[...] Your book [Sachsens Erhebung und das Zuchthaus zu Waldheim] is terrible!—The very moderation, tranquillity and unshakable love of humanity with which all is presented, make the book inflammatory in the extreme!
You are, indeed, a most remarkable man and God knows what you are destined to be and do. Faith like yours must be able to remove mountains; it is impossible it should be otherwise!
It would be an ill thing to dispute with you—neither should I dream of doing so.—
I have devoured your book!
My condition is much like yours in prison! How am I to escape? I want peace, tranquillity to fulfil the task which no other can fulfil for me. But—peace? Then a lad comes down to me from the heavens, a lad destined for me by the stars. He knows me, understands me—by revelation, in a way no other can. He values the destiny which has made him a king so young, simply because he can make me happy, fulfil my ideal—nothing else has meaning or purpose for him! Well, then! Now picture to yourself Bavaria—Munich—and need I say more? All I crave for is rest, because I can bear it no longer, and disgust overmasters everything else in me!
—What am I to do now?—All I want is to get away—to some fair corner of Italy—to live a stranger—as Lazzaroni—and heal my poor nerves. But how can I abandon to his horrible environment this young King, whose heart is so miraculously linked to mine? That is the state of affairs! What am I to do; what can I do?—I ask myself the question and know not the answer—neither can anyone else answer it for me. I am too weary!
But you—for you I have no fears. You have your vocation and you will fulfil it. You have the temper to survive even the Frankfurter Stadtblatt. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 604