[...] One thing I never relinquished, and, indeed, I thought I had earned it dearly enough—the hope of finding my "Asyl" again, of being able to dwell near you. An hour of seeing you again in Venice was enough to destroy this last dear delusion!
I was soon forced to see that you are unable, when I am near you, to maintain that freedom which you need and on which your steadfastness depends. My absence alone gives you power freely to follow your own will. It is only when you have nothing to buy that you have no price to pay.
I cannot bear to see you cramped, oppressed, enslaved, as the price of my nearness. For I cannot requite your sacrifices, since my presence can promise nothing further, and the thought of the miserably little I can be to you in such conditions, bought at the price of freedom, of human dignity, makes me feel this very nearness a torture.
What is the use of disguising the truth? I see that you feel it and know it yourself—would you not be the very first to do so? You knew it long ago, sooner than I, who long secretly remained an incurable optimist.
It was this, and this alone, that lay on my soul like lead in Venice. It was not the state of my affairs, my other misfortunes—all these are and have been in themselves indifferent to me since I knew you, [...]
I shall often send you some of my work. How you will open your eyes over my Mastersingers! Fortify your heart against Sachs—you will fall in love with him! It is a really wonderful work. The old sketch had little or nothing to offer. Yes, one must oneself have been in Paradise in order to find one's way at length to the heart of such a subject! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 510