[...] If you but knew how strange it is to me to see, from this letter of yours among other things, how immeasurably little you know of the troubles of my life! How oddly it strikes me to read there that in the great world and in my fame I forget everything unconnected with these!! How and where to begin to show you how different things really are!!
Enough, surely, that all my fame, all my success in Germany, have found me no place where I can collect my thoughts and prepare for new work. In the centre of Germany, I had to think myself fortunate to get an invitation from the Metternich family to live secluded in Paris with them for a time, in quiet and freedom from care. That lured me hither. In the meantime, the Princess's mother died and the father—out of his mind—was brought to Paris and given the rooms destined for me, so that I—am searching high and low once more to see if I can find a suitable room for myself and for my work—the one thing left to me!! Every one of my undertakings a failure—rebuffs on all sides—no idea what to do anywhere—no security—no income—penury and anxiety—no home, no family—nothing!—
Ah, what do you know about it! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 511