[...] To-day I am going to Valais but expect to return very soon. I haven't the money for roaming about nor the inclination, while nothing gives me pleasure but my work. The Valkyrie is begun—now at last things are moving, I can tell you—
Odd, the contrast of this first love scene in The Valkyrie with that in The Rhinegold! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 264