[...] I beg you to contradict most positively the rumour that I have petitioned for a pardon, because if it is disseminated as an accepted and established fact I shall be forced into a public explanation which I would willingly avoid on every consideration [...] We stabilised-sedentary animals don't really deserve to be men. What a good time we might have if we weren't always victimising our d——d bases! Oh! these organs of the seat are veritable taskmasters of the whole race of civilised mankind. We insist on sitting, or at the most standing, never will we walk and still less run. My hero now is the "bold runner, Achilles"! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 216