My Dear, Beloved Friend!
Thus a great heart has ceased beating! — Here, we are desolated.
Cosima took care not to let this last news alarm me. An accident last evening first betrayed the sad occurrence to me. Since then I have been struck silent, and only now, through these lines to you, do I first speak again. And it is only of myself that I can speak, not of him whom we have all lost. There are many who have already vanished out of my life: less and less often am I disturbed now by the death of many a close acquaintance; for everything has become so grave that only the most serious things lead to thinking and feeling. Only I never believed that my dear Anton would fail, and I never wished to think that this occurrence were possible. Truly, he was the last one in the ranks of those who supplied me with life, to whom I clung with that unconditional friendship and love which recognizes no demands or laws except the irresistible force with which it takes possession of us. With his going, the world, especially the world of memories, has well-nigh died out for me.
Oh! what a great heart he had — and with this he loved me! My dear friend, who shared so much of everything with him, his pleasures, his conceptions, his kindness and love! What ought I to tell you, but that I myself must consider you fortunate today in having been closely united with such a man? You are still living — and so, for me, is he too! — Be blessed and consecrated in your grief! So do I bless your whole house!
Your
Richard Wagner
Source: The Letters of Richard Wagner to Anton Pusinelli, trans. and ed. Elbert Lenrow (Alfred A. Knopf, 1932), No. 83