Things old and new for my dear Saint Mathilde! —
No letter can I manage — to-day. But by and by. —
The piano has come; it crossed the Gotthard safely, and without getting in the least out of tune.
The weather is heavenly! This solitude is very beneficial to me. I have rediscovered some favourite walks. The finches are warbling more blithely than I have heard them for long; they touch me much, these ever-hopeful voices of Nature. —
Adieu! More news soon. I hope to be at the Tristan to-morrow!
R. W.
Source: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck, trans. William Ashton Ellis (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905), No. 68