[...] I have just written to the King to tell him I remain here. [...] My income—more especially since the death of my wife—is sufficient to support a larger household with ease and with all necessary comforts, and so I invite you very urgently and cordially to come with your wife, children and servants, share my house in the country with me, and be so kind as to make the best of my simple entertainment. If you grant my request, you will be contributing the greatest thing, nay the one thing necessary, to my welfare, to the welfare of my work—and of my future capacity to work.
Hans, you will do as I wish, will you not? Yes, surely, for you know I love you and that—my bewildering, marvellous relationship to this young King apart—nothing, nothing binds me to life as do you and yours. You—know it! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 615