Dearest Old Fellow!
To-day I come to you with a good strong pinch of snuff. I beg you, right quickly — either in person or through Heine, but best of all through a well-disposed and influential intermediate personage — to have the letter to Prince Albert, in which I make a last attempt for my pardon through his intercession, delivered into the hands of the addressee.
Turn and twist it as I may, without a speedy prospect of an amnesty it is all up with me: I must have the refreshment of performing my works, or I must finally throw up the sponge.
I say nothing more to you, and ever count on your kindness and love!
Cordial thanks for everything.
Your
Richard Wagner.
(The address has not turned out very grand: if you think so too, you might have a fresh one written.)
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 149