Many thanks for your kind letter; I had nothing particular to tell you, or would have replied to you sooner.  In addition to this I was ill during the whole first half of November, which was more than I had bargained for, especially as it interrupted my work in the most unpleasant manner.  Now I am well again and all will be right.  I am looking forward to the Mass and “Dante” which you promise to send to me.  Mind you keep your word.  I have asked the Hartels to send you proof sheets of the first act of “Tristan.”  Perhaps you have received them by this time.  The Hartels treat me with much forbearance.  At first when I thought that the score would be finished this autumn, I prodded them on terribly.  Since then I have left them miserably in the lurch.  Before the end of December I cannot think of sending them the second act.  I cannot help this, because I must wait for the most favourable mood to go on with the work.  The “Nibelungen” question has also been mooted again by us.  I shall have these things engraved now, and shall leave the discussion of the honorarium till after the performance.  In this matter a very droll intermezzo has been played, or rather it has not been played out yet, because its conclusion will probably take place in a few days.  I shall relate this adventure to you when it is finished.

My affairs are in a somewhat miserable condition.  “Rienzi” is not getting on in spite of the continued success of the Dresden revival.  The first disappointment came from Munich where I had expected to get an honorarium of fifty louis d’or.  They wrote to me that the reading committee objected to the subject on religious grounds.  I pity that dear religion!  It is partly your fault that it is put to such uses now; why do you write beautiful Masses for the parsons?  From Hanover also I expected an immediate remittance, and could not understand the delay, when I heard that Niemann, after having heard Tichatschek in “Rienzi”, did not feel competent to sustain the part with equal voice-power.  Therefore it was given up.  Breslau alone is sufficiently bold, and will venture upon it.  I wish I could find some one who would do justice to the real character of the part, in which case he need not be afraid of singing it even before Tichatschek.  I have hinted so much to Niemann.  I am thus, once more, reduced to my old capital, “Tannhauser” and “Lohengrin”, and they are no longer sufficient for my present difficult position.

D. wrote to me five and a half lines, inquiring as to my terms.  You probably know my reply.  I wish the inhuman creature had sent me the money at once.  Good Lord, what Jacks-in-office you all are!  None of you can put himself in the place of a poor devil like me who looks upon every source of income as a lucky draw in a lottery.  Please, tread gently upon his toe.

K. R. left me today, probably for a few weeks, in order to congratulate his mother on her birthday at Dresden.  If he finds it possible he will pay you a visit at Weimar.