Dear Kapellmeister! I have kept on working on The Valkyrie a little, it is true, but it is going much more slowly than I thought it would at first. What I finally put down is always the best I can do; only the right moods for the work come more and more rarely in this dreary life of mine. As long as I wrote books and made verse, it did well enough, but for music I need another kind of life; I need Music herself; but I am like one who wants to kindle a fire and has the flame but not the necessary wood. Added to this, the subject of The Valkyrie affects me far too painfully; really there is not a sorrow in the world that does not find its most agonising expression herein. But I have to pay for the artistic handling of these sorrows. I became quite ill again over it several times and had to give up altogether.
I am now in Act II, at the scene where Brynhilde goes to Siegmund to tell him he must die - one can scarcely call this kind of thing composition! If only I can get on to Young Siegfried; that will be a quicker matter, no doubt.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 270