[...] I began by appealing to Schletter, explained your situation with some warmth & in some detail, & found in him a sympathetic listener. He took your case to heart, & he was certainly not looking for lame excuses when he asked to have time to think the matter over. But Schletter is not the millionaire people say he is, & his inclination to do good is hampered by the fact that he is overwhelmed by requests for money: people expect him to make sacrifices far in excess of his means: this is a fact; every day he receives on average between 2 & 5 letters demanding his help, so that, in order to satisfy as many as possible, he has made it his general rule to agree to only relatively modest loans or donations.
I am explaining all this to you because [...], simply to make me realize that it is purely a question of his comparatively limited means, certainly not any lack of willingness on his part which prompted him to ask for time to think the matter over & to consult his finances to determine whether, & in what way, he might help you. He has promised to send word to me here as soon as he reaches a decision: he will not be able to find out my address until today, when he gets back to Leipzig, so that I cannot expect to have news from him for another day or so. -
It occurs to me that it would really be rather pointless to post this letter to you today: all that I could tell you today would have to be regarded as provisional, whereas I can probably give you more definite news in a few days’ time. It was a mistake to start this letter so prematurely, so I shall set it aside for a few days & return to it when I know what Schletter has decided. - Goodbye for now!
1st July
I have waited so long in such agonized anticipation of a letter from Schletter, only to discover that on this occasion all my efforts have been a complete waste of time! 10 days after starting this letter I had still not received word from Schletter, & since my embarrassment was growing at my continuing inability to write to you, I wrote to him once again in Leipzig in order to remind him of his promise. I have just received a letter from him in which he informs me in detailed & highly deferential terms of his opinion that the sum requested would be excessive even if it were to be regarded merely as a loan, & that he could not deprive others of it who were really in need - etc: I had not expected this for the following reasons: each time I met Schletter at Luise’s house in Leipzig, he repeatedly praised your “talent” & your “genius” in the most extravagant terms & exclaimed that if ever he wanted his own or anybody else’s portrait painted, then you would be the only person he would ask to do it; the result was that it was Schletter himself who gave me the idea of explaining to him that your existence as an artist was in jeopardy, & of turning to him for help. He immediately countered this by saying that he could give only limited aid, & so I made it quite clear to him that he should look on this transaction with totally different eyes, - it was not a question of deducting the sum requested from that part of his income which he had set aside for helping the needy, but, given the fact that every year he spent what was certainly a by no means inconsiderable sum of money on acquiring objets d’art, what he should do was to make you an advance out of the fund which he used for this purpose & help an artist for whom he was full of such unstinting praise & from whom - by his own admission - he would not fail to commission a goodly number of portraits; he could be sure that the initial advance would be promptly repaid - assuming he demanded the same in cash - since he was doubtless fully aware of the ease with which you had already saved quite considerable sums of money in Germany. - This was the argument I had to use both in order to pin him down & to ensure the best deal for you, & I based my hopes on this account of the affair; unfortunately, however, the outcome has taught me that I was dealing with a tradesman who is in the habit of regarding any sum of money spent in this way as a total write-off, & of not counting on its repayment; seen in this light, I can well believe that the sum of money I demanded (1000 fr.) was excessive. I hope he drowns in his own shit! Let’s say no more on the matter! It would be a waste of breath! There is only one consolation I can give you, & that is that nobody in Leipzig knows of the affair; - & Schletter won’t breathe a word about it. - [...]
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 46