al., trans. and indexed by William Ashton Ellis (Grant Richards, 1899), No. 44