It is in keeping with the whole character of the man that he should have left us more copious18 documentary material concerning himself than any other artist has ever done. Publicity19 was as much a necessity to him as food and air. The most interesting person in the universe to him was always himself; and he took good care that the world should not suffer from any lack of knowledge of a phenomenon which he rightly held to be unique. It would be a sign of unwisdom to despise him for this. It has to be recognised that whatever criticism the contemporary moralist might have to pass upon this or that portion of Wagner's conduct with the outer world, he was always the soul of purity and steadfastness20 in the pursuit of his ideal. He believed he had come into the world to do a great and indispensable work; and if he occasionally sacrificed others to his ideal, it must be admitted that he never hesitated to sacrifice himself. Regarded purely21 as an artist, no man has ever kept his conscience more free from stain. And it is precisely22 this ever-present burning sense of the inherent greatness of his mission that accounts primarily for his constant pouring-out of himself, not only in music—his musical output, after all, was not a remarkably23 large one—but in twelve volumes of literary works and in innumerable letters. I say "primarily," because a second set of impulses obviously comes into play here and there. Wagner had the need that many men of immense vitality have felt—Mr. Gladstone was a notable example in our own day—of dominance for dominance' sake; there is something aquiline24 in them that makes it impossible for them to breathe anywhere but on the heights. Wagner felt the need of over-lordship as irresistibly25 as his own Wotan did. Had he been a soldier living in a time of warfare26 he would have become one of the world's rulers, with Alexander, Julius C?sar, and Napoleon. Had he been a business man he would have controlled the commerce of a continent through the strength and the thoroughness of his organisations. Being an artist, a dealer27 in the things of the mind alone, his ends could be achieved only by example and argument. His voluminous letters and prose works are the outcome of the one great need of his life—to win the world to see everything as he saw it. The letters to Liszt, to Roeckel, to Uhlig, and others show how powerful was this desire in him; the least expression of disagreement, the least failure of comprehension, would call forth28 a whole pamphlet of eager explanations. He yearned29 to hunt out misunderstanding with regard to himself as Calvin yearned to hunt out heresy30. Always there was the inability to conceive himself, Wilhelm Richard Wagner, except as the central sun of his universe; ideas and persons had to revolve31 round him or find orbits in another and smaller universe. Here again ethical32 commentary by way of either praise or blame would be the merest supererogation. One simply notes the phenomenon as one notes the colour of his eyes or the shape of his head; it was one of the things that made Wagner Wagner, as the lion's mane is one of the things that make him a lion.
The need for mastery over everything and everybody that came within his orbit extended from art to life. All accounts agree that with people who loved and looked up to him he was the most charming of men;[2] while not only the testimony33 of his associates but his own words and conduct show with what difficulty he accommodated himself to the natural desire of others to take life in their own way. Read, for example, his na?f account of his anger with Tausig and Cornelius for not coming to him when he wanted them:
"Cornelius and Tausig had again been to see me. Both had first of all to bear the brunt of my real ill-temper for their behaviour during the previous summer [1862]. Having had the idea of bringing the Bülows and the Schnorrs to me at Biebrich, my cordial interest in these two young friends of mine decided34 me to invite them too. Cornelius accepted immediately, and so I was all the more astonished when one day I received a letter from him from Geneva, whither Tausig, who suddenly seemed to have money at his disposal, had taken him on a summer excursion—no doubt of a more important and more agreeable nature. Without the slightest expression of regret at not being able to meet me this summer, I was simply told that they had just gaily36 'smoked a splendid cigar to my health.' When I met them again in Vienna, I could not refrain from pointing out to them the offensiveness of their conduct; but they did not seem to understand that I could have had any objection to their preferring the beautiful tour in French Switzerland to visiting me at Biebrich. They obviously thought me a tyrant37." [3]
