Dear Beloved Friend!
Heartiest thanks for your goodness! You have made my heart easy with all your arrangements: I approve of everything and ask you to employ the enclosed sum in such a way that even should the monument come to a little more, I am at any time ready to pay the difference. — Only that all affects me so very much!
In a short time I am going to visit my young noble friend at Starnberg, for about two months. In October we shall produce The Mastersingers at the celebration of his wedding. I have still much of the scoring to do. Listen, friend, come for the 12th of October and see it: it is my highest achievement and will surely become my most popular work. You will be pleased with it!
I rejoice with all my heart at the happiness of your dear family. Often, during the winter evenings, I was dictating more of my biography: what a warm feeling I always have, at representing you so clearly in my life. Believe this — I have found but few like you, almost none! — Good-bye! I am solitary and secluded, and with this for a life's maxim, I intend to remain so. Presumably I shall stay on here for many more years!
Most faithful greetings from
Your
Richard Wagner
Source: The Letters of Richard Wagner to Anton Pusinelli, trans. and ed. Elbert Lenrow (Alfred A. Knopf, 1932), No. 49