Dear Fräulein and Friend,
Lord, how shall we thank you for your love! How shall we express to you the feelings which your dear, dear message awakened in us all. We really felt as if the love which united our fathers holds sway anew over us, animating us. Oh, thanks! Sincere thanks, too, for giving us news of your dear family and, above all, of your dear honoured mother. May her recovery be thorough and lasting indeed! How fine that your dear brother can now tend her. Please convey most warmly our compliments to all of you. And accept the expression of our sincerest sympathy over the severe loss which you have suffered.
Much trouble also has lodged here in Wahnfried in the course of time. Siegfried was very seriously ill this summer, I myself was laid up for four months (rheumatism), and when, finally, the measles set in, it seemed almost as though sickness were never again going to leave us! Now, however, we have all recovered all right, and there has been added to this peacefulness a great joy also. Daniela has become engaged to the art-historian Dr. Thode (son of the banker of the same name in Dresden). Not only is she completely happy, but also she brings to our family the most admirable member; in reality he unites all the gifts of the heart and the mind. Thus with us it isn't at all as though we were losing a sister, but as if we had gained a brother. On the other hand, we really are very anxious about our sister Blandine; the cholera is raging in Palermo, the city is shut off from all communication and it takes 10 days for our letters to arrive! Thus one learns to recognize hope as a virtue.
If we could only prove to you a love which might really show you how happy you have made us! My mother, with benedictions for you all (your dear mother, above all), charges me to say that you surely may consider yourselves always invited by her to the performances at Bayreuth. In this petition I include all our feelings, which I seal up with a hearty embrace.
Eva Wagner
Source: The Letters of Richard Wagner to Anton Pusinelli, trans. and ed. Elbert Lenrow (Alfred A. Knopf, 1932), No. 107