Most wonderful Fellow!
Alas! How can I ever flatter you enough to make up for my recent boorish and ill natured treatment of you! I did you the shameful injustice of considering you a dawdler, and now I find out that the whole blame should go to bad postal service, that it mistook medical advice for seditious literature—oh, forgive me! And tell me of your forgiveness in a letter, for I have been awaiting one for a long while. Do you hear?
I am so-so. Now I'd be happy to have Lindemann, if he were only here or I there with him! But to go to Paris for a water cure—that is a little too absurd.
And now, won't you listen to my Flying Dutchman? They're giving it here on the 20th of April. My objections were no longer of any avail: all necessary material is being assembled from all sides, and so I have not been able to dissuade my friends any longer.
Well, I'll at least expect a letter from you. My wife sends her best regards: so does Müller. What is Anders doing?
Goodbye!
Your
R. W.
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 116