[...] This odd situation of mine might be pictured as a restless search for rest. The terrible exertions of my Russian journey (of the issue of which you may already have heard something) seemed just such a chase to me, nothing more. [...] I kept [...] my fiftieth birthday all alone by myself.—
The interruption my work has suffered since last autumn has had a marked effect upon me this time. I am still struggling to recover from a sense of dismemberment and distraction of mind, which has got possession of me as never before. My return to Germany shows me plainly enough that I can count on no support in my public artistic activities. My most painful discoveries on this head were made in Berlin. No one knowing the many favourable intimations I have long been receiving as to the Queen of Prussia's intentions, could blame me for having expected something to my advantage from that exalted art patron's interest in my work. Now, however, not only has the Grand Duchess of Baden's every effort to this end been wrecked by the wretched condition of the circumstances surrounding opera in Berlin, but I have actually been refused an audience by the Intendant of the Court Theatre [von Hülsen], to whom I sent in my name for the purpose of discussing my visit. Here, then, is a very decided end of the matter, and I have now abandoned all attempts to achieve anything in Germany which does not come of itself in the common way, like operatic success, for instance!
And so, while many a German prince esteems my art, and publicly proclaims an interest in me, there is nothing for me to do but to fall back entirely upon my own resources. To make this possible, I have to make use of my talents as a conductor and get enough to live upon by giving concerts in Russia from time to time! [...]
By a most remarkably circuitous route (the music of my Valkyrie is to be heard now on the frontiers of Asia!) I have managed once more to house the Erard, to which you once nobly gave asylum, and have spread The Mastersingers once more upon the stand.
I have begun again, and I now solicit your blessing, my kind and noble lady! Take pity on me! Utter some potent charm to hold me to my beloved work and ward off the wretchedness and common cares of the world so that I may soon be able to show you a happy result of my labours! It is your need as well as mine! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 556