Dear Old Fellow!
I can never once manage to write properly to you: I have always so much to answer that it spoils all my inclination for a sensible letter. So to-day I have only to request you to send a Tannhäuser as soon as possible to Mannheim (to the theatrical manager). Lachner, the Capellmeister of that place, has been here to settle with me himself about it. (Now that reserve of scores would come in handy!) My wife, who went to Dresden quite behind my back, was mightily delighted at seeing you. It quite warmed my heart. She sends kind greetings. Give greetings from us to the Heine family also. I will certainly write one day quite intelligently.
You will soon receive my score of the Rheingold from Liszt: I beg you to deliver it at once to Wölfel, so that he may finish the copy already commenced.
I am diligent — but not in good humour! Well, there are reasons for that! Farewell, dear, good Fischer!
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. 128