[...] Now let us be serious! My young King wants me to have everything I need. I need a secretary [...] He would have to be able to take my business correspondence off my hands, keep my MSS. in order, both the literary and the musical, make arrangements of my scores, etc.—in short, be an all-round fellow. Would you take it on? I believe, to put it on the lowest grounds, you might find it just as good or better than the dreary business of giving lessons. It would be only occasionally or periodically that you would be very busy with my affairs, and ordinarily you would have entirely free time sufficient for your own work, indeed, if you find talented pupils, for giving lessons. [...]—What has Vienna to offer you?
If you accept, you will make me very, very happy! The "secretary," you know, is my pretext for having a friend about me. If you will unite your life with mine (how long will the latter last?), you will, I hope, never regret it. And how great a thing, how pleasant and comforting a thing it will be for me to have an intelligent and friendly companion always beside me! [...]
Only—do not make me wait beyond the 1st of June. Here in my beautiful solitude, I crave exceedingly for someone of your stamp and—for I am like that—I suffer for the want of it.
I dare not say any more about Cornelius. He has not answered one of my letters, that is, what I call "answered." (His charming birthday poem stands quite alone!) There is often something secret about him which is a mystery to me. God knows why he often gives me so much anxiety! I have accustomed myself to taking him as a gift from Fate's hand, like luck, good weather, and the like, but I see I cannot demand him from Fate. If he would come soon as well, how lovely that would be! For it is divine here at present, and it hurts me strangely to know what it is I am offering you while I see you, for your part, doubtful and hesitant, pursuing a wretched existence! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 584