Dearest Friend!
It seems now as if I am destined to hear of calamity on top of calamity. I read in your—otherwise so highly welcome—communication to Dannreuther that the amount of the deficit is estimated at one hundred and sixty thousand marks; in our conversation concerning the possible London receipts, you specified the sum necessary for covering the deficit at five thousand pounds; I have never known of anything more than “something” over one hundred thousand marks.
If the deficit in the meantime is really swollen by fifty or sixty thousand marks, then I must confess that with this continued obscurity as to my obligations my last particle of courage forsakes me, and I prefer to give myself up to desperation.
I deduce some little hope for the success of the last projected subscription from the fact that I see more and more clearly that my deep discouragement as to the complete failure of my appeal to the patrons of last year was without cause.
I showed Dannreuther a copy of that appeal which you sent me lately as an intimation of the failure of the more recent effort, and learned to my astonishment that he knew nothing whatever of that appeal; as we have heard the same from various sources, we can only attribute this enigmatic circumstance to some singular mishap in sending it out.
If a similar ill fate does not control this renewed effort, may it bring us better and more encouraging information as to the true attitude of our friends!
Forgive the cursoriness of these lines! Heartily thanking you for all the care and solicitude which your active friendship impels you to assume for me, I greet you most cordially as
Your ever devoted
Richard Wagner.
To-morrow and the day following, concerts!
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. 103