[...] I am utterly useless in Paris at present. My business is to write an opera for Paris—I am unfit for anything else. This cannot be accomplished in the midst of storm. With luck, I should have the versification done in half a year and the performance a year after that. In Paris, without a hearth and—which is the same thing—without peace of heart, I can do no work. I must find a new place where I can feel at home and can decide to remain at home. I have selected Zurich as the place for my purpose and have written to my wife to come and join me there with her youngest sister and the remnants of our household goods. I have a friend there, Alexander Müller, who will give me a hand with setting up house, etc., on as cheap a scale as possible. As soon as I possibly can I shall go there from here. When I have my wife again I shall go gaily to work. Thence I shall send the sketch for my Parisian subject [Wieland] to Belloni who has arranged for a French version by Gustave Vaez. He may have the work done by October. I shall then leave my wife and go to Paris for a short time, try by all possible means to get a commission to compose on the subject in question, perhaps also perform something, and then return to Zurich to compose the music. Till then I shall spend my time in getting to work on my latest German poem, Siegfrieds Tod. I shall send you the opera finished in six months' time. [...] I have only one object and that I will pursue gladly—work, which for me means the writing of operas. I am unfit for all else. I can never play a part nor fill a post and I should simply deceive if I attempted to promise that I would devote myself to any other activity.
So find me a small yearly income just sufficient to secure for me a quiet life with my wife in Zurich—since I cannot as yet be near you in Germany. I spoke to you in Weimar of a salary of 300 thalers which I would like to ask of the Grand Duchess for my operas, alterations of the same, and the like. If the Duke of Coburg, or even the Princess of Prussia, were to add something to this I would willingly devote all my future artistic activities to these three benefactors as a kind of recompense and acknowledgment, and they would have the satisfaction of having preserved me in freedom and vigour for my art. I—cannot beg for myself, nor find the proper forms for the necessary contract. You can, and you and your intercession will bring it about. [...]
With the reliance of one who is utterly helpless, I now implore you to make it possible to send money to me soon, so that I can leave here, travel to Zurich and live there till I receive the desired maintenance. [...]
Alas! I do not know whether my wife, if she yields to my urgent request and decides to come to Zurich, will be able to raise the necessary funds. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 153