Good Nante!
The story of the portrait is becoming quite tedious. If only you had not been so conscientious, and had sent the portrait at once to Härtels, in the devil's name! If they wish to have it lithographed in Berlin, it's all the same to me in the end; only I request that a proof-print be sent to you, so that you may keep a control over the likeness, which no one, I should say, can do as well as you. But if, in accordance with my last letter, you have given over the matter to Hanfstängl, then he may keep it, and we will stick to what I settled in that letter: I pay Hanfstängl, and X. receives the commission. Why do Härtels drag on so long? So you are now provided with instructions for every event! Do as you like, only take care that the phiz soon comes out. You have not yet sent us the lithograph of yourself! Do't! I have terrible work with my music sheets! Excuse haste! Good-bye!
Your
R. W.
I can write no more to Härtels about the portrait affair.
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 173