I WENT to Munich and found Wagner considerably depressed. “Tristan,” the work he evidently loved with no ordinary affection, had, after seven years of hoping against hope, but just been performed to his intense satisfaction, when the ideal impersonator dies. The happiness he had recently felt at the three “Tristan” performances, coupled with the publication of the piano scores of the “WalkÜre” and “Tristan” had, to an extent, kept his mind free. These events passed, and his friends departed, he fell into a desponding mood. Minna, his wife, was not there. This was a constant irritation to him. He affected to care nothing about it, but his references to her absence showed how it annoyed and preyed upon him. Then was he placed in delicate relations with the young king of Bavaria. Louis constituted Wagner his adviser—his Mentor. Questions of state were submitted to him. The king’s personal advisers were aware of this, and resented it. Wagner knew of the intrigues against him. He sincerely yearned for quietude; all the more because he instinctively felt the coming storm. He showed me all the letters that his royal devotee had written to him, and this I can testify, that breathing as they did the fervid adoration of a cultured, highly gifted youth for a genius, Wagner on his side felt no less intense admiration and affection for the “god-like” king. So great was the influence it was assumed Wagner possessed over the monarch, that his good-will was sought by all classes of petitioners for the royal favour.

The house inhabited by Richard Wagner was detached, an uncommon thing for houses in Germany. It had been built, he told me, by an Englishman, and now that he could command practically “unlimited means,” he did not restrict his wants. I may say he positively revelled in his grandeur like a boy. His taste in arranging his house once again provoked the hostile comments of an ever-ready opposition press. As I have before remarked, this charge of Oriental luxury was a stock one with some people. Even now, his velvet coat and biretta are made the subject of puerile attacks; but I cannot refrain from stating that Richard Wagner’s house and decorations are far surpassed by the luxuriously appointed palaces of certain English painters, musicians, and dramatic poetasters. Wagner was fond of velvets and satins, and he knew how best to display them. The arrangements in the house, too, showed the unmistakable guiding of a woman. Madame von BÜlow acted as a sort of secretary to Wagner. Wagner was a prolific correspondent, but during the early portion of the summer, he had, it seems, been busy finishing the score of the second act of “Siegfried.”

Wagner laid bare his hopes and wishes to me. He merits eulogy for his fearlessness. With that trait I was particularly struck. In relating the subject of a certain interview with the king, I was of opinion he had been too blunt of speech, too outspoken in his criticism, and I asked what would he do were he to lose the royal favour, remembering how dark and mournful had been his days at the moment the king sought him out. His reply startled me. “I have lived before without the king, and I can do so again.” Honour to Wagner! He was fearless here as he was in his music—no concessions to false art.

A born actor Wagner? Certainly. Out together one day he related to me the story of his climbing the Urirothstock in company with a young friend. Some distance up the mountain, his companion, who was following, exclaimed he was giddy and falling, upon which Wagner turned round on the ledge of rock, caught his friend, and passed him between the rock and himself to the front. The scene was reproduced very graphically. His presence of mind never left him. Truly, Wagner was born to teach actors.

I found that the same boyish love of fun remained with Wagner. He dearly loved a joke, a good story, a witty anecdote. Many did he tell me. Even when I was leaving Munich, his stories came out, so that on saying good-bye, he added, “Well, we have had some discomforts, but a good many jokes.”

Towards the end of the year the intrigues of his opponents proved too strong for him. He left Bavaria; but I will give some few extracts from his next letter, which will tell the history in his own way. It is dated—

The next letter of interest is dated nearly six months later. It shows that Wagner and the king did not then always get on well together.

Nothing came of the promise to help Roeckel, though Wagner and the king were soon reconciled. Roeckel became editor of a democratic newspaper, ceasing all active participation in the musical world. The friendship of Louis grew stronger, if that were possible, and Wagner shows by his letters that he was quite “the guide, philosopher, and friend” of the young monarch. Of his communications to me during the next year, I select the following short note, as possessing a wider interest than a merely personal communication.

