Dearest Friend!
In addition to the communication made to friend Adolph, I have nothing further to say in regard to the conditions here. If, in spite of my accurate knowledge of these conditions which has always kept me from visiting London, I could have entertained the thought that perhaps, this once, such an effort might be successful (unheard of!), it was, on the whole, not so much this idea and the hope based upon it which induced me to come to London, as the resolve to prove to you and the friends in favour of this plan, that it was neither laziness nor love of ease on my part which led me to hope that the deficit might be met in some other way.
It is now time to take another course, and therefore I beg of you in the most friendly spirit to send out at once an appeal from the Executive Council of the Stage Festival Play enterprise for a subscription to cover the deficit; in this you will kindly recapitulate the state of affairs, and also mention my zeal in endeavouring to spare the patrons this burden by the most importunate efforts. At the same time I shall ask you to open the list with a subscription of three thousand marks from me, to which you may also feel inclined to add a subscription as a generous private citizen.
I should not care to have the circulars put into the hands of the Wagner Societies as such, on account of their great impotence, but recommended to a few private persons. . . . As soon as the lists are full, and strong enough to meet our needs, the complete list had better be sent at once to each subscriber with a request for payment. Should this course also fail, then I have resolved to close with Ullmann for America, to offer my Bayreuth property for sale, and go across the ocean with my entire family, never to return to Germany.
As far as the local business here is concerned, we fear that we shall not even make our expenses. I should be glad if the money I advanced to the singers through you could be returned to me. In any case you would greatly oblige me by placing a sum to my credit here in order that I might be able to move comfortably to Ems the beginning of June.
As to whether or not my health is restored will depend largely upon the character of the news I receive as to the start and progress of the subscription list.
It is to be hoped that something comforting will happen from this side!
Bear with me and forgive the many anxieties I have caused you. Remember us cordially to our friends, your dear family, and especially my good Adolph.
Your ever grateful
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. 102