My dearest friend,
Today only a few lines of thanks for your last letter, which has rejoiced me unspeakably. I showed it to everyone who is in the least near to me, and told them, "Behold, I have such a friend!" The full and unconditional approbation with which you receive my new plan is the best proof to my mind that I have hit upon the right thing. To be understood by you, and in the peculiar circumstances, in an undertaking which, besides thwarting your personal wish, can, on account of its unmeasured boldness, be understood by almost no one but him who is impelled to it by inward necessity, this, my dearest Liszt, makes me as happy as if my plan had been successfully accomplished. To Herr von Zigesar also I ask you to express my most cordial thanks for the very kind manner in which he has received and replied to my last communication. He has by that means laid me under a new obligation, and I can only wish that I may be able to show my gratitude. As far as I am concerned, I am still occupied in resting from the finally somewhat powerful effect of my cure. I shall not undertake much this winter, but shall get everything out of the way, so that the whole poem may be ready by the beginning of summer. How could you think that I had sent you Young Siegfried only to look at? The copy which you have has been made specially by me for you, and I ask you to accept it, although it is not written as beautifully as might be.
One thing I must ask you to do for me: send me your medallion, so that I may give it to myself as a Christmas present. I had wanted a long time to ask you for this; and now that, after a prolonged fugitive state, I begin to be a little settled in my small but cheerful dwelling, I want you amongst my Penates in one form or another. If you have a really good portrait, I should like to have that too. You need not be ashamed of hanging on my wall; at present I have there only Beethoven, besides the Nibelung design by Cornelius.
Oper und Drama has long been published, as you probably know. The three operatic poems, with a communication to my friends, will appear at the end of this month, together with the pianoforte score of Lohengrin. Please order a copy at once; you are nearer to it than I. I bet that the preface will interest you very much. The conclusion I have recently altered a little, but in such a manner that everything referring to Weimar remains unchanged.
Richard Wagner
Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #3835, Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt — Volume 1, No. 69