Most faithful of all Protectresses of the Arts!
My sister is obliged to keep her bed: if you are not a victim to the same necessity, I beg you to dispose of the vacant cover, or else to save it (something of a consideration in these hard times, with the silk-crop failure!). In the former event I would propose (without dictating) Boom. —
Your R. W.
The house is about my ears, through your speaking disrespectfully of Rienzi yesterday! —
Source: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck, trans. William Ashton Ellis (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905), No. 23