[...] In Weimar I reckoned up my position and thought myself secure, and yet my situation was unhappily so thoroughly Wagnerian that it was liable to be totally reversed by two small factors: (1) Kolatschek's hospitality—consequently impossible to live in Vienna almost without expense—consequently my financial position entirely altered; (2) instead of Tristan being performed at the beginning of October (with all the implications)—extremely doubtful whether it will come on at all this winter, though the chance that it may yet be brought out in December chains me here for the present. Consequently—the same old misery in full measure!! [...]
Here am I, then, twenty-five years married, recognised, loved, admired; back I come to my German Fatherland, and all my little future hangs—or rather dangles—on the lax vocal chords of a tired tenor who will neither let me live nor die. I drag around from inn to inn and fancy myself an opera composer!—
Well, give Cosima greetings, too. [...] The two sisters were so charming, unusual, brilliant and stimulating that I swallowed Ollivier down gallantly! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 500