Dear old Friend!
Don't be angry at me for not answering earlier. I was away, then not well, out of sorts, and God knows what! Many thanks for your usual friendly help: the newspaper announcements which you took care of have satisfied me very much; that was very nice and good of you. Otherwise, too, everything is in good order: many thanks! Only—I'm not happy about the whole thing! You will sing your part magnificently and carry everybody away: that is certain. But otherwise, the spirit of the performance, etc., there I can and will not look! All the shallow Kapellmeisters from A to Z cannot conduct my operas because they are at best only routine music makers and know and understand nothing about the theater, nothing at all except, perhaps, the bad habits of opera singing. Yes, someone else would have to do it, but I should hardly know whom to recommend; your Jew Schloss will know devilish little about how to prepare a thing like this. Away with them!!
Altogether, I'm sick of it now in every respect and I've decided not to move a finger for any theater. The way everything is administered is too stupid: people like us can have nothing to do with that! Well, you'll always be in good form as long as you live—and that will probably be another hundred years—and you'll be the only one who is any good. But then you are something special!
My dear fellow! It's not so easy to get an autograph from the King of Bavaria. I don't have any unimportant papers from him, only confidential letters: you understand that under no circumstances can I let any of them out of my hands. But I'll look, and perhaps I'll find something appropriate after all: then you shall surely get it!
Now farewell! Regards to your family and remain faithful to your old
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 298