Tschekel!
You are a crazy, good, dear fellow! Don't let any envious asses talk you into anything. It is true that they would only be too glad to sow dissension between us. I readily confess that I hadn't thought out what kind of misconception might arise from those printed remarks, if they unexpectedly got around to persons for whom they were not intended: but only malicious busybodies without the intelligence to understand what I really wanted to say could conceive that I had meant to criticize you. What I urgently wanted to make known at the time when Tannhäuser was about to be rehearsed at theaters entirely unfamiliar to me was the experience I had had with it in Dresden. I am of the opinion that at that time I yielded too fearfully and too quickly to individual demands of singers who likewise had become fearful, and that in this way certain tasks remained unfulfilled which—so I believe—can be fulfilled nevertheless, and by nobody better than you, if we can find the courage which we lacked at that time.
However, let us drop that subject! Above all, no arguing! I shall be only too glad to be in the wrong with a good friend!
Thus, many thanks for your unfaltering love for me and particularly for giving me the opportunity of finally saying this to you again!
Kindest regards to you and your family from me and my wife, who charges me to give you a marital kiss!
Farewell and always think well of your devoted (though sometimes peculiar)
Richard W.
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 134