[...] I am now quite clear about the actual problem I have to solve for Paris. The solution is—to remain true to myself [...] and you will allow I am right to determine that it is [...] as such [...] that I must make myself intelligible to the French. [...] Good! With this in mind, a new idea for a subject has just occurred to me which I will work out at once and impart to Gustave Vaez. It is highly original, moving and suitable in all circumstances [Wieland the Smith]. [...]
[...] I cannot let my Lohengrin lie and rot like this. I have latterly accustomed myself to the notion of giving it to the world first in a foreign tongue and have taken up your former idea of having it translated into English to make possible a first performance in London. I am not afraid that this opera will be misunderstood by the English and I would be ready to agree to a slight alteration. [...]
[...] The local Concert Society has approached me to rehearse their orchestra (which is very feeble) in a Beethoven symphony and in a composition of my own, in return for which they would take the trouble of arranging a benefit concert for me. A great delay, however, has been caused by my demanding an increase in the strings (which was absolutely necessary and on which I was bound to insist unconditionally for the honour of the thing), so that probably the concert, which is to be in a sense the captatio benevolentiae for my benefit concert, will not take place before the beginning of January. [...]
[...] I shall certainly consider the subject out of Byron. I don't know it at all and have not yet found time to study it—but I think you will forgive me for it. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 164