Dearest Anton!
My telegram has said enough about the essential thing. I simply cannot take on the enormous strain of such a concert performance, to which I have an increasing aversion, amounting to bitterness, for any thousand thalers no matter how much it is needed: besides, I would then still have about 200 concerts to give! And it is highly questionable now whether the amount of interest in Dresden itself would yield so much: my past experience with the spirit there speaks against that likelihood.
Accordingly, I thank you sincerely for your idea, which was certainly admirably designed: if, nevertheless, productive support of my undertaking fails to proceed from the right kind of spirit, from a high sense of national honour, then I shall be obliged to know how to make adjustments to the spirit which does prevail. Since the princes are bad, very bad, there is finally not much to be expected also from people who have turned into Jews. I still have ways open for new attempts: I shall set out on these, and make a short visit to Dresden by way of a start. Will you be good enough, when the time draws nearer, to let me know whether I may catch an opera performance on the 13th or 14th of January, after which we could then have a friendly meeting of the members of the society, in order to say something stimulating and beneficial to us mutually?
Forgive me also for this brief communication: you would not believe in what more-than-busy activities I am involved at present.
Let me thank you for all your goodness, remain my friend always, as I remain
Ever yours
Richard Wagner
Source: The Letters of Richard Wagner to Anton Pusinelli, trans. and ed. Elbert Lenrow (Alfred A. Knopf, 1932), No. 65