Dear Friend,
You cause me great anxiety! First of all you send me an immense letter to open, which must have cost you at least the half of your month's salary; and then you give me such unheard-of things to read about as the story of the piano score of Lohengrin! Seriously — at least in what concerns this last miracle — I beg of you for no one's sake, not even mine, to expose yourself to such enormous fatigues; for such forced undertakings are of this kind, and health has to pay a heavy penalty. At the present moment I can confirm this in a striking manner. For the last fortnight, i.e., since I have settled down quietly in my home, I have been seized with a furious desire to produce a new literary composition, The Art-work of the Future; and to so great an extent, that even to-day I grudge the time to write in an orderly way to you or to my other Dresden friends, although I have much to say.
Already, on receipt of your last letter, I did not care to write again until I had quite finished with my new work, which I should then have sent with my answer: a notice which I give you, but not as a letter which I still owe you — but only as a notice.
Through you I learn that Wigand has written to me. I point out to you thereupon that I have not caught sight of a line from him, not even a copy of my pamphlet, which I had begged of him. As, therefore, I do not know how it will fare with my letter to Wigand — which I send direct to Leipzig, as I did a fortnight ago — I prefer to entreat you to tell Wigand that I have received no letter from him; and therefore I would request him, if he desires to send me news with safety, to do it through you or Heine; as, up to now, I have always received my letters from Dresden. You yourself please address letters to me for the future in the following way:
an Fräulein Natalie Planer, am Zeltwege, in den hinteren Escherhäusern, No. 182 parterre, Hottingen, bei Zürich.
The person addressed is, in fact, my sister-in-law, who, with my wife, lives here. I hope this name will appear innocent to the police, although, through violation of letter secrecy, we have only to fear delay and uncertainty; but in no way the discovery of God knows what conspiracy!
In my new work I have had to express my thoughts in an exhaustive manner, but the subject having once been broached in my pamphlet, this could not well be helped. Nevertheless it leaves, for example to you, still an enormous lot to do; as I, in grasping the theme which I placed before myself, could only draw in very broad strokes. Wigand must really publish this little work for me. I hoped to be able to send it off by the end of November. Anyhow, it is getting almost three times as thick as the first pamphlet, but I confidently hope that the interest which it will create will not be that of a passing day, but a lasting interest, substantial and suggestive. How shall I set to work to get him to pay me properly for it?
My head is all a-fire from dealing with so many principles of art — it is impossible to write any more to-day! So please don't be angry with me. As soon as I have quite finished, I will write proper letters again — even such as Fürstenau wishes, whom I beg you to greet heartily and to thank.
Kindly see to the enclosed, about which I am also anxious.
In short, accept my best thanks for your last excellent letter, and for the fresh proof of friendship towards me contained in it! I shall shortly have much to write in reply.
Salute also young R. from me, if he happen to be in Dresden!
But come, farewell! I am done up, and must get into the open air: Peps won't leave me any more in peace! Farewell, dear Uhlig.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 3