Good Minna,
I have had a lovely night, peaceful, refreshing sleep; what a blessing! How I wish it were bestowed on you again in ample measure! — So I feel tranquil again, clear and strengthened. The sight of our beautiful garden, of this agreeable Asyl, affects me; your having suddenly lost all taste for it yourself, after that grievous night, has pained me. Reflect what sufferings I had undergone before; I who, to spare you for the present, during your cure, had had the garden tended! Yet — I am calm and collected. We will consider nothing altogether settled yet; God will help to make our hearts clear and composed; and out of the heart come all things, good and evil. Take courage; and whatever may some day prove inevitable, forget in no ordeal still haply in store for you that for you there beats a good, a grateful, and a loving heart in mine. Be just, and acknowledge that in this truly awful time — for me as well — my every action has been finally dictated by that heart. What I have suffered, moreover, you simply may measure by this: not only have I felt my own, but fellow-felt the sufferings of others also. Consequently I may regard myself as greatly chastened, and now, after being unable as yet to spare you many a hard word the last time, my calm is returning to me fairer than before, and I can be nothing but kind. A great seriousness has come over me, however, and will abide with me for good. Win you this noble seriousness, which constitutes true human dignity, and we shall easily agree at all points. In that case, if I may argue from my inner feelings, I hope for a benignant issue to whatever trials may be still appointed us. To begin with, though, it remains unalterably fixed between us that I give up all personal intercourse with our neighbours; only thus has it become possible for me to retain the Asyl for us till the fitting time. In the long run that will and must seem best to all concerned.
Now, best greetings! May these few lines of mine have helped to calm you!
Farewell, behave well! I shall visit you very soon.
Thy R.
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 1 (H. Grevel & Co., 1909), No. 130