[...] Your wish not to see me at Mariafeld again agrees with my own feelings in the matter. Let this be the end of a night of turmoil and fever, which even the fairest sunshine from without could not brighten, and let us draw a veil over the varied images it called up. My immediate destiny is still uncertain; but a doctor whom I have consulted recommends Cannes. I like the Eckert family, and an acquaintance I have struck up with a Baron Gall, Intendant of the Court Theatre here, may have not unimportant consequences. We know that the Christian virtue of Hope has usually been my undoing when I have abandoned myself to it! An operatic performance which I attended yesterday for the first time after a long absence has mortally depressed me.
My warmest greetings to your sister! May you and she both forgive me for the unspeakable uneasiness to which I condemned you, dear ladies!
I shall write to Wille informing him in friendly wise of my decision to give up Mariafeld. [...]
Farewell, dear noble friend! My warm sense of gratitude will never cool—never! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 572