Your visit to your supposed mortal enemy in Waldheim does not in the least surprise me, coming from you. For I know you, you see! Your heart is wider and more comprehensive than your insight into the essence of certain types of character, which naturally enough seem strange and antipathetic to you, for women are not to be expected to take the wide view of the facts of the world, reconciling what seems strange, as does the man, the poet. I have often found that your noble heart, which you think fit to call foolish and weak, raises you above the ordinary run of women, so I am not to be surprised in this instance. Yet frequently I have to deplore from my heart that you do not add to this nobility of heart a wider insight, so that you might pass a calmer judgment upon much of my past, for example, and I regret this for your own sake, for conflict does not make for your peace of mind.
Well, it was fine and gallant of you to visit Rockel. I am not surprised at what you tell me of him. He has a nature as firm as iron.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 268