Dear Friend,
A line or two before my departure, which takes place to-morrow. The director of the Leipzig theatre has just been to see me. The matter is arranged. Send him at once a score and a book of words (with the remark that the copies for the booking office are to be procured through X. at a discount). Further, beg Hähnel in my name to send back at once the designs of the decorations, which he has now at Wiesbaden, and then to lend them to Wirsing in the same way as to Schindelmeisser. Then beg Heine, who has now returned to Dresden, to lend his costume-sketches likewise to Wirsing. He will arrange everything for his theatre according to these patterns. Thank Heine for his letter; I will try and write to him on my journey (?).
I have written to Basle to decline: I can no longer endure such a fuss. Your letters will be sent on to me, so continue to write without worrying yourself. Still, you might address your next letter to Lugano, Canton Tessin, poste restante.
Farewell.
Your
R. W.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 68