[...] You really must again advance me 100 frs., my dearest Herr Schlesinger, otherwise I don't know how you will be able to stand before the Judgment Seat in the next world one day when it will be said, "Moritz Schlesinger, the benevolent and prudent Moritz Schlesinger, refused to advance 100 frs. to the subsequently far-famed Richard Wagner, and this, too, at a time when he was on the point of journeying to Russia, there to carry his glorious designs, under the gracious protection of the "Favorite" and the "Guitarero," to the uttermost parts of Asia!" Your imagination will doubtless make you shudder as you picture this scene and the happy result of the shudder will be that you will pay out the desired advance without delay.
I reckon upon it with the most amazing certitude! Just think, by next month, in glorious May, I can deliver the most magnificent goods—the wittiest aphorisms, the pithiest stories, all for the Gazette [Musicale], and these will go no little way towards raising your paper to a pinnacle of fame, so that some day in the distant future—
I can no more—I exhaust myself in poetic flights and all for 100 frs. so as to be able to get away! You will understand my anxiety. [...]
With deepest contrition, your most humble servant [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 58