Dearest Friend!
I am again sending you something of mine from Berlin for your newspaper. It is not very finished work and has no proper beginning or end, but we can write nothing but aphorisms nowadays. This sketch will just suit Banck. Rellstab is dealt with a little in it—one must give him a home-thrust on occasion. You don't know what mischief the man is up to here in Berlin. My name must be concealed at all events. I will continue to write something from time to time as Wilhelm Drach. It really is a pity that a composer should feel constrained to be a writer too, but so it is with us Germans. One and all we stray into speculative regions—but it certainly is not to our advantage.
Only just a few words more.—I am staying here a few months, and as soon as Glaser begins his leave shall enter into an agreement with Cerf to take over his post in the Königstadt opera for a short time. During my term of office I shall produce my opera [Das Liebesverbot] there myself, and if you think it worth an announcement, I ask you to give it a little opportune notice in your paper. If you like I will send you something more soon. I am almost without employment in the immediate future. If you could let me know of any which would at the same time bring in a little money, I and my purse would be greatly beholden to you. Please do not be offended that I left Leipzig without making you my adieux. I was in a petty situation and wanted to spare you a petty leave-taking. Give my kindest regards to Banck. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 36