IN the summer of 1856 I spent two months under Wagner’s roof at Zurich. As it was holiday time for me, and Wagner had no engagements of any importance, we passed the whole period in each other’s society debating, in a most earnest, philosophical, logical manner, art matters, most of our discussions taking place during our rambles upon the mountains.

One figure I found in that quiet, tastily arranged chalet, who filled a large portion of Wagner’s life; to whom, first, Wagner owed an unpayable debt, and then that wide world of countless ones which has been enriched by the artist’s creations. But that solitary, heroic Minna is, it seems—judging from the many writings which have appeared of the master—likely to be forgotten. Her glory is obscured by the more brilliant luminary that succeeded her. Still a domestic picture of the creator of the “Walkyrie,” whilst that work was actually in hand, is of interest, as herein we see the man, the actual man, the human being, with his irritabilities and good humour, all under the gentle sway of a soft-hearted, brave woman.

Nor should the reader think that the worth of Wagner’s first wife is here over-estimated through partiality. There is another witness to her good qualities, who certainly will not be suspected of friendly feeling, viz. Count von Beust, the Saxon minister, who vigorously and unrelentingly persecuted the so-called revolutionist in 1849. Beust knew Minna in Dresden, and what he then learnt of the chapel master’s wife was not obliterated by forty years active participation in the diplomatic subtleties of European politics. In his autobiography,[22] published the latter end of 1886, he speaks of Minna’s amiable character, and describes her as an excellent woman.

Minna may be spoken of as a comely woman. Gentle and active in her movements, unobtrusive in speech and bearing, possessing a forethought akin to divination, she administered to her husband’s wants before he knew them himself. It was this lovable foresight of the woman which caused such a horrible vacancy in Wagner’s life when, later, Minna left him, a break which he so bitterly bemoaned, and which all the adoration and wealth of Louis of Bavaria could not atone for. As a housewife she was most efficient. In their days of distress she cheerfully performed what are vulgarly termed menial services. In this she is as fitting a parallel of Mrs. Carlyle, as Wagner is of Carlyle. Both the men were thinkers, aye, and “original” thinkers (which in Carlyle’s estimation was “the event of all others,” a fact of superlative importance). They both elected hard fare, nay, actual deprivation, to submission to the unrealities, and both are educators of our teachers: and Minna’s efforts in the house and sustaining Wagner in the dark days is the pendant of Mrs. Carlyle’s scrubbing the floors of the little house at Scotsbrig in the wilds of Scottish moors. But though Minna was not the intellectual equal of this cultured Scottish lady, she is not to be confounded with the German housewife, so often erroneously spoken of as a sort of head cook. She was eminently practical, and full of remedies for sickness.

In art, however, Minna could not comprehend the gifts of her husband. He was an idealist; she, a woman alive to our mundane existence and its necessities. She worshipped afar off, receiving all he said without inquiry. In their early years their common youth glossed over difficulties. Moreover, Wagner was not in the full possession of his wings. He knew not his own power. For him exile was the turning-point of his greatness, the crucible wherein was destroyed the dross of his art, the fire from which he emerged, the teacher of a purified art. Exile was the period of his literary achievements. There was the test of his greatness. “A man thinks he has something to say. He indulges in an abundance of spoken language, but when in the quiet of his study he seeks to transfix on paper the fleeting theories of his brain, then is he face to face with himself, with actualities. And in exile Wagner first sought to set down in writing the theories which hitherto, in a limited manner only, had governed his work.”[23] From this self-examination Wagner rose up nobler and stronger. And here it was that Minna failed to keep pace with him. She had been a singer and an actress, and could, in a manner, interpret his work, but the meaning of it lay deep, hidden from her. It was not her fault, yet she was to suffer for it. Still I must point out that all Wagner’s works were created during the period of his first marriage. His union with Cosima von BÜlow is dated 25th August, 1870, since which time “GÖtterdÄmmerung” (a poem written in 1848) and “Parsifal” only, have been given to the world.

While I was with Wagner it was his invariable habit to rise at the good hour of half-past six in the morning. If Minna was not about, he would go to the piano, and soon would be heard, at first softly, then with odd harmonies, full orchestral effects, as it were, “Get up, get up, thou merry Swiss-boy.” That was his fun. Early breakfast would be served in the garden, after which Wagner would hand me “Schopenhauer,” with my allotted task for the morning study. This plan, though Wagner’s, was one which coincided happily with my own inclinations. I was, as it were, ordered up to my room, there to ponder over the arguments of the pessimistic philosopher, and so be well prepared for discussion at the dinner-table, or later, during our regular daily stroll.

Now to me Schopenhauer was not the original great thinker that Wagner considered him. Some of his most prominent points I had found enunciated already by Burke, that eloquent and vigorous writer, in his “Enquiring into the Origin of our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful.” The personally well attested statement that “the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure,” was so well reasoned by Burke, that Wagner induced me to read the whole of that author’s work to him.