As the above note shows, Wagner was living in BÜlow’s house. I purposely pass over the next two years. Events were coming to a climax. He and I did not agree; but still his friendship never waned or abated one jot. Meanwhile his wife, Minna, had died at Dresden. The two following notes tell their own tale. The first is but a very short communication of what the world had foreseen; the second was the printed card announcing his second marriage, which I presume was sent to all his friends.

(1)

(2)

In the following November Wagner wrote to me again. It was the first of a series of letters relative to the purchase of a costly edition of Shakespeare, in English, as a birthday present to Madame Wagner. I publish six of these. They show Wagner by the fireside, at home with wife and children. Nearly sixty, with the close of his life almost in sight, he first bathes in that unspeakable happiness—the presence of children constantly about him, ready to receive the pent-up affection of half a century. It seems to me that his state of mind will be best understood by a few words, taken from the closing paragraph of his letter of the 25th November, 1870: “God make every one happy. Amen!”

(1)

(In pencil on the last page of the letter.)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

Then came the following:—

In the summer I went to stay with Wagner. How changed! Fifty-eight years old, and yet but one year in the possession of what is called home. His had been a roving life. Not through choice, but necessity. Energetic and persevering, never leaving a stone unturned or failing in an effort to preach his creed. And so through the long years of early manhood and middle age had he struggled with adversity, never finding an abiding resting-place. But the sunset of his life was setting in rich, warm colours. A feeling of serenity, born of the conscious security from worldly anxieties, had taken possession of him. His work had been acknowledged throughout Europe. He was ambitious, and his soul was satisfied. Now was he for the first time living in that warm-hearted, self-denying atmosphere of “home,” where dwelt a remarkably cultured, intellectual wife and children. There “bloomed for him a splendid son, strong and beautiful.” Yes; he was happy. His naturally buoyant temperament had not lessened with years. I remember full well, one day when we were sitting together in the drawing-room at Tribschen, on a sort of ottoman, talking over the events of the years gone by, when he suddenly rose and stood on his head upon the ottoman. At the very moment he was in that inverted position the door opened and Madame Wagner entered. Her surprise and alarm were great, and she hastened forward, exclaiming, “Ah! lieber Richard! Richard!” Quickly recovering himself, he reassured her of his sanity, explaining that he was only showing Ferdinand he could stand on his head at sixty, which was more than the said Ferdinand could do. This was a ridiculous incident, but strikingly illustrative of the “Wagner as I knew him.” I suppose there are few thinking people who will deny the seriousness and profundity of Wagner’s mind, and that perhaps in earnestness of purpose and power of reflection, he may be said to have been the equal of Carlyle; yet who can picture the “sage of Chelsea” standing on his head at sixty, or indeed at any period of his life?

Wagner’s tranquillity of mind was delightful to contemplate. He longed for “peace on earth and good will to all men.” The desire of his heart, the dream of those early Dresden days, was about to be realized. A theatre constructed after his own theory was soon to be erected. The architect and engineer, Neumann and Brandt, came to Lucerne during my visit. I was privileged to be present at their discussions. It was another illustration of “to have a clear notion of what you want is half-way to get it.” “The theatre must be so built that it can be emptied in the space of one or two minutes”; upon this Wagner insisted. Did the experts explain some detail to him it was marvellous to see how quickly he grasped the point and debated it with them. His heart was in his work, in this as in all he did, and there lay the secret of his success, for of this I am convinced, that without his indomitable will, that untiring perseverance which would not be conquered, the genius of Wagner would have availed him but little.

In writing of “Wagner as I knew him” I have touched upon certain subjects and criticised him in a manner which I am aware many of his worshippers might perhaps shrink from. But in this I have in no way offended Wagner. He wished to be known as he was. Indeed, he has written his own life, which, should it please the Wagner heirs, may one day be given to the world to its great gain. I became aware of the existence of this autobiography in the following manner. Wagner and his wife were going out, leaving me alone at Tribschen. Before going, Wagner placed in my hands a volume for my perusal during his absence. “It is my autobiography,” he said. “Only Liszt has a copy; none other has seen it, and it shall not be published until my Siegfried has reached his majority.” I read it carefully, and I may state, without touching upon any of the matter contained therein, that in my treatment of Wagner I have not uttered one word to which he himself would not have subscribed.

