Steel of my sire my hand may tame, myself will weld the Sword! I had got so far and was just meditating the motif that is to express the sudden turn of events and the beginning of Siegfried's wondrous smithy work when your letter broke in on me with its confidential news, and you may judge how it stands with my work for the day! But I can well sacrifice today, now that I see before me such long beautiful propitious workdays to-morrow, for which I have to thank the rarest friendship and the truest sympathy! Dearest fellow, I have never known anything like it; such a thorough-going helpful power of friendship has never yet entered my life. And what I have just been feeling was not actually joy in the acquirement of property, but rather the glorious glow the sense of your friendship gave, the consciousness of being cared for, that suddenly lifted every weight and burden from me. Oh you good dear people! What am I to say to you? Everything about me is suddenly transformed as if by a word of magic! You shall not be disappointed in me for this.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 328