[...] I still owe you my very deepest thanks for a Christmas present of incomparable value. It is only during these last few days that I have attained what I considered the right frame of mind in which to read the letters [Geyer's]. You will understand me, knowing as you do how desirous I am of collecting the family records and preventing them from going astray. All our relations are aware of this increasing propensity which was aroused in me some years ago, and have been surprised that these records have been inquired after so zealously. I am, accordingly, very grateful to you for having taken such great personal pains to copy these moving documents, the originals of which, as you suppose, will be of great value to your children, even though they have no personal recollection of the man whose handwriting so touches us, because it calls up for us the very person with whom we were once in such intimate contact.
The contents of these letters have not only touched me; they have really shaken me to the soul. So perfect an example of utter self-sacrifice for a nobly conceived end is seldom set so clearly before our eyes in everyday life. I can tell you that I feel almost inconsolable over this self-immolation of our father Geyer's, and that, in particular, his letters to Albert fill me with real bitterness. I am specially affected, too, by the tender, delicate and refined tone of these letters, particularly those to our mother. I cannot understand how this note of true culture could have deteriorated so greatly in the later social intercourse of our family. At the same time, however, these letters to mother afforded me deep insight into the relationship of the two in difficult times. I believe now that I see it all clearly, although it would be extremely difficult for me to express my views of this relationship. It seems to me as if our father Geyer believed he was making atonement for a sin by his self-immolation for the whole family.—
I received a printed copy of The Massacre of the Innocents at the same time. So, as the written copy, provided no doubt at the cost of much labour, by your sisterly care, though not valuable as an autograph copy, has a certain value due to the unusual circumstances, let me beg you to allow me to send it back to you.—
I really owe Edward an answer to his very kind and circumstantial letter on the subject of the publication of my "Collected Writings," but what I have to tell him is deuced little, namely, that I see that the time to fulfil my wish is not yet. I realised this as the summa summarum of the proposals he made to me. Please be so kind as to give my very kindest greetings to your good husband, and to tell him of this simple realisation on my part. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 641