[...] Here you have a whole heap of new stuff from me! You see that my [Nibelung] poem is finished and if it is not yet set to music, still, the type has been set up and it has been printed, at my own expense—a few copies only, which I wish to present to my friends, so that if I die while finishing the work they may possess my last will and testament in advance. Anyone knowing my situation would, in view of this costly edition, be certain to think this another of my extravagances. Be it so! The ordinary world is so stingy towards me that it induces no desire in me to imitate it.—
Well then—with a kind of fearful pleasure, and secretly (lest I should be prevented by admonitions), I have had the thing printed—you will find its drift more closely indicated in a prefatory note—and had only a few copies made, of which I send you forthwith a consignment with the request that you will do as follows. Of the three de luxe bound copies I want you to take the first as a gift from me. The second I intend as a birthday present for the Grand Duchess. [...]—The third I assign to the Princess of Prussia, with my very warmest greetings, too! I love her.—[...]
As to the poem itself, I may not and cannot say anything more to you at present. If you find time to read it through sympathetically, you will say to yourself all that I could possibly tell you. I—shall never write any poetry again.—
However, I am greatly excited by the prospect before me now of setting all this to music. As regards the form, this is already complete in my mind and I was never so at one with myself about the musical execution of any poem as I am about this. All I need is the requisite incentive in life to bring me to that indispensable mood of serenity in which the motives will well up in me spontaneously and joyfully.—[...]
How long I can go on in this horrible joylessness I do not know!—In the middle of last month I nearly succumbed and I thought then—that I should soon have to follow my poor Uhlig.—I was persuaded to go to a doctor [Dr. Rahn-Escher]. He is a most careful, prudent and learned man and is now giving me drastic treatment. He visits me almost every other day and I cannot help approving his prescriptions. One thing is clear—it won't be his fault if I—do not recover. My position is one of unendurable famine. My circle of friends has withered about me, and I am fated to survive and yet forgo everything. I languish in a desert, eat out my heart and therefore must perish! Someone will be sorry for it one day—perhaps even the King of Saxony! [...]
Yes—I would fain perish in the flames of Walhalla! Mark my new poem well—it holds the world's beginning, and its destruction!—The next thing for me to do is to compose it for the Jews of Frankfort and Leipzig—it is just made for them!—[...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 237