What can I do to cheer you up, you poor invalid? Otto ought at once to get Indian Sagas, compiled by Adolf Holtzmann, Stuttgart, for you. I have brought them with me to London and the reading of them has been my sole delight here. They are all beautiful, but Savitri is divine and if you want to know what my religion is, read Usinar. How these pure revelations of noblest humanity in the ancient East put our whole culture to shame! Every morning now, before I begin work, I read a canto from Dante. I am still deep in the Inferno; its horrors accompany me as I work upon Act II of The Valkyrie. Fricka has just departed and Wotan is to pour forth his terrible woe. I shall certainly get no farther than this second act here; I can only work very slowly and every day I have to struggle against some fresh evil destructive of my creative mood.
My London experiences have decided me to withdraw altogether for the next few years from performing music in public; there must be no more of this concert conducting.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 278