The Berliners have been beating about the bush all this long time and now their Opera House has been burned down - I saw it coming! I won't have my operas given there till the new Opera House is built, although they want to produce the Flying Dutchman at the playhouse, which is very small. To finish speaking of myself I will tell you that I haven't been able to work on anything since my sacred composition for the Festival of Men's Choirs at Dresden. It is partly the fault of my bad health, partly of my cramped lodgings which consisted of two rooms only. My health is still not of the best. I suffer very badly from haemorrhoids, my bowels are in a disastrous state, and the result is a constant feeling of indisposition with pressure of blood in the head. I think of going in for a thorough cure in the spring and hope to get rid of these wearisome bodily afflictions.
As to my lodgings, that difficulty is now overcome. We have taken a remarkably pretty and roomy place in the Ostra Allee, and are now completely and beautifully settled in. I have in a sense pledged the takings of my operas (which are naturally steadily increasing) for some years to come for this arrangement, but in the meantime we can live comfortably on my salary and everything I have bought is to last for our lifetimes. Oh, what a pleasant thought that is! You can imagine what my poor hardly-tried wife feels about it! And you can easily imagine, too, how happy I am to be able to offer Minna this lasting guerdon!
My God! When I think, my kind Cecilie, of the times when your greatest joy was to give me help and support! How perfectly, how purely, the truth and goodness of your soul shone out! Only believe that we have never forgotten it, and remembering, earnestly pray Heaven to grant all your wishes, to your true well-being and happiness. I am very glad that your good angel has sent you so kind a nurse for your approaching ordeal! Minna is very grieved that she cannot do you this service at that time. Now you must quietly and happily await the hour which will bring you new joy, and may this letter do a little to cheer you and to give you strength and courage! Keep before your eyes the beauty of the blessing which Heaven has once more bestowed on you and leave what is painful to the tender Providence which overrules all! Do not fear for your health. You are young and will get stronger still as time goes on. Poor Rosalie suffered for you all. It will go well with you because the joys of motherhood were withheld from her.
You would greatly oblige me if you would answer briefly, but at your earliest convenience, my letter, sent fully a week ago, in which I inquired whether you would consider publishing the score of my Love-Feast of the Apostles, and asked you to let me know when it was time for me to decide about the title. In case, as I hope, you decide to publish in full, I have a slight alteration to make in the part for the harp, and you will, therefore, forgive my repeated request that you will give me the opportunity of making this alteration betimes.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 100