All through the correspondence and the autobiography we see the same spirit of unconscious egoism. His conviction that he was always in the right naturally led to a passionate38 desire that those who differed from him should hear every word he had to say on his own behalf. Hence the frequent and lengthy39 plaidoyers in the letters; hence too the autobiography. His lust40 for dominance looked even beyond the grave; thirty years after his death the world should read a document which should be his final, and, he hoped, successful effort at self-justification41. We cannot, I think, understand Wagner fully42 unless we recognise that, however honest he was in intention, this consuming desire to prove himself always in the right should make us chary43 of accepting everything he says at its face value. No man is a perfectly44 unprejudiced witness on his own behalf, in his own suit; and in Wagner's case the very vehemence45 of his pleading lets us see how earnestly he desired to impress his own reading of himself upon the world, and is therefore a warning that he may often have seen things as he desired them to be rather than as they were. It is pretty clear that at an early age he realised that he was destined46 to be a great man, and took care that the world should not suffer from any lack of materials for the writing of his life.[4] The autobiography is simply the last and longest speech of a thousand long speeches for the defence. We need not consider at present the particular opinions upon his friends and associates and enemies that Wagner expresses there. The only question for the moment is as to the general trustworthiness of the book. That he has been exceedingly, even embarrassingly, candid47 on some points all the world now knows. Whether he always saw things at the correct angle is a different matter. It is obviously impossible to check him throughout, even where one suspects him to be unconsciously distorting the truth;[5] but there are several instances in which he is obviously not telling quite the truth or all the truth, and in more than one instance he can certainly be convicted of manipulating the facts to suit his own purpose.
I shall try to show later that the account he gives of the episode with Madame Laussot in 1850 does not square at every point with his letters to Minna. He deliberately48 tries to mislead the reader with regard to his relations with Frau Wesendonck; everyone who has read Wagner's ardent49 letters to her must have gasped50 with astonishment51 to find him in Mein Leben glossing52 over that long and passionate love-dream, and actually speaking of "Minna's coarse misunderstanding of my real relations—friendly relations—with the young wife, who was continually concerned for my repose53 and my well-being54."[6] That is not an actual untruth, but it is considerably55 less than the truth. In the preface to Mein Leben Wagner tells us that the only justification of the volumes was their "unadorned veracity56." Perhaps he found "unadorned veracity" at this point a trifle embarrassing; perhaps he forgot his letters to Mathilde, or had never considered the possibility of their being published. But the fact remains57 that his own letters show the account he gives of his relations with Mathilde Wesendonck to be quite unreliable. What warrant have we, then, for believing him implicitly58 in other cases in which it may have been to his interest to suppress or distort the truth?
Let us take one of the most striking cases of this suppression and distortion. One of the friends of the middle period of Wagner's life was a certain Baron59 Robert von Hornstein. In 1862 Wagner—who was at that time in Paris—was, as frequently happened with him, looking for someone who would undertake the burden of keeping a home above his head. He tried two or three people, but without success; then he thought of the young Baron von Hornstein. This is the account he gives of the matter in Mein Leben:
"Finally I bethought me of looking for a quiet abode60 in the neighbourhood of Mainz, under the financial protection of Schott. He had spoken to me of a pretty estate of the young Baron von Hornstein in that region. I thought I was really conferring an honour upon the latter when I wrote to him, at Munich, asking permission to seek shelter for a time at his place in the Rhine district; and I was greatly perplexed61 at receiving an answer that only expressed terror at my request."[7]
On the face of it this seems candid and credible62 enough. Von Hornstein's son, Ferdinand von Hornstein, has, however, thrown another light on the affair. When Baron Ferdinand published a memoir63 of his father in 1908, he omitted certain letters, he tells us, "out of consideration for Wagner and his family." The wounding allusions64 to Baron Robert in Mein Leben, and the evident animus65 displayed against him there, unlocked, however, the son's lips. He resents Wagner's description of his (Hornstein's) father—the friend of Schopenhauer, Paul Heyse, Hermann Lingg and others—as a "young booby,"[8] and proceeds to explain "why Wagner has misrepresented my father's character."
