[...] Do you really think the Saxon Ministry could commit the villainy of clearing me to please the Court while allowing poor devils such as Herz to be condemned to 15 years in prison? I cannot conceive such wickedness, but neither can I conceive that the Court and Lüttichau could be so stupid as to think seriously of recalling me to my former post. If, however, this should be the case, I would meet these r——s in spirited fashion by refusing to accept either my acquittal or my recall, which would at least deprive their baseness and stupidity of any very striking success in the eyes of the malicious world. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 172