For God's sake, best of friends, don't take offence if I beg you urgently to take back herewith the money offered me.
I cannot in honour accept any loan, for I know my situation and my mind—which probably will not alter.
But still less may I accept a gift, and this, be assured, from no one—not simply not from you, whom I already have to thank for such considerable sacrifices. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 422