My dearest friend,
I hope you reached Prague safely. I am very overwrought & distracted at the moment thanks to the constant & intense annoyance I have had to suffer from Rompler & Katz, who have still not received any proper instructions from Minckwitz: even so, I hope I can set your mind at rest by assuring you that, in the light of the precautionary measures I have undertaken on your behalf, there will be no further interruptions to our progress.
My dearest friend, come back as soon as your patient allows! things are very unsettled here, all the unions, & this afternoon the entire Communal Guard & even Prince Albert’s regiment which is stationed here have declared their most energetic support for the German constitution: the town council, too. People are preparing for a decisive conflict, if not with the King at least with the Prussian troops; there is only one thing they are afraid of, namely that the revolution may come too soon. In such circumstances there would be no question of reactionary measures on the part of the government, certainly there has nowhere been any hint of such an attempt so far. - Hungarian Hussars have arrived in Freiberg from Bohemia: everyone has declared his allegiance to them in political addresses. In a word, the air here is filled with the greatest excitement, and I would advise you from the bottom of my heart to return here very soon, since your wife & children are in a state of great unease, given the circumstances in which they find themselves. I should add that your wife is well & in good health, Schubert is certainly not pressing his demands, so that all is in order; only the political unrest makes her anxious, and the protection of a husband is something your wife longs for dearly. - No doubt your patients in Limbach are equally anxious to see you. -
Not until today was your wife able to obtain the things you wanted, they will be sent off this evening. I have not let her include what you particularly asked for, for reasons I believe I can justify.
There is nothing else I can write to you at the moment except to say: come back as soon as possible.
Yours,
R.W.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 85