Dear Sir,
Here you find me carrying out the trick which you were kind enough to describe in advance as a clever one: I would ask you to accept as a present the enclosed symphony, which I wrote when I was 18; I can think of no finer destination for it. I ask for nothing in return except that you might look through it in some idle moment, it may perhaps serve to furnish you with proof of my honest efforts and industry, for I require you to be favourably predisposed towards me, since you might otherwise condemn me if you were to judge my more recent compositions without first knowing the basis on which my studies were built. But what I desire most of all is that the knowledge of me which you might gain through this symphony might lead to a rapprochement between us.
In admiration,
I am, Sir, your
most devoted servant,
Richard Wagner,
Musical Director.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 18