To see Wagner surrounded by children was a pleasant sight. He was as frolicsome as they. He would have the children sing the “Kaisermarsch” at the piano, and reward them with coins. As regards their discipline and training, he effaced himself completely before Madame Wagner. To his wife he showed the tenderest affection. It might almost be said of him that he was the most uxorious of husbands.

No matter the mood in which I found Wagner, it was always the old Wagner. Did we set out for a stroll, he would take me into some wayside inn, there to eat sausages and drink beer. I must add that his drinking was of the most moderate description. It was during one of these rambles that we spoke of Liszt, and in the talking, he told me that Liszt had been more pained at his daughter Cosima’s change of religion from Roman Catholic to Protestant, than at her divorce from von BÜlow. Among other things, too, he said, speaking of Liszt as a composer, that “he [Liszt] had begun too late in life.”

To me Wagner was all affection. He played to me, showed me everything received from the king (among the many presents were two handsome vases, the equivalent of which in money Wagner said he would have preferred), and did all that he could to make my stay agreeable. I did not stay the whole time I had purposed; I left somewhat unexpectedly. My departure brought the following letter from Wagner:—

From now to the day of his death I have but little to tell. He had arrived at a time when the world accepted him as one of its great men. His movements were chronicled in the press as though he were some minister of state. I saw him repeatedly since 1872, notably at the opening of the Bayreuth theatre in 1874, and at the succeeding representations there, and naturally on his coming to London for the Albert Hall Wagner Festival in 1877, when at the banquet given at the Cannon Street Hotel in his honour, he toasted me as the friend, “the first in this country to nobly support him,” at a time when he was a stranger in the land and the target of hostile criticism. Later on, I saw him again at the “Parsifal” performances at Bayreuth, which proved to be for the last time.

My task is done.

Wagner’s labours ceased at Venice on the 13th February, 1883. What he has accomplished is beyond the power of any man to destroy. Were Wagner himself to return to us, he could not undo what he has done. In future years, aye, in future centuries, men will come from all parts of the civilized globe to worship at Bayreuth; that is the Mecca of musicians. There is the shrine of the founder of a new religion in art, pure and ennobling to all who have ears to hear and human hearts that can be touched. To use an old metaphor, but accurate and appropriate when applied to Wagner, his work is as the boundless ocean; many will sail their craft upon it, from the majestic ship of tragedy to the winsome bark of comic opera, and then shall they not have navigated all the seas.

The key of Wagner’s success is his truth. Look at his work from whichever side we may, that is it which ever finds its way into all hearts. While the musicians were, and some still are, engaged in the dissecting-room, with a bar here and bar there, with the people, the laymen, he is universally popular. And what is the cause? His truth, his earnestness. At bottom, it is this sincerity which has made him great. Speaking of the laymen, I am forcibly reminded of perhaps the most musically gifted and most devoted of all, one Julius Cyriax, a German merchant of the city of London, whose friendship Wagner contracted here in 1877, and with whom Wagner was in intimate correspondence down to the last.

And if this be the judgment passed upon his work, what shall be said of the character of the man? Without fear, I say earnestness of purpose guided him here too; that he was impatient of incompetence when it sought to pose as the true in art was, and is, natural in a great genius. Autocratic in bearing, and the intimate of a king, though democratic in music and a professed lover of the demos in his earlier career, this is but a seeming contradiction. Democratic describes his music; no domineering there of one voice; and democratic, too, in the last days, when he refused imperial distinctions, preferring to remain one of the people. An opponent in art, he was to be dreaded. Why? Because he fought for his cause with such a whole-heartedness that he drove, as Napoleon used to say, “fear into the enemy’s camp.” His memory, like that of all great men, was extremely retentive. He was a hard worker, as his eleven published volumes of literary matter and fourteen music-dramas abundantly testify. To accomplish such work was only possible to a man of method, and he was methodical and careful withal in what he did. Look at his handwriting and music notation, small but clear, neat and clean. He was not free from blemish or prejudice,—who is?—but

Typography by J. S. Cushing & Co., Boston.

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BY W. J. HENDERSON.

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PRELUDES AND STUDIES.

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BY W. J. HENDERSON,

Author of “The Story of Music.”

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FOOTNOTES: