I enclose you a beautiful autograph.
I cannot tell you how comic it appears to me that I have to transact Weimar business with F. D. I have a good mind to tell him that he had better leave my opera alone. Weimar has lost all its charm for me since I have to meet so formal a person before I can get at you and the Grand Duke. You are a very tedious set of people.
You told me two years ago that you were in possession of a score of Rienzi which I had left there on my flight. If that is so, I should be glad if you would not attach much importance to its possession. My original score is always at your disposal in case, as I scarcely believe, you should care much about this opus. I have only a very few copies left. At the time I had no more than twenty-five copies made, more than half of which I have squandered away. If it must be, get a copy from Fischer in Dresden, and submit it reverentially in my name to the great Dingelstedt. Have you had your score altered by Fischer? In the third act there is a long cut and a change necessitated by it which I made for Hamburg.
Good Lord! it is miserable that one has to take all this trouble for a little money. I am once more confined to my room, and cannot even get up from my chair; a neglected abscess in my leg causes me terrible pain; sometimes in the middle of my music I call out loudly, which has a very fine effect.
Have the Härtels sent you the first act of Tristan? You will have copies of the poem before long.
Farewell for today. I have to indulge in a few shrieks, which in a letter would not sound well.
A thousand greetings—oh!
From your R. W. (oh!!)
Have I really to wait for the wretched twenty-five louis d'or—oh!!—till after the performance? Lord only knows when that will take place—oh!!
Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #4234, Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt — Volume 2, No. 276