Man and Benefactor,
Two lines!
To-day I receive a letter from lawyer Steche in Leipzig, who tells me that W. has also replied to him that the score has already been sent back; Steche still has doubts about it, as W. is known to be a liar. You, too, do not write to me? If you have received the score, well and good: if not, let Steche (or Brendel) know at once, so that it may be got in. Sulzer thought W. imagined that I should write to him again, and come down a peg or two: it would be funny if he really expected that! Cologne announces the ten louis d'or for me between the 20th and 24th of October, and requests at the same time to have the score got ready. Good — but not without a postal receipt!
I am pleased with Schindelmeisser: now he has read my Guide he will begin the study of Tannhäuser afresh, and in the right way. That sounds quite different from the Leipzig folk!
I am most eager for the continuation of your last "choice reading": to-day's opening against Hagen has my full sympathy. I have been amused to find that — in spite of all the blowing-up I gave the departed Müller about careless correction — a fault has so ensconced itself in the Programme to the 9th Symphony that even the Zeitschrift für Musik reprints it. The quotation from Tieck should be:
"Bald siegend aus den Wogen ruft,"
instead of which the printers jog along with their: "Bald siegend den Wogen ruft" (without "aus").
You unprincipled brood!
Johanna lately sent me her portrait, which is really excellent! I am delighted with it!
I hear Schnorr is now painting you for a Nibelungen sheet; is that true? Have you become a giant?
I will write nothing to you about my work! It goes slowly, but well!
Farewell, and keep healthier than I: I shall soon go mad. Greetings to August Burck!
Always your celebrated
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. 84