[...] What do you mean by persisting in calling me "honoured Master"? How often have I thrown myself on your love! Do you mean to say now that the friend sacrificed himself for the "Master"? True, perhaps it is only as the "Master" that I have any claim on the friend's sacrifices. Shall I go on creating, or have I finished with that? That is the decision which looms before me. I, too, have already made great sacrifices, believe me, the highest sacrifice of friendship, in order to continue to create. Now it is preordained irrevocably—that may still be possible, but only by the sacrifice of the friend. Do you believe in friendship?—Love of the "Master"! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 627