[...] O my God! had I only the power to let you see deep into my inmost heart—what I have suffered this year, and how I have striven for peace to do my life work. It has been in vain—nothing but storms and upheavals, passion and blind anger; all my laborious building for the sake of peace and quietness has fallen about my ears again and again. You, my dear child, make light of it. You reproach me and see only your own misfortunes. I am more just. I reproach no one—truly, not even you. A great deal was required of you—too much considering your terrible ill-health. So let us now part in peace, reconciled, each going his and her own way for a time in search of composure and renewed vitality. For me, at present, solitude and withdrawal from all company is a vital necessity. The society of those I love best, even those whom we had staying with us lately, is nothing but torment to me.
My many wounds are bleeding, and of these heartfelt anxiety for you is not the least. Furthermore, I feel the urgent need to balance the accounts of a whole lifetime. I must clear my mind about much that has vehemently moved me of late, and above all I must consider how to find peace and quiet in the future to complete such works as I may still be destined to give to the world. The place where I thought last year to have found a refuge is now out of the question, for only the lapse of years could clear up and allay all difficulties. [...]
And now, once more I ask you, shorten this black hour for yourself as far as you can. It is bitterest grief to think of you still in the rooms which eventually witnessed our many passionate disagreements and which I, therefore, was so glad to leave behind. Get away as soon as possible! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 361