It is a particular misfortune for me that I have scarcely any but Philistines for friends, and since their love for me is of a kind which really has nothing to do with my true personality I can only return it with a certain dishonesty. On the whole, most men are repellent to me and women oftener impress me happily. It is a monstrous piece of folly that men are always associating with men and women with women; the whole race of mankind is bound to be ruined in the end by this perversity. If only the majority of women were not so spoiled already! The men nowadays are born Philistines and the women become so through them. Well, so it is! I live a regular dog's life here. Illusions about friends, to which I intentionally give myself up with a will, do not, after all, last long; in the end the effort to preserve the illusion hurts me and I am forced at last to let these relationships appear in naked verity as they really are. So I go on living in the old loneliness, but in the end I shall succumb to this heart starvation. I am very neurotic, and after many attempts at a radical cure have no further hopes of recovery. All I can do is to get as much rest and ease as possible so as to continue to hold out. It is my work alone which keeps me going, but my brain is already in such a bad way that I can never work more than two hours a day and I can only manage this if I lie down another two hours after work and perhaps get off to sleep a little. If I cannot sleep my whole day is done for. Well, I have finished my great Nibelung drama now; and if I can get some outside stimulus I shall begin on the music for it in the spring.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 234