Oh! old Friend!
Must you also make my life a burden by taking offence because I allowed an inquiry from you to be answered by my wife, as it had to be gotten off and I was hard at work on my score?
There seem to be idlers who can always write letters! Possibly I shall come to that also!
Dearest friend, the enclosed I return to you with a thousand thanks (that is understood)! But I cannot possibly bother my patrons with such jests! Many thanks for all your kindness.
Ever your same
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. 117