My dear, dear lady! I have but just come to know Karl and now I have had to leave him for a little. I must summon up the failing powers of my sick body to go with all speed to Bordeaux, not to see Jessie but Eugene Laussot. Think of me as a dying man, for either a speedy death awaits me or a new life. My strength is spent. Only the miracle of love can give me back to life. I turn to you with all the fervour of my soul in my extreme need! If it is impossible for you, dear lady, to make the journey to Switzerland forthwith and await my return from Bordeaux with your son at Villeneuve on Lake Geneva, then I beg you to send our dear Emilie there! She will do me this great office of love, bring a last greeting to a dying man or share in the holy joy of one new born. Whether it be the one or the other I feel an irrepressible longing for some woman creature who is dear to me.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 176