On an earlier page (627) of Mein Leben Wagner tells us that during their stay together at Zürich in the winter of 1855-6 Hornstein declared himself to be so "nervous" that he could not bear to touch the piano—that his mother had died insane, and that he himself was greatly afraid of losing his reason. "Although," says Wagner, "this made him to some extent interesting, there was blended so much weakness of character with all his intellectual gifts that we soon came to the conclusion that he was pretty hopeless, and were not inconsolable when he suddenly left Zürich."[9] The impression conveyed—and obviously intended to be conveyed—is that the young man's departure was a piece of half-mad caprice.
As it happens, however, Hornstein at his death had left among his papers an account of the affair that puts a different complexion66 on it. Wagner's own eccentricities67 had been making the relations of the little circle none too pleasant.[10] And Hornstein, so far from leaving Zürich in obedience68 to a sudden impulse, had actually made arrangements at his lodgings69 under which he could leave at any time when the "scenes" with Wagner became intolerable. He often expressed to Karl Ritter and the latter's mother[11] his regret that he was not in a position to "take his revenge" for the invitations he received to Wagner's table. Their reply always was: "Wagner does not at all expect this now. He knows your circumstances, and is sure to follow you up later. He is waiting for a more favourable70 moment." When he voiced his regret that there should be anything but ordinary friendly feeling to account for Wagner's attentions to him, his friends replied, "Oh, there is no doubt Wagner likes you and prizes your talents greatly; but these calculations (Hintergedanken) are too much second nature with him for him to be able to make an exception." "This," says Hornstein, "was to become still clearer to me." He learned that Wagner's guests were expected to bring bottles of wine with them—a point on which Hornstein, as a young man of breeding,[12] evidently felt some delicacy71. On his birthday the great man entertained Hornstein and Baumgartner at dinner. "During the dessert, Wagner asked his sister-in-law—it came like a pistol shot—to bring him the wine-list from a neighbouring restaurant. She hesitatingly carried out this unexpected commission. The card comes. Wagner runs down the list of the champagnes and their prices, and orders a bottle of a medium quality to be brought. Everyone felt uncomfortable. The bottle having been emptied, Wagner turned to his two guests with a sneering72 smile, and said loudly, 'Shall I now present another thaler to each of these two gentlemen?' His wife and his sister-in-law fled in horror, like the ladies in the Wartburg scene in Tannh?user. Baumgartner and I were stunned73; we looked at one another, and each of us probably had an impulse to throw a glass at the head of our dear host." Instead of doing so, they burst into laughter, thanked him, and took their leave. Baumgartner declared to Hornstein that he would never accept another invitation from Wagner, "and I, for my part," says Hornstein, "was firm in my resolve to leave Zürich as soon as possible." Afterwards Wagner, as was no doubt his wont74, came and excused himself to Hornstein and Karl Ritter.[13] He had not meant them, he said, but "the German Princes" who performed his operas and raved75 about him, but gave him nothing: "it does not occur to them to send me a hamper76 of wine"; and so on. The young men, however, were not to be so easily appeased77, and Wagner "had to listen to many things that he would rather not have heard." An outward reconciliation78 was effected, but the sting remained; Hornstein delayed his departure for a few weeks, and still visited Wagner's house, though less frequently than before. "I had," he writes, "to tell this distressing79 story, as it gives the key to my later conduct when, soon after my father's death, Wagner tried to borrow so heavily from me. The correspondence connected with this attempt led to a permanent separation from Wagner."[14]
All this, it will be seen, puts the Zürich episode in a new light. There is not the least reason for doubting Hornstein's veracity. What he says is quite consistent with the accounts of Wagner's behaviour that we get from other sources, private and public. Moreover, Hornstein's reminiscences simply take the form of a note left among his personal papers. He could not have anticipated the misleading version that was to appear in Mein Leben many years after his death,[15] and, as has been said, his own version would probably have remained unpublished for ever, but for the provocation80 given to his son by the autobiography.
