Dear Friend!
I thank you very much for the recent favourable news. The circular, of which (also with thanks) I am sending you at once a revised copy, I beg of you in any case to have sent out as quickly as possible to my patrons. I must have this as a basis for further proceedings. I intend to stop in Munich for further conference, and declare to you further that I have left nothing undone to make possible the barely imaginable case of a repetition of the performances next summer.
Only here in Florence have I been able to arrange for the end of my visit in Italy, as I could not refuse the worthy Bolognese to be present at the last performance of Rienzi. Everything pleased me very much, even though it was a very great strain. . . .
In any case we expect to celebrate the Christmas Festival at home.
I beg of you to convey my most cordial greetings to your valued family and our friends.
Ever gratefully mindful of your friendship,
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. 98