[...] The thing [...] upon which I base my most confident hope is that I have won you, my friend! Had I not encountered you with all your special qualities of mind and heart as I pressed towards my goal, I might perhaps have fallen back at the last and given up the attempt to solve the difficulties presented by the task. But there is just one thing which dominates all else, and that is the gravity of my artistic conviction, revealed to me in the consciousness of my mission. Now that, on the rough road my mission compels me to follow, I have met you, my friend, just as you are and where you are, I recognise the sign as confirmation of the deep designs of Destiny—and you will have to submit to being regarded by me as "endaemonic"! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 652