My Dear Old Friend!
You cause me terrible anxiety, and especially as I so seldom receive news from you. Frau R. — whom I thank most heartily — wrote to me about a fortnight ago in somewhat comforting terms: what would I not have given, not to have been again compelled to wait so long! Above all, I do not know whether, and what, I ought to write to you. That you are now fearfully weak is too evident: does this weakness only interfere with your writing, or does it fatigue you also if your mind is in any way unsettled by news received from any quarter? It is just this which makes me so uncertain, and makes every encroachment upon you, in your present state, appear almost a crime; so that I always hesitate when I would fain begin a letter, and prefer to wait until I have received news from you. Now, especially on this point (namely, whether excitement by communication with the outer world, and particularly letters, are hurtful to you?) — if you yourself are still too weak — let me have definite information through some person or other of your surroundings, perhaps your good wife or Dr. Schulze. With the above-mentioned fear, I feel almost disposed to write you nothing further beyond this request.
So you do not appear as yet to have given up business matters! So then I must, in obedience to your wishes, address myself to you with the news that I have written to Weimar, and much wish that, besides the arranged copy of the Flying Dutchman to be sent as soon as possible to Breslau, a second ditto be forwarded to Schwerin. But I beseech you, if looking after these matters is in the least harmful to you, to give up everything at once to old Fischer.
Try, you good, dear friend, to recover your strength right soon. When you are once more fresh and joyful, you shall rejoice also over my Siegfried, for it is now ready.
I am after all fairly well. But you —
Let me quickly have an answer to my question above: otherwise I know not whether with every line I compel you to read I am doing you harm!
I hope you are able to sleep now. This is above all the most heartfelt wish of your
Richard Wagner.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 91