[...] Your Tristan is and remains a miracle! Those who refuse to believe in it cannot go very far. I have been apprised pretty thoroughly, and never in any but a friendly spirit, of your repeated efforts on behalf of that most eccentric of my works. I could scarcely repress a sympathetic smile at such a determined effort to swim against the stream! Now, however, I laugh aloud at its success—it is against the stars in their courses! But it all sits very well on you! It was bound to be so!
I ought to have made Tristan at least humanly possible for a theatre evening, etc., only I never found time to do it. As it is, far too much is expected and in every respect the impossible is aimed at.
But now to my score [Parsifal]—the last I shall ever handle! The pianoforte arrangement will certainly soon be ready. I will send it to you then. Have a look at the gentleman and tell me what you feel about him!
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 728