Dear Friend and Comrade,
I am taking a moment's rest, to see whether I owe anybody a letter, and so I find it well to remind you most urgently to place yourself in as agreeable communication as possible with Feustel of Bayreuth. We discussed that before. Tell him exactly what you hold at his disposal now, and how much more will be available for him at Easter. If payments are made to yourself, as recently through Fräulein Nietzsche, please send them on at once to Feustel. I know from his latest report that he regards the progress of our undertaking with anxiety if he doesn't get reassuring news and, above all, advances.
To-night I am to meet the Mayence W.-V. At Cologne a similar meeting is under way. (At Mainz this evening: Zauberflöte.) In all probability I shall not go to Cologne before Saturday. There (Lesimple) I should be glad of any news. Hearty greetings to yourself, the wife, the friends of my wife and her husband.
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. 35