[...] I have to tell you that the American has answered me in the negative. True, he makes me a counter-proposal, which can still be talked and thought over, but this concerns only myself, as he already has a permanent kapellmeister, Anschütz, who is to conduct other operas along with me, and so could not possibly appoint yet a third. I should be extremely sorry if you should have counted too much on the fulfilment of my wish and should have incurred nothing but disappointment and depression through it!—I myself shall probably give up the whole affair. It reminds me rather too much of London!
I have been here a month in complete solitude and am trying to finish my last act. But I have not got very far with it; the weather is so wretched. I shall remain here probably till the end of June and then go to Paris, where in any case I think of settling down. It is all over for me with Germany. I know no help for it. Also all my negotiations with Härtel's about The Nibelungs have broken down again. Don't be angry with me for having urged the work on you. It will not have been in vain, for, when I can attend to the outside world once more, I shall bend my mind to the performance of The Nibelungs and carry it through wheresoever—and good success shall then reward us both.
For the present, I long only for the completion of Tristan! After that I shall have an easier mind. I think you can send the Siegfried sketches without anxiety [...] to Lucerne. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 407