Sunday morning.
I fear my good old faithful friend — my Peps — will pass away from me to-day. It is impossible for me to leave the poor thing's side in its last hours. You won't be cross with us, if we beg you to dine without ourselves to-day? In any case we shall not leave till Wednesday: so that we can still make up for what we miss to-day.
You surely will not laugh if I am weeping?
Your R. W.
Source: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck, trans. William Ashton Ellis (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905), No. 18