My dear Fräulein Uhlig,
I was most touched and gratified by your response to my wife’s attempts to collect various stray manuscripts of mine by returning with such friendly resignation the manuscript of my essay on “Opera and Drama” which I once dedicated to your father, my faithfully devoted friend who was taken from us at so early an age. You also enclosed the originals of a number of extremely intimate letters to my late friend. In exchange you would like a memento of me. For this purpose I have chosen a silver laurel wreath presented to me some time ago by my friends in Munich, and I would ask you to accept it as a fitting tribute to the memory of a friend who died so young.
I should have preferred it if - at my own expense of course - you could have provided me with copies, duly certified by yourself, of the numerous letters to your late father which you wish to keep for yourself in order to honour his memory. These letters are no doubt of great value to you in determining the importance which your father had for me, and yet their contents are no less valuable to my own descendants who may one day need to know about this relationship of mine. In this context I should also have valued the return of my transcription of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. If I gave away these relics to friends, it was out of a kind of passionate concern for them at a time when I stood completely alone in the world, without any children. Fate has now granted me a family and, among my progeny, I also have a son who fills me with hope for the future. When I depart this life, I shall leave no one behind who has so keen an interest in every aspect of my life and work as this son. Only on the basis of what he knows of the rest of my life will he understand the exact circumstances which led me to make a copy of Beethoven’s work, and in his hands it will acquire a living significance, whereas for you and your descendants it can never be anything more than a curio of perhaps historical value. I beg you to return this copy for my son.
Although life’s hardships have made things exceedingly difficult for me until now, not least because of the attendant inability to be of service to my friends, my situation is now somewhat easier in many respects, inasmuch as I am now able to surrender my works for financial gain. But only now, indeed, am I in a position to be of some service to you in the face of life’s hardships. Will you please tell me how I can help you?
With sincere good wishes, I am
Your obedient servant
Richard Wagner
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 468