[...] In these last hours of New Year's Day I feel a warm impulse to send you a word, a greeting from me!
I am deeply moved when I think of our last meeting in Munich. Rest assured that I understand it well and know how to value it. We are united by our love for one whom we both still find so difficult to understand!—
Since I left you I have had much to vex me, but also much to rejoice in. In Vienna I was really thinking of the interests of my family; from the point of view of art I would much rather have worked in Munich. But, unfortunately, I have been forced to see that our most gracious Sovereign does not set much store by my personal participation in operatic productions.—
Recent calls on the Treasury have made things very difficult for me as regards the Dramatic Festival fixed for this year. Without credit in other quarters we shall be unable to institute final preparation. Trouble after trouble overtakes me and the loyal gentlemen on my committee of management. Yet I am resolved to carry the thing through and hope I have not increased the number of your troubles with these plaints.
My sole purpose was to tell you that I hold you ever in grateful remembrance. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 680