[...] My poetic conceptions have always been so far in advance of my experience that I can regard my moral education as determined and effected almost solely by these conceptions. The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, The Nibelungs, Wotan were all in my brain before they became part of my experience. But it will not be difficult for you to appreciate in what a remarkable relation I now stand to Tristan. I say openly (for this work belongs, if not to the world, at least to all purified souls) that never was an idea so clearly embodied in experience. How far the two—the idea and the experience—were mutually predeterminative is a subject of such marvellous subtlety that the ordinary processes of thought can only present it in inadequate and distorted form. And now—with my spirit full of intuitions of Savitri, Parzival striving to take imaginative shape—when I bend brooding in formative stillness over the completion of my artistic creation in Tristan, who can imagine the wonder that fills me and so rapts me from this world that I am almost persuaded that I have already overcome it? You can guess it! You know it! Yes, and probably you alone! [...]
[...] I hear from Dresden that I am expected to go there under a safe-conduct, appear in person before the courts and stand my trial, in return for which, even in case of condemnation, I might be sure of receiving the King's pardon. Well, that would be all very well for a man who could attain all he wanted to make his life happy by such a submission, after undergoing the disgusting chicanery of the judicial inquiry. But—my God!—what should I gain by it? For the very doubtful satisfaction of a few possible performances of my works, I should have this absolutely certain annoyance, worry and overstrain, all the more inevitable now that ten years of seclusion have made me intensely sensitive to contact with this horrible traffic in art which I should still have to employ as means to my end! Accordingly I have not acceded to these Dresden suggestions. To tell the truth, while I work my feet hardly touch solid earth! I could not allow any of my new works to be performed without taking part personally. The Grand Duke of Baden seems to be the prince who is most active and faithful in my interests. He has let me know that I can count with certainty on producing Tristan under my own direction at Karlsruhe. They would like to give it on September 6th, the birthday of the Grand Duke.
I should not object to that, and the persistent interest of this amiable young prince has warmed my heart towards him. We shall see whether he carries his purpose through and—whether I am ready. I have yet a great deal of serious work before me. Still, I hope now to be able to go on without interruption. I shall certainly not have it finished before June. After that if circumstances are unchanged I think of leaving Venice and seeking my Swiss mountains again. [...]
Karl Ritter came back on New Year's Day and comes to see me every evening at 8 o'clock. He tells me that he found my wife looking somewhat better. On the whole things seem to be going tolerably well with her and I take care that she lacks nothing for her comfort. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 387