[...] I am very much overworked and often hardly know whether I am on my head or my heels.
Added to that I spent a few days on the Rhine last week, going to wait on the Princess of Baden-Baden [...] She made a good impression on me, expressed herself with animation and sense, and assured me very warmly of her support. Just previously, however, I had received such discouraging accounts of the state of the Berlin Opera that I did not feel disposed to go into further detail with the Princess on the subject of getting my new works produced in Berlin. [...] I did not, unfortunately, feel the faintest trace of emotion at setting foot on German soil again! I must have grown very cold, God knows! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 475