First and above all, most honoured Sir, let me warmly thank you once more for the true friend's sympathy — which holds good in such a loyal way in regard to my brother!! On all sides you were and still are always prepared to lend sacrifice to this sympathetic interest — and often how fruitlessly!!! So too, we are speaking again in a surely comfortless epoch — so it seems to me — of this so richly talented man!! In this labyrinth of circumstances, I feel that it is endlessly difficult to be able to set about producing anything of profit — neither with deed — nor with counsel! These are so entangled — confused — mistaken — indeed, bungled, that I sit before them truly bowed down and still more afflicted, thereby, that I, neither, see a way out before me, and, still much less, that I could be of help in any way!!
Yet I do not wish to claim your time with my everyday chatter, but please grant me a brief interview and appoint only the most suitable day and hour when I can speak to you. I shall then come very gladly to you!
In just these days it was wonderful to receive the things you sent — which are herewith returned; in regard to the latter, I had applied to you in egotistic fashion because for a long time already I have cherished the wish to ask for your medical assistance when circumstances presented themselves, so now — after we had been away this winter and have established ourselves here again — this wish arose in me anew — yet only timidly — because of the great distance! However, I heard that sometimes you come to Herr von Carlowitz, quite in our neighbourhood, and so I found the courage again to ask you: would you indeed have the kindness now and then — entirely as it suits you — to make us happy with a professional visit from you, or at least, if I then dare to let you know it, whenever medical advice should be desirable or necessary for my husband — my unmarried daughter Ottilie — or myself?
Looking forward to your kind answer to both questions, I am respectfully and
Most devotedly,
Luise Brockhaus
Kindly excuse the very much delayed thanks for sending the papers that are enclosed, but I suffer so much now from headaches that it was impossible for me to return them any earlier.
Source: The Letters of Richard Wagner to Anton Pusinelli, trans. and ed. Elbert Lenrow (Alfred A. Knopf, 1932), No. 98