My dear Friend!
Accept my sincere thanks for your faithfulness in coming and amiability of endurance! It was delightful, and I shall never forget (nor will anyone of the others) how in the depth of winter we sought out the ground for the art work of the “future.” Surely it was well chosen, and we three confederates will not conduct ourselves badly on this new Grütli. . . . Now, my dear sir, I hope you have gotten rid of your Mélancolie and think actively of our work.
Do not hesitate to give any necessary order; send me all of your contracts to be signed, and Feustel will be immediately instructed and empowered to make the corresponding payments.
For the rest, everything remains according to our recent agreement. Everything which time and circumstances will permit will be got in readiness; in May we shall meet again, and I hope by that time to have the co-operation of a few competent painters for the production of the scenic sketches.
Sympathy for my undertaking has made such significant progress that there is no longer any doubt as to the sure and certain accomplishment of the same.
With the most friendly greetings,
Yours faithfully,
Richard Wagner.
Source: The Story of Bayreuth as Told in the Bayreuth Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Caroline V. Kerr (Small, Maynard and Company, 1912), No. 12