My very best Wife,
I have just received the accompanying letters to yourself as enclosure to a couple of lines from Troger; they must have been posted before Troger received your last letter, which I despatched at once, however. They still speak of nothing but silver, and I do not even yet know if the watch is also there; but that, no doubt, will soon transpire. — This moment it occurs to me that you won't get this letter till Monday, and as you'll be here yourself by Tuesday evening, you would receive the enclosures time enough if I kept them to give to you here. But why so stingy, when I can take this opportunity of breathing a few hearty words to assure you how fond I am of you, and how much I'm looking forward to your speedy advent? —
I haven't arrived yet at writing to Cecilie, so I shall postpone it altogether now until after the Choral festival. Before then I should like to have ended another job, which I didn't want to put off any longer, namely the reduction of Rienzi to one evening; I have made a beginning already, and expect to finish it in a few days. It will be well, you see — in case I do obtain my leave, as I hope — to have everything behind me, so as to be able to devote all my attention to my new opera Tannhäuser.
Now I shall soon be able to convince myself whether you're really so well and jolly as I am assured! So you will get here on Tuesday the 4th? That's fine! — Everything is prepared, and most longingly awaits you.
Thy Richard.
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 1 (H. Grevel & Co., 1909), No. 11