As you can probably imagine, dear friend, manifold were the emotions which moved me each time I thought of our past, of your imprisonment and, finally, of your liberation! Accept my congratulations at this recent turn of events, but you are most of all to be congratulated if you find it possible really to enjoy your freedom. [...] As you are choosing open political agitation as the field of your future activities, you are—to be consistent—hopeful about public affairs and the future shaping of the world. In such a wide field, immediate personal anxieties about house and family must seem unimportant. You require more extensive relations with your fellow-men (of whom, indeed, there are as many as anyone could possibly wish). In short, everything which has become a burden to me and from which I flee on principle, is necessarily the object of your desire, and your senses, kept keen by long abstinence, will preserve you from speedy disgust. I shall continue to observe you with great interest, and shall rejoice that a fine intellectually able man like yourself has been kept fit for a species of activity, which I esteem most necessary, but in which I feel personally not the slightest call to participate. When I tell you that all I ask of the world now is that it should leave me alone to enjoy the only happiness available to me—leisure and peace of mind for my work—that I renounce all social relations, and am well satisfied with one willing servant and a dog, that—with the exception of one really wise friend (and him I honour rather as I would an angel)—I can do very well without visiting or receiving anyone, you will perhaps gain some idea of the strange feelings with which I shall watch you actively joining a political party and good-humouredly allowing yourself to be numbered with blockheads and scoundrels of all sorts! Still—that is your affair! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 520