Dear Sir!
Although it gives me some trouble to look through analytical treatises on my own works like the kind presented to me, I could not help recognizing at first glance that you have accomplished something highly commendable and useful. But I must at once confirm your doubts, whether you would succeed in a correct identification of the themes without consulting the score. So I want to help you do this, since your work really interests me and it is so promising. As I am out of touch with the board of management of the Hoftheater, I can't refer you to it directly and ask you therefore to apply, on the strength and by the use of this letter, to the Court Secretary Hofrath L. Düfflipp, the only one of my sincere and not uninfluential friends left in Munich. In this way you may get the recommendation to the board of management needed for access to the score of Das Rheingold for the time required.
With the best wishes for a good success, I remain
Faithfully yours,
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection, ed. John N. Burk (Macmillan, 1950), No. 307