[...] To-day, quite unexpectedly, my long-awaited box arrived safely from Venice, putting me in a really good humour and confirming my belief that all pleasure is merely negative—for if things had followed the ordinary proper course this box would never have seemed anything special to me, whereas now all its contents, particularly the sketches which I had almost given up for lost, come to me like a new gift. I have now a complete library in my salon. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 413