Poor dear lady! How can I possibly give you any kind of comfort in the terrible loss you have suffered, seeing that it has hit me too so hard that even now I can scarcely realise its magnitude? The loss of this friend of all my friends will be irreparable all my life. I see myself robbed indeed of half my own soul. What he was to me you no doubt know, and I have not to tell you what I must feel at his death. I am, too, quite incapable at present of pouring myself out about it. But I contemplate your loss and at once my strongest feeling is the longing for a hint from you as to how I can testify my sympathy. If you have any wish in the fulfilment of which I might be of assistance to you, I beseech you to tell it me. What will become of the little ones, of my little godson Siegfried? Oh, if I could see the children, if I could take a father's place, at least to one of them! When you come to make any decision about your and their future, I conjure you to take me into account too. If you do so you may always rest assured that you are acting according to the wishes of my departed friend.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 236