[...] My own life during the past year seems to me to have been shrouded in darkness. The almost unbroken grey skies which have loured above my country have left a deep impression both on my health and on my mind. Had I not possessed a priceless consolation in my dear family and in the society of few but rare friends, I cannot conceive any reason why I should have gone on keeping myself alive.
I am utterly hopeless about Germany and its condition, and this will tell you much, for at the time when I entered open-eyed upon the course I had decided on, I wrote on my banner, "Stand or fall with Germany!"
It is only for the climate's sake, then, that I make this luxurious stay in Italy. Even this incredible Naples, with all that lives and moves in it, is for me only a play to distract me and bring forgetfulness. And it cannot really even assist me in that, for the whole wretchedness of our civilisation is constantly obtruding itself upon me afresh in a thousand sights of misery, brutality and vice.
Moreover, day by day my anxiety grows, and I begin to despair of being able to meet the expenses necessary for my well-being out of the money coming in to me. While I must already lay claim to your help in this matter, I [...] have constantly to consider how else I [...] am to subsist under the heavy demands made by my needs. I have, accordingly, recently been considering afresh, and very seriously, the idea of a journey to America, and have been estimating my powers of endurance. Truth to tell, what has always frightened me away from this idea hitherto is the thought of letting myself be dragged round in America by some speculator merely in search of money, and—in the best event—finally returning with a small competence and beginning the old struggle afresh—yes, perhaps again sacrificing my money for an idea to which I believe I have sacrificed enough already, to learn at last how ill that idea accords with the conditions of life in Germany.
On the other hand, I must tell you in confidence that a notion of settling permanently in America with my family, my ideas and my works, is taking deep root in me. I can only regret that I did not long ago choose a fresh and vital soil for the future of my works and of my family, and my deep conviction of the decay of European culture makes me all the more determined now to take this way out. I am almost inclined to let the whole thing depend on the attitude of the Americans towards my offer.
For the present I must consider how to prolong my stay here, for my excellent physician here recommends very strongly the use of sea-bathing to restore my health completely, and I cannot begin this till June. This circumstance, though it presents many difficulties, pleases me well enough in one respect, in that it makes it possible for you and our dear friend Adolf [Gross] to visit us here presently. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 718