Wagner a pessimist! So he would have had every one believe then, and for some time later too. But my impression then and now is that, as with a good many people, pessimism is only pre-eminent when fortune fails to favour. This feeling is confirmed by an extract recently published from certain manuscripts found after Wagner’s death: “He who does not strive to find joy in life is unworthy to live.” Certainly this was not the utterance of Wagner in the dark days of his work. While on this subject I may recall one incident which has remained prominently with me because of the locality where it occurred. We were on the top of one of the heights overlooking the Zurich Lake, discussing the much debated Schopenhauer, when I observed that pessimism, in a well-balanced mind, could only lead to optimism, on the ground that, “what cannot be cured must be endured,” and jocularly cited from Brant’s “Narrenschiff,” written in the quaint language of the fifteenth century:—

Wagner stopped, shouted with exultation, and then commenced probing my knowledge of one of our earliest German poets. He assumed the part, as it were, of a schoolmaster, and so when we arrived home, in a boyish manner, he, delighted, called aloud to Minna before the garden gate was opened, “Ach, Ferdinand knows all about my pet poets.”

Every morning after breakfast he would read to Minna her favourite newspaper, “Das Leipziger Tageblatt,” a paper renowned for its prosy character. Imagination and improvisation played her some woeful tricks. With a countenance blameless of any indication of the improviser, he would recite a story, embellishing the incidents until their colouring became so overcharged with the ludicrous, that Minna would exclaim, “Ah, Richard, you have again been inventing.”

He had spoken to me of Godfrey von Strassburg, saying, “To-morrow I will read you something good.” He did next day read me “Tristan” in his study, and we spoke long and earnestly as to its adaptability for operatic treatment. Events have shown it to have been the ground-work of the music-drama of the same name. But at the time he spoke, it appeared to me he had no thought of utilizing it as a libretto. This intention only presented itself to his mind while we three were at breakfast on the following day. He was reading the notices in the Leipzic paper with customary variation, when, without any indication, he dropped the paper onto his knees, gazed into space, and seemed as though he were in a trance, nervously moving his lips. What did this portend? Minna had observed the movement, and was about to break the silence by addressing Wagner. Happily, she caught my warning glance and the spell remained unbroken. We waited until Wagner should move. When he did, I said, “I know what you have been doing.” “No,” he answered, somewhat abruptly, “how can you?” “Yes; you have been composing the love-song we were speaking of yesterday, and the story is going to shape itself into a drama!” “You are right as to the composition, but—the libretto—I will reflect.” Such is the history of the first promptings of that wondrous creation, “Tristan and Isolde.”

But how, how did this Titanic genius compose? Did he, like dear old papa Haydn, perform an elaborate toilet, donning his best coat, and pray to be inspired before setting himself to his writing-table away from the piano? or were his surroundings and method akin to those of Beethoven?—a room given over to muddle and confusion, the Bonn master writing, erasing, re-writing, and again scratching out, while at the piano! Well, distinctly, Wagner had nothing in common with Haydn. The style of Beethoven is far removed from him as regards the state of his working-room. I am desirous there should be no misunderstanding on Wagner’s method of composing, because I find that my testimony is in conflict with some published statements on this subject, from those whose names carry some weight.

Wagner composed at the piano, in an elegantly well arranged study. With him composing was a work of excitement and much labour. He did not shake the notes from his pen as pepper from a caster. How could it be otherwise than labour with a man holding such views as his? Listen to what he says: “For a work to live, to go down to future generations, it must be reflective,” and again in “Opera and Drama,” written about this time, “A composer, in planning and working out a great idea, must pass through a kind of parturition.” Mark the word “parturition.” Such it was with him. He laboured excessively. Not to find or make up a phrase; no, he did not seek his ideas at the piano. He went to the piano with his idea already composed, and made the piano his sketch-book, wherein he worked and reworked his subject, steadily modelling his matter until it assumed the shape he had in his mind. The subject of representative themes was discussed much by us, and he explained to me that he felt chained to the piano until he had found precisely that which shaped itself before his mental vision. I had one morning retired to my room for the Schopenhauer study, when the piano was pounded—yes, pounded is the exact word—more vigorously than usual. The incessant repetition of one theme arrested my attention. Schopenhauer was discarded. I came down stairs. The theme was being played with another rhythm. I entered the room. “Ah!” he exclaimed, “you have been listening!” “Who could help it?” was my answer. “Your vigorous playing fascinated me more than skilful philosophical dialectics!” And then I inquired as to the reason of the change of rhythm. The explanation astonished me. Wagner was engaged on a portion of “Siegfried,” the scene where Mime tells Siegfried of his murderous intentions whilst under the magic influence of the tarn helm. “But how did you come to change the rhythm?” “Oh,” he said, “I tried and tried, thought and thought, until I got just what I wanted.” And that it was perseverance with him, and not spontaneity, is borne out by another incident. The Wesendoncks were at the chalet. Wagner was at the piano, anxious to shine, doubtless, in the presence of a lady who caused such unpleasantness in his career later on. He was improvising, when, in the midst of a flowing movement, he suddenly stopped, unable to finish. I laughed. Wagner became angry, but I jocularly said, “Ah, you got into a cul-de-sac and finished en queue de poisson.” He could not be angry long, and joined in the laugh too, confessing to me that he was only at his best when reflecting.

