I am in too soft a mood now for harsh and bitter reproaches about your last letter, but it is sad that your remembered image of me is such that you can so misunderstand me and my letters. You must have formed a fine opinion of me, that you can subject every word of mine to unjust criticism. I know that I must lower my tone now and walk cautiously, since I have found in you a severe critic who will make not even the slightest allowance for my mood.
Minna set off to Berlin early yesterday, and I cannot tell you how I feel. This is not being in love, it must be love. She has gone there to act at another theatre for a time; perhaps she will stay there, as she has come much into collision with a Mme. Grabowsky here. My heart is broken in regular bourgeois fashion. I wish I had a friend with me now, and I have absolutely no one but you. Theodore, I am getting sentimental and can get no farther to-day.
You have not sent the money either. Why do you force me to the humiliation of dunning you for what you do not owe me? You promised me something for the first of November and I calculated accordingly. It is really too naive that at one and the same time I weep for a mistress and dun a friend upon whom I have no claim. More soon from your dead friend, Richard Wagner.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 27