See what a good husband I am, dear Minna! I wrote you yesterday, and to-day again I'm answering you directly on receipt of your love-letter, for which I thank you much. I've written at once to Chamaf, Paris, about Rienzi; no one else there answers me. Really the thing had occurred to myself before, only I've nobody reliable in Paris; Olliviers didn't answer me last time. The end of August, however, I'll have a see there myself. By the way, they've given the overture to Rienzi at Florence. — We have no need to trouble over-much about the American manager; he hasn't made another sign. If it comes to nothing, that will quite suit me also; for I only grasp a thing like that when it's absolutely thrust upon me and I should have to reproach myself with the omission. As I wrote you yesterday, we shall be able to keep things going without America; which, for the matter of that, may still come off another year. — From Leipzig I've positively heard nothing from a living soul; merely from the journal Neue Zeitschrift. Nice fellows, those! —
I'm almost sorry you still are thinking of my amnesty; it's surely better one should build no hopes on that. If you had read my letter to the Minister of Justice, you must have shut up shop yourself after the reply received. I had expressly begged the Minister to lay my letter before the King. — What the political situation may end in, God only knows! Thus much is certain: that unmatched L. N. knows what he wants, and prepares his moves with an incredible tenacity, foresight and cunning. None of the others can lift a finger against him; all are checked and hampered, England and Prussia, and I hardly believe Prussia will get very far with her last step. They're all plunged deep in sin, not one of them has clean hands; and L. N. has laid his game of chess accordingly — which I believe he may easily win, at least for a long time ahead. Meanwhile Austria is doing badly, and may soon do much worse; but that sort of thing rather scares off the rest, than emboldens them, and the game is always easy to the victor. I look on the course of events as on the wind and weather: both depend on blind forces one cannot command; wherefore one merely falls into step according as the weather turns out good or bad. Whether it might lead to any result for myself, I must leave a very open question! Otherwise it's quite interesting to me that I ran through Upper Italy such a short time previously: it makes everything very present to me, and in particular I can also picture Zezi with a big tricolour sash. —
I wrote you yesterday about weather and health, and hope the latter pleased you. It's droll that I should have so recommended morning air to you precisely yesterday, and you the same to me at the selfsame time. There really must be something in it! —
As to riding English, it is this way: if a man hasn't a firm seat, that is to say, can't grip the horse tight with his thighs, at the trot he rides balance, i.e. maintains his equilibrium by balancing. To get a proper seat, I should have needed to take a regular course of riding lessons; with good hacks that isn't necessary, however, and I come out of it quite famously, so that my trot mustn't look at all bad. If I had a vicious horse, I grant you, I shouldn't care to wager that he wouldn't throw me; but my landlord's horse is such a steady-goer that I have no fear. Only the silly creature cannot abide my straw hat, which I've been wearing the last few days; as soon as he sees me coming, he lets fly with his hind legs, so that I can't help laughing every time. A lump of sugar, though, is accustoming him to the fatal hat now; and when I'm on top of him, no doubt he imagines my hat is black, for he goes like a lamb then. —
You seem getting on quite tolerably again, dear Minna, don't you? The remission suits my book as well. Only don't go exciting yourself again over the Dresden Lohengrin. I have great trust in your present place of residence and cure; if the baths (the iron ones) agree with you, you'll soon feel as if reborn. Only be thoroughly lazy, let yourself be carried, and drive. How goes the appetite? Unfortunately one's feeding suffers with this heat; I'm also living like a bird just now. —
And now I won't forget what I've constantly been intending to ask you: did you duly receive the opera-glasses from Geneva that time? — Then: have you the full score of Rheingold in safe keeping still? Mind you let none of it be performed at Schandau! —
Your lovely motto only caught my eye the other day, turning over the leaves of your blotting-book. I have been learning it by heart since, and repeat it to myself each day: "Ueb' immer Treu' und Redlichkeit / bis an Dein weiches Grab, / und kühle keinen Tiger breit —" no, it wasn't quite that; but I shall soon pick it up.
Have you quite given up scolding with Nette, then? Has she passed through such a heavenly transformation all at once? That would be splendid! — Greet everybody. So the Auerbachs have their cellar at Schandau now? — My God, I really must write to Pusinelli too! —
Farewell, good Madame. Take care of yourself, get thoroughly well, and, for all I mind, stout. But if you ride, don't put a white straw hat on.
Write again soon, and be good to
Thy Husband.
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 2 (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909), No. 179