[...] Ah, dearest, dearest, one and only Franz! Give me but a heart, a mind, a woman's soul in which to lose myself utterly—which will wholly understand me—and how little I should need in this world—how indifferent I should feel to all the frippery that I have taken to lately as a mad kind of distraction—in very despair!!—[...]
The instrumentation of The Rhinegold proceeds—I have now gone down to Nibelheim with the orchestra. The whole will be finished in May—but not the fair copy—everything on stray sheets in illegible pencil script. You will not be able to see it for some time. The Valkyrie must be tackled in June.—[...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 259