Dear Minna,
Cecilie has written me also, telling me that you have declined staying with them.
You will have your own reasons for it, — but so far as I'm concerned now, this circumstance turns the scale with me not to go to Berlin for the present. It would be a distasteful thought to me, you see, not to be under the same roof as yourself on this occasion. It spoils me the cordiality of the proposed few days, and as I've nothing to seek at Berlin in and for itself, whilst all I seek in general is peace and harmony, I have made up my mind to keep clear of every single thing that bears in it the smallest seed of discord.
Without naming the true reason, I'm informing Cecilie forthwith of my highly presumable not-coming. I shall shortly be able to write you more at length; to-day I'm in the act of packing for departure. Therefore merely these few words.
Kind love from
Thy Richard.
Source: Richard to Minna Wagner: Letters to His First Wife, trans. William Ashton Ellis, Vol. 2 (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909), No. 232