Dear Friend:
If you are still alive, I will not delay in acquainting you with my immediate travelling plans. . . .
I have announced myself for the third week of the month in Munich (His Majesty has already written me very graciously). Will you accordingly be kind enough to arrange for our meeting there!
Should any change of plans occur, you will be informed in good time. I hope that all is well with you and your family. Every move or retreat on the chessboard of life brings anger with it, which undoubtedly arises from the fact that most persons are very sordid.
Under the circumstances of the “present,” it must be regarded as a “matter of course” that we were obliged to spend our last spare penny to pay the claims of the Bayreuth hotel-keepers last year.
Heckel was here; he will get as far as theatre-director in Mannheim—so now at least he has something from it! I now hope—and really hope—to be able to shift my heavy burden upon the Munich Royal Theatre.
This is the last hope of my strange life!
Therefore we shall see each other soon. Think kindly of me in the meantime.
I am going to learn to play Tarock soon! Cordial greetings to the entire Feustelei!
Ever your 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. 108