[...] To be able to become a peasant is still my only wish! Spring brings me Nature again, that is my only comfort! It is bad that I always seem to myself to be guilty of affectation when I bear myself bravely and hopefully. One thing I can say with pride—however far I search, I believe no artist yet has suffered for his art's sake as I have—because I possess the eccentricity of being unable to conceive of art apart from mankind.
Let us leave that! I am glad to be engaged now on the business of getting my latest manuscript [Opera and Drama] into the right hands, that is to say, the bookseller's. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 198