Dear Richard,
Since your wife will leave us in the next few days and return to you, I feel it my duty to give her a letter of safe conduct, as it were, to you, which will contain some observations regarding her present condition and a few hints in regard to your relations with her.
You will see your wife again, much better than she was when she left you more than a year ago. Merely looking at her shows that, but the medical examination does so still more. She has found more calm, the feverish agitation in which, formerly, she was almost without interruption, has decreased very much, her sleep has become more tranquil, her digestion better, and the state of her nerves more satisfactory. Nevertheless, one must not fail to recognize that the enemy is only slumbering, is not annihilated, that the fire of sickness still glimmers beneath the ashes and needs only a kindling breath to burst out again into bright flames and then, doubtless, to consume irresistibly the one who carries it. Yes, today I repeat once again what I wrote you the first time about her condition, that heart-disease, when it has already become organic, can never be entirely cured. In spite of which, the life of the sick one may still be prolonged for many years, if, with the most minute conscientiousness, everything is avoided that could have an agitating influence upon the heart, if every aggravation that occurs is immediately combated and crushed. The former naturally is a matter of the hygiene of mind and body, the latter a matter of medicinal art.
In your own hands, above all, you have — I must say it — the weal and woe of your wife. May you never forget this. In the daily intercourse, one forgets a resolution entirely too easily; in the paralysing hand of habit, one swerves gradually from a rule of conduct set as a guide for oneself. For the most part, we successfully resist a great, mighty assault on our strength of will, but continued little squabbles wear us out and in the end break down our resistance. Therefore let your daily prayer be: Lord, give me meekness, steadfastness, benevolence, and indulgence. Train yourself in the difficult virtue of self-control.
Your last letter has afforded me a deep insight into your frame of mind, so that it is with a much more composed feeling that I see your wife leaving; now realize everything which you promise, let the beautiful picture that you display in the mirror become the truth and I shall need to add, to what you have said, only a joyous "Yes" and "Amen."
Still one thing about company. Friendly relations inside and outside of the house, intercourse with friends in a restricted circle, is itself permissible for the sick one and beneficial; your wife also requires it. But, in one respect, she must avoid large, lively, exciting gatherings, where many persons are present in one confined space, where there is much loud talking and playing, lasting deep into the night; in another respect, one must not expect to burden her with the cares, work, and exertion of the housewife, for here physical and spiritual excitements are present in like measure and are doubly pernicious.
I conclude this hasty epistle by asking you to let me still have some news, now and then, regarding your wife's state of health. I also stand ready to serve you gladly with my advice, by letter, as far as this is at all possible. It will not be possible to avoid your calling in a qualified German doctor promptly, so that he will keep a watchful eye on the sick woman.
Of your Lohengrin another time! Your wonderful, mysterious might has entirely overpowered me.
Wife and children greet you cordially.
With old fidelity,
Your
Pusinelli
Source: The Letters of Richard Wagner to Anton Pusinelli, trans. and ed. Elbert Lenrow (Alfred A. Knopf, 1932), No. 86