My dearest friend,
For God’s sake do not interpret it as an insult if I entreat you to take back the money you have offered me! —
I cannot, in all honesty, accept a loan when I know my own situation and constitution as well as I do, and that neither of them can ever be expected to change.
Even less can I accept a gift, and this, you may rest assured, from no one, not just because it is you, to whom I already owe so many notable sacrifices.
Please accept my warmest thanks for your kind sentiment and my most sincere good wishes.
Yours,
Richard Wagner.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 244