My dear Hans,
I am most sincerely grateful to you for your loyalty and love. I received your gifts while I was still in Zurich: your red Calderon has remained with me. Many thanks, too, for looking after my affairs for me.
I suppose you must have had a lot of work with your concert, otherwise I should have received the letter you promised me recently? I cannot at present recall the various points which you raised and which I had intended to reply to today, so I shall tell you only the most important things that have happened to me. First, however, I must say that Cosima’s reserve towards me saddened me very much, now that I am certain that her excuse about the language is simply a pretext, and that she really feels rather embarrassed in my presence. If my manner appeared strange to her, and if the occasional blunt remark or my tendency to ridicule others (such as the Herweghs etc.) hurt her in any way, I should very much regret having been over-familiar: this is a failing that I am always ready to admit and regret whenever I find that I have alienated some person whom I sincerely respect. But I am certain that on this occasion it amounts to no more than a misunderstanding. My entirely unthinking familiarity towards people whom I find sympathetic has already lost me many friends: I hope that your dear young wife will not be estranged from me for any length of time.
[...]
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 204