[...] I have just read that Herr Leon Pillet is leaving Paris today with the intention of visiting you, dear Sir, in Ems. At the same time, it is generally known what Herr Pillet is hoping to achieve by this visit, although I cannot of course predict whether & in what manner you will fulfil his request. Nor am I in a position to predict whether you might perhaps be inclined to take advantage of this gentleman’s indebtedness towards you to make favourable mention of a poor aspirant such as myself. There is but a single request that I venture to make: - if it were to appear appropriate & acceptable in the light not only of your deeper insight but of the degree of interest which you may yet cherish on my behalf, I would entreat you in all humility to put in a good word for me & my “winged Dutchman” (1 act), of which I have a few numbers ready for audition.
[...]
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 30