The morning’s work over, Wagner’s practice was to take a bath immediately. His old complaint, erysipelas, had induced him to try the water cure, for which purpose he had been to hydropathic establishments, and he continued the treatment with as much success as possible in the chalet.

The animal spirits and physical activity of Wagner have before been referred to by me. He really possessed an unusual amount of physical energy, which, at times, led him to perform reckless actions. One day he said to Minna, “We must do something to give Praeger some pleasure, to give him a joyful memento of his visit; let us take him to Schaffhausen,” and though I remonstrated with him on account of his work, he insisted, and so we went. We stayed there the night. Breakfast was to be in the garden of the hotel. The hour arrived, but Wagner was not to be found. Search in all directions, without results. We hear a shout from a height. Behold! Wagner, the agile, mounted on the back of a plaster lion, placed on the top of a giddy eminence! And how he came down! The recklessness of a school-boy was in all his movements. We were in fear; he laughed heartily, saying he had gone up there to get an appetite for breakfast. The whole incident was a repetition of Wagner’s climbing the roof of the Dresden school-house when he was a lad. Going to and returning from Schaffhausen, Wagner took first-class railway tickets. Now in Switzerland, first-class travelling is confined to a very few, and those only the wealthiest, so that Minna expostulated with him. This was typical. As he described himself, he was more luxurious than Sardanapalus, though he lived then on the generosity of his friends to enjoy such comfort. Minna was the housewife, and strove to curb the unlimited desires of a man who had not the wherewithal to purchase his excess. And Wagner was not to be controlled, for he not only travelled first-class, but also telegraphed to Zurich to have a carriage in waiting for us.

At Zurich Wagner had a sense of his growing power, and he cared not for references to his early youthful struggles. I remember an old Magdeburg singer, with her two daughters, calling to see her old comrade. The mother and her daughters sang the music of the Rhine maidens, Wagner accompanying, and they acquitted themselves admirably. But when the old actress familiarly insisted on taking a pinch of snuff from Wagner’s box, and told stories of the Magdeburg days, then did Wagner resent the familiarity in a marked manner.

When they finished singing, Minna asked me: “Is it really so beautiful as you say? It does not seem so to me, and I am afraid it would not sound so to others.” Such observations as these show where Minna was unable to follow Wagner, and the estrangement arising from uncongeniality of artistic temperament.

When I was at Zurich, Wagner showed me two letters from august personages. First, the Duke of Coburg offered him a thousand dollars and two months’ residence in the palace, if he would score an opera for him. The offer was refused, for he said, “Look, now, though I want the money sadly, yet I cannot and will not score the duke’s opera.”

The second letter was from a count, favourite of the emperor of Brazil. The emperor was an unknown admirer of Wagner’s, it appears, and was desirous of commissioning Wagner to compose an opera, which he would undertake should be performed at the Italian opera house, Rio Janeiro, under his own special direction. Wagner did not care to expatriate himself to this extent, but the offer spurred him on to compose an opera, which he said, “shall be full of melody.” He did write his opera, and it was “Tristan and Isolde.”

How was Wagner as a revolutionist at this time? Well, one of his old Dresden friends came to see him, Gottfried Semper. We spoke of the sad May days, and poor August Roeckel. Again did Wagner evade the topic, or speak slightly of it. The truth is, he was ready to pose as the saviour of a people, but was not equally ready to suffer exile for patriotic actions, and so he sought to minimize the part he had played in 1849. It appears from “The Memoires of Count Beust,” to which I have before alluded, that Wagner also sought to minimize his May doings, by speaking of them as unfortunate, when he called upon the minister after his exile had been removed, on which Beust retorted, “How unfortunate! Are you not aware that the Saxon government possesses a letter wherein you propose burning the prince’s palace?” I am forced to the conclusion that Wagner would have torn out that page from his life’s history had it been possible.

During my stay I saw Minna’s jealousy of another. She refused to see in the sympathy of Madame Wesendonck for Wagner as a composer, that for the artist only. It eventually broke out into a public scandal, and filled the opposition papers with indignant reproaches about Wagner’s ingratitude toward his friend. On leaving Zurich I went to Paris. There I wrote to Wagner an expostulatory letter, alluding to a couple of plays with which we were both familiar, viz. “The Dangerous Neighbourhood” and “The Public Secret,” with a view of warning him privately in such a manner that Minna should not understand should she chance to read my letter. The storm burst but too soon. Wagner wrote to me while I was still in Paris: “The devil is loose. I shall leave Zurich at once and come to you in Paris. Meet me at the Strassburg station.” ... But two days after, this was cancelled by another letter, an extract from which I give.

I can testify Wagner suffered severely from thoughtlessness.