So that one may not fall into the plight again, of having to tell good stories badly, I deposit in the Wesendonck house the accompanying exemplar; for black on white is a glorious thing.
You see, you won't be rid of me in a hurry! I'm burrowing so into your house, that, even if you burned it down, a very well-known voice would cry to you from out the salvage: "'Twas time that we got out!"
Source: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck, trans. William Ashton Ellis (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905), No. 43