My dear Friend!
Are you at home? How are you? In good spirits?—or otherwise? I have now swallowed four theatres and have unfortunately been obliged to participate in many gala dinners and friendly meals. Up to the present I have only one singer as definite booty, and this one, in fact, here in Darmstadt; she is of great (if as yet unknown) excellence. This evening a festival banquet by the Wagner Society!—Heckel will report to you in a few days from Mannheim his financial condition and announce himself ready to make payments at any time. Notifications of Patrons' Certificates I shall announce to you next time. I shall labour zealously—in fact, probably conduct a concert in Hamburg. To-morrow I shall be in Stuttgart. From Basel we then go—through Mayence (Wiesbaden), first to Cologne, with Aix-la-Chapelle, Düsseldorf, etc. At all events, we shall return from our first excursion before Christmas for a short time to our dear Bayreuth. (I would gladly give, as a Christmas present to anyone who could have relieved me from this trip, all the honours and festivities which have fallen to me.)
How is everything going on at home? Are all well and healthy in the Feustelei? Is Muncker merry? And our dears? Do you three dear friends, who constitute our new home, think kindly of us? I hope so, and in this hope remain—to you and yours—
Your faithful grateful friend,
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. 37