[...] I should like to benefit by the sensation I make here, but God knows if I have time to do so. It is strange, indeed, that I should find in Russia the help I expected of right from Germany. But look at Saxony, my dear Saxony, worthy Leipzig, and ah! dear noble Dresden, where I was treated much like a mangy cat! I gradually come to be amused by my own bitterness. [...] What a good thing it is that I am at last earning something in Russia to enable me to pay, among other things, for the books H[einrich] B[rockhaus] took from me?! And the shameless chicanery of the Saxon embassies, even in Vienna, where I am still constantly alluded to by Herr [von] Könneritz as the incendiary of the royal palace?! Ah! what a comfort the love and sympathy of one's Fatherland is to one!—
Really, if I can be patient and pluck up courage again to go on working and persevering, it may come to something.—But it is my last effort; I feel very exhausted and not good for much. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 554