Dearest Franz,
Wretched and helpless as I am, I must once more trouble you with something which this time will not be altogether without interest to you. I enclose the letter of the person concerned, so that you may be au fait at once. (The enthusiasm displayed for me will, I hope, not excite you.) B. A., according to the testimony of my wife, is a young, very handsome, slender fellow, as, indeed, you may have guessed by the liking of X. for him.
Arrange, therefore, that he may make his début as Tannhäuser and Lohengrin at Weimar under your direction. In that manner I shall know that he will be under the surest guidance, and that I shall have the best information as to the value of the young man. Perhaps you will be kind enough to send for him previously.
I have not yet got back to the mood for writing to the kind Princess and the good Child. I am annoyed at being always in a state of lamentation, and must therefore wait for a favourable hour, for I do not like absolutely to deceive you. You yourself are used to my laments, and expect nothing else. My health, too, is once more so bad, that for ten days, after I had finished the sketch for the first act of Siegfried, I was literally not able to write a single bar without being driven away from my work by a most alarming headache. Every morning I sit down, stare at the paper, and am glad enough when I get as far as reading Walter Scott. The fact is, I have once more over-taxed myself, and how am I to recover my strength? With Rhinegold I got on well enough, considering my circumstances, but the Valkyrie caused me much pain. At present my nervous system resembles a pianoforte very much out of tune, and on that instrument I am expected to produce Siegfried. Well, I fancy the strings will break at last, and then there will be an end. We cannot alter it; this is a life fit for a dog.
I hope you are out of bed again. I wish I were a little more like you. Can you not let me have the Mountain Symphony? Do not forget to send it to me.
Adieu, my good, dear Franz. You are my only comfort.
A thousand greetings to all at Altenburg.
Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #4234, Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt — Volume 2, No. 234