Best Friend,
One can never be too careful! Again it has happened to me, that — down to the receipt of Brandt's letter — I had forgotten that your nominee was your brother-in-law, and — quite unintentionally — I have had the indelicacy to send you disagreeable news about a near relation!
But indeed, friend — in my present state of turmoil and preoccupation — too many questions, and the like, are put to me; so I get confused and out of sorts, and dash things off just as they come.
For that matter — there's plenty of time for the scenery! I need a few months more for my work; then I shall be looking around in Germania, to right and left, and shall certainly come to you in Mannheim too, when God will fix the rest.
If you preserve me your friendship, that must suffice for the present to
Yours sincerely
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. 28