Dear poet, dear friend,
Our hearts are with you, and suffer with you; that you know, and cannot be ignorant of. Let us hear from you soon, and forgive me if, in the midst of the preoccupations of your heart and of your grief, I ask you for a trifle; but it will cost you so little to grant it me, and you will give such great, such very great, pleasure by it. It is the fate of poets and women sometimes to give what they have not themselves—I mean happiness. Take a piece of paper and write on it the following verses, which, as you know, appear to me written with the purest blood of my veins:-
Nicht Gut, nicht Gold, noch gottliche Pracht; nicht Haus, nicht Hof, nicht herrischer Prunk, nicht truber Vertrage trugender Bund, noch heuchelnder Sitte hartes Gesetz: selig in Lust und Leid lasst—die Liebe nur sein!—
Sign this with your name, your great name, enclose it in an envelope, address it to me, and put it in the post. Forgive me for asking you this small thing—small in its material aspect, but great as the world in its significance. I press your two hands with mine, dear, dear, great man.
Franz Liszt
Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #4234, Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt — Volume 2, No. 186