O my best of all Lillis! [...]
The next move with Parsifal is still costing me some consideration. The composition is finished, and anyone who comes to Bayreuth can hear it played through from beginning to end by Rubinstein. But—as I say—a little further consideration!
But my Kapellmeisteress Lilli must first see what her task is to be in the matter—devil's tricks which would never have occurred to me if her genius had not been ever present to my mind! Without Lilli, Klingsor's magic can never be accomplished. Oh—there is something to sing! If she would come, she could see it and judge the whole matter. For she must stand to me for all the others!—But I cannot send the thing away out of my house yet. What malign star might not blight such a manuscript!—
Well, then—we shall work together again after all! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 716