[...] My malady really has advanced terribly. Last winter it sometimes vanished altogether and I was free of it for weeks at a time, but now I am in dread of a fresh outbreak every hour and feel the wretchedest of men. This must be altogether changed somehow, and I am doing everything that gives me any promise of it. Dr. Coindet assures me that the strictest dieting and rest are the principal aids. [...]
To sing Fips' praises I should need another whole sheet of notepaper—the little beast is so touchingly well-behaved, friendly, obedient and reliable! As the train left Zurich he (sitting on the little table) suddenly began to howl and kept looking in the direction in which you had vanished; he took no notice of me, whatever I chose to say to him. He settled down when I got into the diligence and behaved so sensibly and obediently and made himself so unnoticeable throughout the journey that I cannot possibly praise him enough. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 301