Herr Kapellmeister Wüllner.
Hands off my score! Take my advice, Sir, or may the devil take you! - Beat time for music clubs and choral societies, or if you must have opera scores, get hold of ones by your friend Perfall! And tell that fine gentleman that if he doesn’t openly admit to the King his personal incompetence to give my work, I shall light such a fire under him that not even all the gutter journalists whom he pays for out of the leavings from the Rhinegold expenses will be able to blow it out. I am going to have to teach the pair of you a lot of lessons before you learn how ignorant you are.
R.W.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 385