[...] Karl is leaving to-morrow to go to you to celebrate your birthday. It makes me very happy to think of his return; I feel as if he would be bringing me you yourself—my high estimate of the power of personal contact! [...]
Your dear letter troubled me very much because it made me see how painful it was to you to have to tell me things, the telling of which I probably ought to have spared you. I had not the slightest idea that you had suffered losses, but all the same I had been hoping from half-year to half-year to be in a position to give you reassuring news of my circumstances and ask you to bring to an end the sacrifices which your dear family have been making for me. When last Easter you renewed your remittance I took it as a sign of your unchanging sympathy, and it had the further great value that I had to meet the expenses of occupying the little estate I had so longed for and which took all my resources. [...] Your dear offer to reserve the allowance to me for one year more has—through Karl's mediation—relieved me of all anxiety. For one more year, then, I shall tax your kindness and I believe that I have good grounds to assure you that by next year you will see me in a position to be able with all gratitude to decline your kind offices for the future.
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 377