[...] I have at last got a letter from my wife and it has wakened in me many a pang of conscience. Most of all I am heavy of heart when I think how I asked you to apply to certain royal personages on my behalf for a yearly income. I [...] forgot that by my much-talked-of sympathy with the Dresden Rising I stand in a relation to these royal personages which must make them think of me as hostile on principle, and they would perhaps be amazed that I should turn to them of all people for help now, finding myself in need after the failure of the Rising. My situation is all the more painful as I cannot possibly resort to the means of clearing myself from these suspicions of my principles without laying myself open to the far worse suspicion of baseness and cowardice. I can, of course, assure you personally that my undisguised sympathy with the movement in Dresden which ended in the outbreak was the result of opinions as far as possible removed from the absurd fanaticism which sees in every prince an object worthy of active hatred. Did I share this marvellous fanaticism I must surely have felt some scruples when I approached the Grand Duchess of Weimar with such complete lack of embarrassment. Well, I probably have no need to defend myself to you. You know the bitter source of discontent which sprang from the practice of my beloved art. [...] That I should now ever again meddle in a political crisis, particularly after the lesson learned through my sympathy for the Rising, is an impossibility as I need hardly affirm, since it is self-evident to every reasonable man. I rejoice that in all my aspirations I have become entirely the artist again, and that I can swear to. [...] My wife suffers and takes things bitterly! I hope that time may help her. Yesterday I asked you to inquire whether she needed pecuniary aid. I now ask you not to do so—not now.
If you want to do me a kindness, send me some money so that I can get away—anywhere, perhaps after all to Zurich, to my friend Müller. I want peace and quiet to be able to sketch out the scenario for Paris. I don't feel like it at present! What should I do in London now? I am good for nothing—or at most for writing operas—and that I cannot do in London. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 154