Your letter of to-day, dear good Mienel, has conferred a great boon on me; the very first glance dispelled my serious fears about your health; for I saw that you had been able to write so much, though it is only 3 days since you were hardly able to write at all. Indeed I had been very anxious, and as I know how long the weakness after high fever continues, I was almost afraid I should get no letter from you to-day whatever: the greater, naturally, was my delight. But I am sure it was a transgression of R.'s orders, and all I now fervently wish, is that you haven't harmed yourself thereby and brought on a fresh attack of fever. Still, you appear to be getting over it better this time than last autumn, on the whole, and I congratulate you with all my heart. Your being able to make such beautiful verses straight off, however, surely is also a result of the fever; I should think you must have been quite exhausted after this poetic effusion. If that sort of thing goes on, you'll be writing me opera-texts in the long run; Lord, had I known it before, what a deal of pains you might have saved me! Who knows how it may turn out yet? If my head remains as dull and heavy as it is at present, I'm unlikely to write poetry again in all my life. The trouble any working gives me is boundless, and my condition wellnigh insupportable; I feel each day as if I had been up all night, heavy, limp, a wreck. Of the Walküre I shall bring back nothing finished beyond the first half of the second act, and just this act is such a great exertion because it contains none but situations of atrocious suffering; the Young Siegfried will naturally go much easier and faster, so much depends upon a cheerful subject. I no longer believe I shall begin it this year, though; my mind is very weary! — You surely do not doubt my holding out here to the end; after my supporting the last 3 months, it would be very stupid if I finally lost patience with the remnant. So we won't speak of that again. Tomorrow I have the rehearsal for the 6th concert: a symphony by an Englishman — Potter, a queer old fish who thoroughly amuses me, and has turned my initial anger at his fabrication into laughter; a symphony by Mendelssohn (which I once gave at Dresden and at any rate is better than the earlier); an overture by Spohr (awful!), singings of sorts, and as recompense for it all, at last the Beethovenian overture to Leonora! Moreover, Sainton will play a violin concerto of Beethoven's, which he already has rendered to me at his rooms, and which I am glad to conduct this time. — Whether the Queen will yet come to a concert, is still undecided; neither does it concern me any more. — Herr Benecke, who may have been offended by my rather cold conducting of a Mendelssohnian symphony (in glacé gloves), has become reconciled to me again through the last concert, and in particular through the Tannhäuser overture; so I have at last had to accept for next Sunday, when — as I hear — he also has invited all the music-Jews of London in my honour. God, how absurd I appear to myself here!
I feel as grateful to you for your present as if I had already received it; but I think it very luxurious of you to want to spread such a beautiful cover on the piano-stool at once; surely you will put the new embroidery away to save for me. You had a happy thought with the camp-stool, for which I thank you much; but before you get the carpenter to make it, remark my ensuing description of such a chair, taken from a pattern one meets in almost every house in England — in mine as well. It consists of two portions, which are joined in the middle of the seat in the following fashion, and can be shut up flat:
1. The chair when it is set open. E is the axis with the screw; from A to C forms the seat (C the knee, E the most honourable, A the head) at a most agreeable, nearly recumbent angle, in which one gets excellent rest. D and B are the legs. From A to E, and from E to C, the space between the two supports is filled with rushes — or even with plaited straw; if you liked, you could also fill it up with your embroidery. A band can also stretch from side to side, to rest the arms on.
2. The chair when it is shut. As the part from A to B is rather longer than the other, one could shorten it above by means of a hinge, where it would likewise shut to.
God the Omniscient may know if I have expressed myself plainly; but you are so immensely clever that I believe you will at least have understood me. —
On my birthday I spread out on my bed all the things I've procured here, and couldn't resist the temptation to put them all on and display myself to an astonished world; you'll be delighted with the suit. I and Klindworth spent the evening at Praeger's, who devoted half a bottle of champagne to your health. Otherwise the day passed pretty drearily. But there, such birthdays shan't occur again; one learns wisdom in the end, does one not? I have had many another look at your photograph, and at last made out from it the portrait, so that to my delight I saw you quite lifelike before me; the notion was therefore quite capital, and I thank you for it much. Peps looks hugely like a sausage; everyone has had to laugh to whom I've shewn him. Now Heaven grant I may soon receive news of your total recovery; even your letter of to-day has quite picked me up, as you doubtless will see from these lines. Continue that way, and it will end in a reunion of the first water, will it not? Fare quite enormously well, so well that you won't be able to contain yourself; greet R., and thank him on my behalf as well for his care of you. Adieu, many, many hearty kisses from
Thy Husband.
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 1 (H. Grevel & Co., 1909), No. 93