My Dear Anton!
After calm reflection, I am returning to the great request which I made of you yesterday.
Imagine yourself in my place face to face with that publishing business and the unheard-of difficulties, worries, reproaches, and necessities which I have been caused by this effort to secure the utmost profit from my works. Bear in mind that not only must I relinquish all compensation and profit coming from this, but on the other hand I should be obliged, in addition, even to pay out money, which is something that isn't at all at my disposal. Finally, take into consideration how impossible it is, and will be, for me to supervise this business in the way that can be done only right there on the spot; and that therefore I am at all events the most incapable person for managing and taking care of it. On the other hand, consider now that you have been entrusted by fate with the mission of undertaking a settlement — so necessary among good men! — of the burdens which in this case are divided so unequally.
Think in large terms and with a liberal mind; consider yourself called on to help, this time in a decisive way, a man who is not unimportant in his own troubled career. Look, I was really less worthy of your sacrifice at that time when you loaned me those large amounts: now that I am more experienced, I almost feel that it would have been better for me, then, if my wishes had not been so easily gratified. Now I am only concerned about preserving that peace of mind which was won with such difficulty — and which is valuable to me solely as leisure for art — against the hardest and certainly most undeserved attacks. Believe in my assurances concerning the nature of my circumstances and don't be deceived by silly reports which may picture me as having arrived in the lap of fortune; I fear that the foolish zeal of one of my wife's friends, who recently visited us here, and who may have been pleased to vex many a Dresden person by describing my supposed life of ease, has ended in bewildering good Kriete also. I repeat that I am obliged to turn over all my income from operas (which is also decreasing more and more) to a friend in this city, the merchant Otto Wesendonck, partly in return for earlier advances, partly as approximate compensation for a small allowance which he pays me quarterly and which — together with the small pension from the Ritters — represents my only means of keeping up my home and providing myself with a living. And this is often so difficult in this expensive locality that I have frequently required additional amounts — which were asked for only very reluctantly.
Therefore, make your decision with a great and liberal mind! Relieve me of this unfortunate business, which I will transfer to you once for all, and arrange everything necessary to this according to your own wishes. In order to satisfy Kriete, you would have nothing further to do than to assure him of an annual payment on his debt; since you would be the only one to have the net profits from the business, it would surely bring in so much that you would be able to pay these instalments out of the income derived from it. It would be extremely difficult and entirely impracticable to expect the guarantee for this from me alone.
Now establish yourself in this way as sole owner of the opera-publishing business, and entrust the management — as you had intended doing in common — to an agent who may seem qualified and within reach at any time. Then I promise not only to give a helping hand with advice, in general, but also to increase the assets of the business by giving you a new opera. By this I cannot mean my latest work, which is too extreme and too huge, and in its bulk and the comparative difficulty of circulating it in the future it could only prove embarrassing to you. However, as soon as I complete the Nibelungs — and this will occur by the beginning of 1858, at the latest — I have in mind to work out a new subject which I have conceived with great love: Tristan and Isolde; this will be as large as Tannhäuser, but it will be much lighter and ought in any case to make the rounds of the German theatres quickly. This work, dear Anton, I offer you in advance in case you shall have found little hope of realizing, from the three older operas, some measure of compensation for the sacrifices you made for me. It shall be given over to you then, without any charge, as a means of increasing the business capital.
Now — come to a decision! Be persuaded in my favour, and make your decision such that henceforth I may be left in peace as regards this unfortunate matter!
Trusting to receive a kind and reassuring answer, I greet you with all my heart.
Your
Richard Wagner
Source: The Letters of Richard Wagner to Anton Pusinelli, trans. and ed. Elbert Lenrow (Alfred A. Knopf, 1932), No. 13