Baron Ferdinand von Hornstein gives further evidence of the pettiness of Wagner's rancour against this young man from whom, notwithstanding his disparagement81 of him, he was willing to borrow money. For now comes the full record of the incident to which Wagner alludes82 so airily in the passage from Mein Leben quoted on page 6. Here is the actual letter, dated, "19, Quai Voltaire, Paris, 12th December 1861," in which Wagner, according to his account, simply asked permission to stay for a time at Hornstein's place in the Rhine district.
"DEAR HORNSTEIN,—I hear that you have become rich. In what a wretched state I myself am you can easily guess from my failures.[16] I am trying to retrieve83 myself by seclusion84 and a new work. In order to make possible this way to my preservation—that is to say, to lift me above the most distressing obligations, cares, and needs that rob me of all freedom of mind—I require an immediate35 loan of ten thousand francs. With this I can again put my life in order, and again do productive work.
"It will be rather hard for you to provide me with this sum; but it will be possible if you WISH it, and do not shrink from a sacrifice. This, however, I desire, and I ask it of you against my promise to endeavour to repay you in three years out of my receipts.
"Now let me see whether you are the right sort of man!
"If you prove to be such for me,—and why should not this be expected of some one some day?—the assistance you give me will bring you into very close touch with me, and next summer you must be pleased to let me come to you for three months at one of your estates, preferably in the Rhine district.
"I will say no more just now. Only as regards the proposed loan I may say that it would be a great relief to me if you could place even six thousand francs at my disposal immediately; I hope then to be able to arrange to do without the other four thousand francs until March. But nothing but the immediate provision of the whole sum can give me the help which I so need in my present state of mind.
"Let us see, then, and hope that the sun will for once shine a little on me. What I need now is a success; otherwise—I can probably do nothing more!—Yours,
RICHARD WAGNER."
"I must confess," says Hornstein, "that the largeness of the amount and the tone of the letter made a refusal easier to me. What made it easier still was my knowledge that I had to do with a bottomless cask,—that while ten thousand francs were a great deal for me, they were simply nothing to him. I knew that Napoleon, Princess Metternich, Morny, and Erlanger had been bled of large sums that were simply like drops of water falling on a hot stone." Hornstein was particularly grieved at the remark that the loan would draw him nearer to Wagner. "Was I not near to him, then," he asks, "before I gave him money? Was the intimate intercourse85 with him at the Lake of Geneva, on the Seelisberg, in Zürich, intended only to prepare the way for the borrowings he had in view when my father should die?"[17] So he replied to Wagner in these terms:
"DEAR HERR WAGNER,—You seem to have a false idea of my riches. I have a modest (hübsch) fortune on which I can live in plain and decent style with my wife and child. You must therefore turn to really rich people, of whom you have plenty among your patrons and patronesses all over Europe. I regret that I cannot be of service to you.
"As for your long visit to 'one of my estates,' at present I cannot contrive86 a long visit; if it should become possible later I will let you know.
"I have read in the papers with great regret that the production of Tristan and Isolde will not take place this winter. I hope that it is only a question of time, and that we shall yet hear the work. Greetings to you and your wife.—From yours,
ROBERT VON HORNSTEIN."
To which Wagner replied thus:
"PARIS, 27th December, 1861.
"Dear Herr von Hornstein,—It would be wrong of me to pass over without censure87 an answer such as you have given me. Though it will probably not happen again that a man like me (ein Mann meines Gleichen) will apply to you, yet a perception of the impropriety of your letter ought of itself to be a good thing for you.
"You should not have presumed to advise me in any way, even as to who is really rich; and you should have left it to myself to decide why I do not apply to the patrons and patronesses to whom you refer.
"If you are not prepared to have me at one of your estates, you could have seized the signal opportunity I offered you of making the necessary arrangements for receiving me in some place of my choice. It is consequently offensive of you to say that you will let me know when you will be prepared to have me.
