Well, my good Heine! how are you then? I have received some news of you; Müller, who has been visiting me, had heard a great deal of good about your performance, and I have also read your lines to my sister-in-law. You are going to recoup yourself — that is capital — and I have no doubt you mean it. I shall now stay in the country until the end of July, and am therefore counting much on the fulfilment of your promise to spend a week with me. Believe me, I heartily rejoice at the thought of being together with you so long as that under God's free sky; and that I now write to you is only with the view to impress upon you your promise, and strengthen you in your purpose.
Well, I have actually managed for the last few weeks to abide undisturbed in the country — not counting the interruption which my visit to Spohr in Leipzig necessarily caused: I was delighted with the honourable, genuine old man; and he was evidently pleased that I had accepted his invitation. More by word of mouth!
The aim of these lines is fully attained if I soon see you with me! And Heaven grant that they find you in good health!
Best greetings to your folk from myself and Minna! Fare you well, and come soon!
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. 160