Just a short note! I have been back since the 9th of this month. [...]
The worst of it is that I am so exhausted by this musical tour that I cannot contemplate continuing or repeating it. Impossible to go to Russia. As to what is to happen to me without this resource, however, my mind is a blank.
In Löwenberg I joined the Prince, a very good-natured man, who unluckily is too old and has been too much drained of funds to be of use to me. In Breslau I felt utterly humiliated and wretched.
I renewed an old acquaintance to some purpose! Frau Wille's sister, Frau von Bissing, came to the concerts in Löwenberg and Breslau. My great weariness and nervous prostration, for which she most kindly made allowance, spoiled the freedom of our intercourse, and yet the few hours we spent together were of the deepest value to each.
I hope Cornelius will come out to visit me daily, despite wind and weather. I strive, with curiously bitter anxiety, to preserve my refuge here. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 562