"You should have omitted the wish you express with regard to my Tristan; your answer could only pass muster88 on the assumption that you are totally ignorant of my works.
"Let this end the matter. I reckon on your discretion89, as you can on mine.—Yours obediently,
RICHARD WAGNER." [18]
I have given this episode in such detail because, as Ferdinand von Hornstein caustically90 remarks, it enables us to test the value of Wagner's claim for the "unadorned veracity" of his memoirs91. He is plainly guilty of serious sins both of omission92 and of commission in his account of his dealings with Hornstein. What guarantee have we that he was any more scrupulous93 in his record of other matters in which his reputation or his amour propre were concerned? Let us check him in one or two other cases.
How unreliable the autobiography is, with what caution we have to accept Wagner's opinions of men in the absence of confirmatory testimony, may be seen from a survey of his dealings with Franz Lachner.[19]
The first reference to Lachner in Mein Leben is under the date 1842. Wagner had written two articles in Paris à propos of Halévy's opera, La Reine de Chypre.[20] In the article published in the Dresden Abendzeitung, he says, "I made particularly merry over a mischance that had befallen Kapellmeister Lachner." Küstner, the Munich director, had commissioned a libretto94 for Lachner from St. Georges, of Paris (the librettist95 of La Reine de Chypre). After the production of the latter opera, it turned out that this book and that of the Lachner opera were virtually identical. In reply to Küstner's angry protests, St. Georges "expressed his astonishment that the former should have imagined that for the paltry96 price offered in the German commission he would supply a text intended only for the German stage. As I had already formed my own opinion as to this French opera-text-business, and nothing in the world would have induced me to set to music even the most effective piece of Scribe or St. Georges, I was greatly delighted at this occurrence, and in the best of spirits I let myself go on the subject for the benefit of the readers of the Abendzeitung, who, it is to be hoped, did not include my future 'friend' Lachner."[21] Evidently he did not love Lachner.
The next reference to him in Mein Leben is in 1855. Wagner had returned to Zürich after his London concerts. There he learned that Dingelstedt, at that time Intendant of the Munich Court Theatre, wished to give Tannh?user there, "although," says Wagner, "thanks to Lachner's influence," the place was not particularly well disposed towards him.[22]
The third reference to Lachner is in 1858, just before Wagner's departure from the "Asyl"; there was a "national vocal97 festival" at Zürich that seems to have irritated Wagner a good deal, depressed98 as he was at that time by the Minna-Mathilde catastrophe99. Lachner was taking part in the festival. Wagner gave him the cold shoulder, and refused to return his call.[23]
Now let us see, from documents of the time, how matters really stood as regards Lachner. In 1854 Wagner was hoping to get Tannh?user produced at Munich, where, as we have seen, Dingelstedt was Intendant and Lachner Kapellmeister. Lachner was a conductor and composer of the old school. Wagner had a poor opinion of him, and apparently100 thought him incompetent101 to do justice to Tannh?user. "I don't at all know," he writes to Liszt on May 2, 1854,[24] "how to get Lachner out of the way. He is an utter ass8 and knave102." In the summer of 1852 there had been some talk of giving Tannh?user at Munich. Lachner thought it advisable first to familiarise the public with the style of the work by giving the overture103 at a concert on 1st November. The success was doubtful. Wagner had previously104 sent Lachner a copy of the explanatory programme of the overture that he had written in the preceding March for the Zürich orchestra. Perhaps this was thought too long for the Munich programme; in any case a much shorter "explanation" was given, that aroused Wagner's ire.[25] With his customary blind suspicion of people he did not like, he assumed that the concert production of the overture was a deliberate attempt to prejudice the public against the opera. This suspicion, as Sebastian R?ckl says,[26] finds no support in the external facts. A fortnight after the Munich performance of the overture, Tannh?user was given at Wiesbaden with great success, and soon became one of the favourite pieces in the repertory of the theatre there. Dingelstedt at once sent his theatre inspector105, Wilhelm Schmitt, to Zürich to arrange with Wagner for a production at Munich. Unexpected difficulties arose, however; an outcry was raised against the proposed performance of a work by "the Red Republican, Richard Wagner"; and there was opposition106 on the part of the Bavarian Minister, von der Pforten. By the spring of 1854 all obstacles had been removed, and, as we have already seen, Dingelstedt now arranged with Wagner for the production, although the composer thought Munich "not particularly well-disposed towards him, thanks to Lachner's influence." Having heard that the singer destined for the part of Tannh?user was incompetent, Wagner asked Dr. H?rtinger, of the Munich Opera, to undertake it. H?rtinger came to Zürich in May to study the r?le with the composer, and seems to have deepened Wagner's mistrust of and contempt for Lachner. The performance did not take place, as was intended, in the summer of 1854, but, as R?ckl says, the cause of the postponement107 was not Lachner but the cholera108.
