[...] I have ceased to look for happiness in this life. I do not deny that loneliness is often very hard for me; that the thought of the intimate society of some sympathetic woman-creature often presents itself in flattering guise, and that I look sorrowfully on the desert remainder of my life. Nevertheless, I have never seriously thought of actual divorce from my wife. The things that I yearn for are no longer the things of desire, and all I ask is peace, tranquillity—as far as possible, forgetfulness. I would sacrifice even this wish if I might believe that I could thereby procure a comfortable existence for my wife. Experience, however, has most clearly shown the contrary. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 534