[...] If I had not had my work, I really do not know how I could have endured it, but I have shut myself up in it as in a last stronghold and—in four days the whole poem will be finished.
I am impelled, therefore, to find with all speed the nest in which to hatch out musically the egg I have laid.
I shall be ready, after making all necessary arrangements, to leave Paris a week to-day, that is Wednesday. [...] I shall then go straight to Wiesbaden, where I expect to arrive on Thursday evening. [...]
On Friday evening, then, I can be with you in Mainz, and please will you assemble for that evening the small and intimate circle we had before. I want to read you my finished poem and hope I shall pass the test and show you that I am still good for something. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 516