[...] I have been unable to write to you till to-day. I was compelled to postpone this sorrowful duty, as my state of health is such that my dear wife hesitated at the time to tell me anything of the terribly sudden death of your dear father. Chance informed me of the fatal event!
You will no doubt understand me and forgive me if I cannot put my feelings about it into words. I am myself in the third period of man's life and have already seen the passing of two generations. In your father I have lost the last representative of that second generation which still linked me with the past. In you I hail the third generation whom I trust to carry on the work of my maturity. Welcome to you! I take it that you are willing to continue your father's last work in collaboration with me.
In any event all the means to do so are at your disposal, and you know exactly what the staging of Parsifal involves.
Allow me therefore to appoint you to your deceased father's post in my Bayreuth production. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 730