A hurried word, my dearest Child!
Your last lines made me profoundly and heartily glad, — as one always feels after alarm.
The letter must have got here on a most unlucky day, just as I was packing off my servant, whom I had previously had the greatest difficulty in tolerating. He had frequently committed the offence of forgetting my letters and carrying them about with him for days, if they had been handed to him by the postman; for which I had often blown him up severely. Now — it was precisely in that week that I sent him about his business; he had to quit my house in half an hour (for good reasons). Another letter, also, has never reached me: now everything is clear, — whether from knavery or fright, he didn't give the letters up, on leaving. — I shall try to hunt him up; if that doesn't succeed — ah! you must write me all over again. I give everyone exactly as much trouble as I give myself: we must bear it between us.
I am very fatigued: people here are too unremittingly industrious for me. Not the least irritation — but very great strain!
A thousand fine greetings!
I must be off again!
Just one more greeting, tho'!
R. W.
Source: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck, trans. William Ashton Ellis (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905), No. 113