[...] Here at last I am permitted to behold with my very eyes what hitherto I have only been able to grope after in the form of vague, though always pleasing imaginary sensations. I now clearly perceive one link in the chain which holds me as by a lovely charm, and from this one link I may, to my unutterable bliss, judge the quality of all the other links in that chain. I have at last come to know our friend Jessie Laussot and the knowledge has awakened in me an irrepressible longing to have the joy of knowing equally clearly and perfectly you and all who belong to her.
My heart rejoices in you, and yet you and yours are still only a picture to me and it is a real torment to me that the colours of this picture change and melt indistinctly one into another. I can hold nothing fast except the entrancing consciousness of being dear to you. Blessed as this feeling is, it is yet not free from pain, for the gulf of separation yawns between us. It is impossible that you should love only the artist in me, just as it is impossible for me to honour only my benefactor in you. There is a bond between us which holds only because we love each other as persons. We must see each other face to face, take each other by the hand, dwell together, not simply rejoice in each other at large, but have a share in every incident of each other's lives, sad and joyful, tearful and merry—as life must be. [...]
Come to me in glorious Switzerland! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 171