[...] I need your help as a true friend, so that, for a time at least, I may be able to order my life, oppressed as it is by every imaginable care, in a way to give me a quiet and tranquil frame of mind in which to complete my Mastersingers. It is the general thoughtlessness and stupidity which make it impossible for a life like mine, destined for nothing but artistic creation, to fulfil its destiny; which obliged me to conquer my dislike of intruding sordid cares upon a friendship so delicate, so purely artistic, as is yours for me, and to seek help in the only quarter in which I can be sure that my true needs will be understood. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 524