If you have not the courage to visit me in winter I would beg you not to prevent Liszt from doing so, for, believe me, I am pining for him and have put extreme constraint upon myself not to ask him before Christmas. As I have been prevented from working now for several weeks by illness, I cannot say with certainty whether I shall have quite finished the last act of The Valkyrie by Christmas, yet I would not for the world have Liszt's visit postponed on that account; on the contrary, I am already deeply regretting having delayed his suggested visit by some months for worthless considerations of that kind, for it is more important for me to receive than to give. If you ladies could finally decide to visit me in the spring or summer, it would be a question of whether or not I was still to be found in the land of the living; if Liszt were to visit me before then it would certainly contribute to my being so. Ah, dearest friend, there are far too many words in this world and far too few deeds! I say this not with bitterness but with sorrow. Well, then, I assure you that if I were free I should most certainly spend at least half the year in Weimar, simply to be with Liszt. I am so certain of it that it almost seems a natural corollary to me to expect Liszt, as he is the free one of us two, to come now and live with me. Looking at the matter quite soberly, it does really seem to me a monstrous waste of life to live so wedded to outward routine and not to regulate both one's residence and way of living entirely according to the more important relations of life. How soon the few years of life still appointed us will be at an end, and how much, when that end comes, we may regret having lived so much among asses and dogs instead of with the people whom we could really care for! I, at least, know that almost all my wretchedness would vanish if I could live with Liszt, and perhaps I could be something to Liszt too. Well, I cannot come to him, but he could very well come to me; and you, would you stay behind? Or are you wrapped up in Weimar? I am speaking quite seriously and bewailing loudly that I am not that to Liszt which I would wish to be. I mean to assert by that, that Liszt is more to me than I to him, which, after all, is natural enough perhaps! As you see, I am giving rein to my mood and this is one of sheer despair, for I realise that I am to be left to go to ruin, ruin in the fullest sense of the word. You will all realise it too late. Well, I can have nothing to say if the world lets me perish; but that you don't even feel it, that does make the desolation about me an agony.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 292