[...] Oh, yes! The King of Bavaria!! As if I needed prompting to be more diligent in that quarter!—Do you not believe that, if anyone could do anything there, I am the person, and do you suppose that I have not done my very best! Please let us say no more about this!—
Surely you must have seen, best of friends, that all my present activities have been designed simply to protect the honour of my enterprise and of my standing? You cannot believe that I really hope to accomplish anything? Learn to know Germany and the German public! There all, all is lost!—Believe me!
Our achievement last year was a miracle and will remain one as long as anyone remembers it. But we cannot go beyond it—we are forced to see that.
It is clear already that performances will be impossible this year, both on spiritual and on material grounds; not even unlimited funds would suffice, for the non-material difficulties are particularly great. [...]
In the meantime I have to consider how to make good the deficit. I am thinking of giving concerts in England for a few months, simply for this purpose. If I come back whole and sound, no one, I hope, will ask me to think of anything but of—recovering—and forgetting! This is what we have come to! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 697