Best thanks to all the Just Men and their Wives!
My good wife delighted me with a splendid garden fête on my birthday!
But:—Business!—Unger still hasn't put in his appearance, although I have twice telegraphed him that I had something important in view for him. I fear I shall be obliged to give him up at the very start. . . .
Pardon me! But your little questions about this or that, as to whether or not anyone can be admitted to the rehearsals? . . . etc. often demand answers which are not so easy to give,—for I am much more worried than you seem to think.
This year's Preparatory Studies, not rehearsals, are to be devoted entirely to the matter in hand and not to an audience; from the 1st to the 15th of August, however, there will be orchestra rehearsals for placing, seating, sound, and first reading of the score.
Whoever happens to be there and conducts himself modestly will eventually have an opportunity of hearing something, but no special permissions for this will be given out.
What difficulties there still are ahead of me!
May all the just men realise this and not be continually congratulating me beforehand on my “successes.”
Many cordial greetings.
Yours,
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. 76