[...] Dear Fischer's death has grieved me deeply; I will not tell you how shaken I am by this sequence of sad and doleful tidings. Nothing cheering ever seems to happen now. All the more we trust that in mutual confidence in each other we may both find strength honestly to bear together life's burdens and trials. For the rest, I implore you from my heart to avoid all exciting ideas, even those of joy, at our approaching reunion; let us try to preserve calm and composure; let us gladly accept the good that is about to emerge for us from the tangle of our lives, and rejoice in this meeting simply as if it happened after one of us had been on a long journey. [...]
I shall see to a memorial for our Fischer, and hope I shall be able to set to work upon it to-morrow. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 444