Most honored Friend:
I find it difficult to ask you for an extreme proof of your friendliness toward me since I know that it is not through lack of consideration but through the pressure of your work that you have been unable to grant my request. Nevertheless, I must ask you urgently not to oppose the request which I addressed to the general manager and in which I asked for an extension of my leave of absence. The granting of this request is a matter of life and death for me; I cannot now return to my duties, it is quite impossible for me to do so. Should I have to take the consequences—well and good; I am willing to take them whatever they may be, dismissal or anything else; I am prepared for everything except a return to my duties. Let me not go into the reasons for my determined frame of mind, which is perhaps partly attributable to the state of my health. I must take a trip now in the hope that the change of atmosphere and surroundings will restore my peace of mind and make possible my continued duties in Dresden. In view of these urgent reasons our general manager will surely refrain from disciplining me as soon as he realizes that the work itself won't suffer; only you can help me by reassuring him in this matter. I fully realize the great sacrifice I am asking of you; if you could determine by some suitable agreement with Röckel how the work can be carried on without me for a while, and if you would give our general manager a reassuring explanation of the matter, I would be indebted to you for an extraordinary service. When I return to my duties in good health, I shall be at your disposal as you see fit, and I shall also be prepared to discuss with you a new distribution of all duties in order to give you less exhausting ones. But all I ask of you now is: consider me incurably ill and unavailable!
His Excellency has asked me to come to his office tomorrow morning at ten o'clock to discuss the leave of absence with him. I wish I could speak to our kind director after I have become calmer about many things: no one but you would be better qualified to explain my absence since you alone can make a definite and unselfish decision in the matter at hand. May you find it possible to do this great service for me!
Let me hear a kind word from you.
Always your
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 63