[...] Will you be cross with me if I tell you I have suddenly decided at last to accept the very pressing and cordial invitations of my friends in Bordeaux—they have even sent me my travelling expenses—and that I accordingly set out to-morrow morning for Bordeaux? You see, I am utterly useless here now and am simply wearing myself out in worry and fruitless endeavours. [...] Frau Laussot is doing all she is doing for me, just so that I need do nothing against my nature and inmost inclination, to save me from quite useless and fruitless annoyance here. And, just think, she and Frau Ritter quite alone offer us a yearly income—no one else is to have any claim made upon them. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 169