[...] Minna wanted to write to you this time, but I see she will not get it done to-day, so I will once again be her proxy. The business she makes of it every time she has a couple of lines to write is simply incredible, and yet you must have a speedy answer to your dear letter of the day before yesterday. Forgive her then and don't do her the injustice of attributing to lack of feeling what is simply dread of letter-writing. She is unchangeably your truest and warmest friend! Now, then, to the point!
[...] With all my heart come with both children, and bring the bonne too, in Heaven's name—if you think it necessary, though I may tell you that Natalie is here visiting us for the first time and she could quite well take the place of a nurse to your two little ones. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 111