Dear Friend,
Brief and to the point!
Six of your musicians will be too few for me: I would gladly have four more, among them a good viola-player.
How are your horns?
Best thanks for the intervention of Scipio Africanus!
The Carlsruher are still behindhand. The promptest have been Berlin and Vienna; they are sending me their élite!
To cheer your heart: Herr W. H. Riehl will soon get a placard from me, to wear for his Mannheim lectures. You'll be glad.
Greet the Righteous from the bottom of my heart. Long live Zeroni, were it only for sake of his beautiful name! Ah, if we were only called so: what do you say? But — "Wagner," "Heckel" — insupportable! God will bless us all, however, you'll see!
Your
Richard Wagner.
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner to Emil Heckel, with a Brief History of the Bayreuth Festivals, trans. William Ashton Ellis (Grant Richards, 1899), No. 25