[...] Ah, how full of enthusiasm I am for the German Confederacy of the Teutonic Nation! God forbid that the villain Louis Napoleon should lay hands on my German Confederacy—I should be too distressed if any changes were made in it. I am curious as to what will become of my projected migration to Paris. Of course it is terribly unpatriotic to want to make oneself comfortable in the headquarters of the enemy of the German Nation. The good Germans should really do something to save the most Germanic of all Germanic opera-composers from this dreadful trial. Moreover, in Paris, I may find myself nicely cut off from all my German resources; and yet I shall have to apply to a very high quarter in Paris to get permission to settle there permanently, for my stay in Switzerland is drawing to a close. Germany evidently intends forcibly to drive me to the enemy! Very well, then!! However, there is now a possibility that I may go in the autumn for six months to America, where offers have been made which I cannot well neglect in view of the kind of sympathy I get from the German Confederacy. This will have to be decided soon. What makes me hesitate, is the fact that it would interfere with the Tristan scheme at Karlsruhe in such a manner that I should ultimately have to give it up for the present and then probably never resume it. I am on the very verge of the "to be or not to be" with the last act of this child of sorrow—and the mere brush of a feather of that vulgar Chance of whom I am the helpless victim, might kill the child in the very throes of birth. Everything hangs by a hair with me now; it may go, or it may stand stock-still. For, my Franz, things go ill with me! [...]
[...] And now at length I come to Dante, which I did not want to mention at all to-day as I love it too much to involve it in my present mood. Yet let me say this much, that we will keep the words of the dedication inscribed in my copy, strictly to ourselves; not a soul shall know of them from me, at least. Believe me, you have positively made me blush for shame! I cannot tell you forcibly enough how miserably feeble I feel as a musician. From the bottom of my heart I consider myself an absolute bungler. You ought to see me sitting there sometimes thinking "it must do after all"—then going to the piano to wrestle with some wretched rubbish and giving it up in a condition of idiocy. My feelings then!—my innermost conviction of actual musical beggary! And then you come along, exuding music at every pore—in streams—in springs—in waterfalls—and I have to listen while you say things like this! I find it hard to believe that it is not sheer irony, and I have to recall your friendship for me very clearly and thoroughly to persuade myself that you have not been laughing at me.—It is a queer story, dearest friend, and believe me, there is not much in me. I really believe now that Reissiger must have helped me to do Tannhäuser and Lohengrin. You most certainly helped me with my later works and now that you leave me in the lurch I can do no more.
Only this much about Dante to-day, that I am chiefly delighted to see how perfectly I have remembered it from your first playing of it. As I study it more closely, I see that no single matter of importance has escaped me, and indeed even the least and minutest details were perfectly familiar to me from that time. This is at least good evidence of my receptive capacity; yet I believe the credit is due to the original greatness and quality of your work.
For the rest, if I am to try to say something more to you about it, I feel just as I felt when I wrote a letter to Marie about you. Concerning that letter I recently made a brand-new discovery. Karl Ritter had not read it, when I fortunately found it among my papers in Venice and gave it to him. Afterwards he came to me and told me that he had heard from people quite closely connected with you that I had expressed myself very evasively and had taken pains to avoid saying anything very definite about you. This had made him uneasy and now, having read it, he was correspondingly delighted to perceive the enormous importance I attributed to you. Amazed at the possibility of an evil interpretation, I re-read my letter at once and could not but concur with Karl's hot declamations upon the incredible dullness, shallowness and triviality of the people who could have misunderstood the meaning of this letter. Now, however, I have taken oath never to publish another word. We know what we are to each other and can communicate with each other occasionally for encouragement and consolation; but what we are to the world—!
It is too incredible!!
For the present, all the good-humour I can raise I lavish on my wife! I coax her and pamper her as if she were a honeymoon bride. My reward is to know that she is doing well. Her bad condition visibly improves; she is recovering and it is to be hoped will acquire a little sense as well in her old age—so that just after receiving your Dante I wrote to her that we had now got through Hell, I hoped Purgatory would agree with her, and that at last a little Paradise must surely come our way. All that is excellent. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 408