Best Friend,
It is a real sorrow to me, that you cannot execute your trip to the Lake of Geneva until I have left it; for I thus am deprived of every chance of seeing you this summer. — Monday the 18th, I take the Lausanne post to Berne. — Liszt has definitely promised his arrival at Zurich for the 20th September. For the moment I am expecting an elder sister, also a Weimar friend who is making the journey expressly to visit me. It pleases me much, to hear that you will be in such good company on your approaching mountain-tour, as that of Herr Zeugherr. He is a well-intentioned, most deeply refined and cultured man, whom I could wish as companion to many on the paths of life — if not precisely to yourself — as well as of the Oberland.
With regard to my house-redemption-project I can tell you nothing, as Härtels have still left me without a definite answer; which makes me fear that my ultimate demand may have been too high for them. In that case I should have alarmed you for nothing. Valeat mundus! — But don't relax your care about me, for I still have a terrible deal to do on this earth before I can go to my rest: Tristan has now been joined by a second subject, which so engrosses me that I should like to swallow down all work between, just to get to the execution of this newest plan. It will be called Die Sieger. Adieu! A thousand greetings from
Your
R. W.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to Wesendonck et al., trans. and indexed by William Ashton Ellis (Grant Richards, 1899), No. 9