The time has come when I must once more speak with calmness and in a decisive manner of the subject which has been so rich a source of my life’s troubles, and which last New Year’s Eve caused the storm I let loose upon you, no doubt to your sorrow.  Such storms must not occur again, that I feel deeply.  Even this last attack was caused only by a moment of the most violent excitement.  I must, in fact, undergo an absolute change in order to gain a position more worthy of myself.  It is for this reason that I apply to you, for the last time, and perhaps it would be better if I did not trouble you in the matter, even for this last time.  But if I omitted to do so at the moment when I am about to take a decisive step, I might perhaps have to reproach myself with having neglected my nearest, most helpful, and most influential friend in an unaccountable manner.

Let me come to the point.

After living in exile for ten years, my amnesty has become of less importance to me than the guarantee of an existence free from care and secure from discomfort for the rest of my life.  Do not be surprised.  The return to Germany is of relative value to me.  The only positive gain would be my seeing you often and living together with you.  The possible performances of my operas under my direction, would certainly bring me less enjoyment than exertion, care, trouble, and annoyance.  I never had much pleasure in the performance of one of my operas, and shall have much less in future.  My ideal demands have increased, compared with former times, and my sensitiveness has become much more acute during the last ten years while I lived in absolute separation from artistic public life.  I fear that even you do not quite understand me in this respect, and you should believe my word all the more implicitly.  Your nature and position in life and in the world are so entirely different from mine that you can scarcely realise my sensitiveness in this respect from your own consciousness.

Believe me implicitly when I tell you that the only reason for my continuing to live is the irresistible impulse of creating a number of works of art which have their vital force in me.  I recognise beyond all doubt that this act of creating and completing alone satisfies me and fills me with a desire of life, which otherwise I should not understand.  I can, on the other hand, do quite well without any chance of a performance.  I see clearly that before the completion of “Tristan” my amnesty would absolutely place me in an awkward position; no expectation, not even that of producing “Lohengrin”, could induce me to leave my present place of abode before I had finished my work.  From this you may guess at other things.  Any offer of a secured and comfortable existence would be of no value to me if it were coupled with the condition of my accepting the amnesty, and of doing certain services made possible thereby.  I cannot and shall not accept an appointment or anything resembling it.  What I demand, on the other hand, is the settlement upon me of an honourable and large pension, solely for the purpose of creating my works of art undisturbed and without regard for external success.