[...] Not long after our last anxious interchange of letters, I got a sign of life from Karl who wrote from Rome, as if he knew how I stood with you, and gave me the comforting assurance that news of you and Emmeline had reached him and that he had written to you both from Rome. I did not learn any details of what he was doing, but still enough to know that I was absolved from the engagement I made to you to let you have Karl's address as soon as I was able. [...]
Having touched on these matters, still troublous in memory, can you still spare some sympathy if I tell you a little about myself? About a month ago I completed my Tristan and feel that I have achieved something really significant. In any case this work is more music than anything I have done before. It is already in the press, and I hope shortly to be able to send you a printed copy of the music. The rehearsal of the work should begin at once in Karlsruhe.
At the same period I propose to rejoin my poor wife. I dare to hope that the care of her health, which for a time I could better provide for when separated than by her side, may have mitigated in some degree her painful heart-disease and in general made her state more bearable. Your news, at least, is reassuring, even though I am bound to perceive that there can be no question of actual cure and that she will continue to need the greatest care and immunity from any kind of excitement. Heaven grant I may never lack the patience necessary to carry through my firm and heartfelt purpose of treating her at all times with the greatest circumspection. I confess that my connection with this poor, much-tried and still suffering woman has become a perpetual spur to make me care for and develop my own moral capacities. In all my relations with her, I am guided solely by profound pity for her condition, and I confidently hope that this will arm me with steadfast patience, not only to bear the consequences of her illness, but to devote myself wholly to alleviating them. And so I believe that I shall not lack success, and that even for her a peaceful eventide of life may compensate for a stormy midday.—
We shall probably have no choice but to settle permanently in Paris after leaving Karlsruhe. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 427