[...] Confess that there is nothing to be done with such a man! Give him up! While I was still looking about me, I thought to myself, "God! If Liszt were suddenly to write to me and say, 'I have found a beautiful house with a garden for you in Rome'"—should I go to Rome after all? Yes—but not willingly! Why not? Because I can bear no more strain, especially not now. I have been so terribly, so shamefully robbed of precious years of creative work that I believe the mass of new impressions from Rome and Italy would throw me completely off the rails. Proudhon says somewhere, in opposition to the people who expected the railways to do marvels for the intellectual culture of mankind, "Le génie est sédentaire." So it is, believe me! He who cannot construct his universe out of little, will still less be able to build it of much. And yet I say all this with a certain bitterness in renunciation. Heavens! how gladly I would stretch myself at ease there and let the marvellous world of phenomena flow in upon me! But everyone has his "daemon," and mine is a horribly powerful beast; he is absolute in subjecting me to his purposes.
[...] I am living here without social intercourse and all I want is to be unmolested so that I can finish my stuff [The Mastersingers] without interruption. I have become quite indifferent now as to whether I ever get any of it performed or not. Yes. I was quite glad not to have to take up Tristan straight away (Mme. Dustmann being unwell), following my violent exertions. After all, in the end one must fall back on what one is to oneself, so that the main source of satisfaction is to be able to have a little respect for oneself.
But then, of course, one ought not to be given such glowing accounts of Michelangelo, etc.—for then one's heart grows heavy indeed! Moreover, to comfort you, let me tell you that I read an Austrian newspaper every day, and when I see the news of the Polish insurrection I sympathise with it involuntarily, and altogether I am falling into many of my old weaknesses. But it is with me as with Goethe—I am not a good enough hater for true political fervour, and without this one satisfies no party. God! do you believe, then, that there is a single educated man in St. Petersburg who is not horrified by the proceedings in Poland, and who does not feel and speak on the subject just like us? But "policy," "government" and whatever else this devil's work calls itself—yes, that is another matter! And, believe me, we are not made for it, you and I; even Garibaldi is not, Bakunin still less, but Louis Napoleon is, most certainly. And who would class himself with him! Pah! The devil!
Little Tausig is my sole acquaintance, a sensible young fellow, quite out of the ordinary. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 558