Dear Franz,
I am making a tentative effort to rise from the sick bed on which I have lain again exactly three weeks. Carl Ritter has informed you of my condition. The thorns of my existence have now been supplemented by blooming "roses." I have suffered from continual attacks of erysipelas in the face. In the luckiest case I shall not be able to go out into the air this year, and during the whole winter I shall live in continual fear of relapses. For the slightest excitement, accompanied by the least cold, may throw me back on my sick bed for two or three weeks at any moment. I am now reaping the fruit of my stupid postponement of your visit, for I cannot possibly expect you to visit me in the present uncertain state of my health. Anyhow, I thus relieve you of the burden which a visit in this evil, hard winter would no doubt have been to you. As concerns myself, nothing can make my mood worse than it is. I am getting accustomed to all kinds of trouble, and the disagreeable and the necessary and natural are to me convertible terms. I long for news of you, of which you are too chary. As soon as I get better and am accustomed to sitting up I shall write more.
Richard Wagner
Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #4234, Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt — Volume 2, No. 204