Later on, Dingelstedt found himself unable to fulfil his promises to Wagner with regard to the honorarium109. "Thereupon," says R?ckl, "Lachner, fearing that he might be looked upon as answerable for the production having fallen through a second time, wrote to his friend Kapellmeister G. Schmidt, of Frankfort, asking him to arrange with the composer for more favourable conditions."[27] In the end this was done. "And now," says R?ckl,[28] "Lachner, although in his innermost conscience an opponent of the 'musician of the future,' did all he could in order to produce the work as excellently as was possible to him. Rehearsal110 after rehearsal was held, though the musicians were always moaning over the extraordinary efforts they were called upon to make"—as is shown by reference to a Munich comic paper of the time. As the tenor111 was unmistakably incompetent, a singer who was already familiar with the work was engaged from another opera house. Tannh?user was given on 12th August 1855 with extraordinary success. Lachner was called on the stage, whence he thanked the audience in Wagner's name. He communicated the evening's result to the composer, and received a letter, dated 17th August 1855, warmly thanking him for the trouble he had taken over the work and the sympathy he felt with it, and for the friendliness112 of his feelings towards Wagner; and he was asked to thank the singers and orchestra in the composer's name. "Finally accept the assurance of my great gratification at having been brought by this circumstance closer to yourself. I sincerely hope for a continuance of this approach to an understanding that is necessary for the artist and possible to him alone."[29]
The success of Tannh?user emboldened113 Dingelstedt to venture upon Lohengrin for the winter of 1856, but various events conspired114 against the production. In February 1857 Dingelstedt resigned the Intendantship. Lohengrin was put in rehearsal by his successor, von Frays115, in November 1857, and produced on 28th February 1858, under Lachner. It was well received on the whole, but the opera found more antagonists117 than Tannh?user had done.
From 21st July to 2nd August there was held at Zürich the vocal festival at which, as we have seen, Wagner refused to receive Lachner. What R?ckl rightly calls the ambiguous words of Wagner in this connection in Mein Leben are explained by the following letter from the composer to Lachner, that is published for the first time in R?ckl's book:
"VENICE, 26th September 1858.
"HIGHLY HONOURED SIR AND FRIEND ,—Now that, after a long and painful interruption of the way of living I have been accustomed to for many years, I have again won a little repose, permit me to approach you with the remembrance of your so friendly advances to me last summer, in order in some degree to link myself again with the life on which you have imprinted118 a significantly agreeable memory. If you found something strange at our meeting, something on my part apparently not quite corresponding to your friendly intentions, I now permit myself, by way of exculpation119, to say that at that time I was in a very agitated120 and embarrassed frame of mind; few people know what difficult resolutions were maturing in me at that time.[30] It may, however, suffice for me to tell you that only now, after leaving my friendly refuge by the Lake of Zürich, in order to compose my mind here, in the greatest seclusion, for the resumption of my work, has the pleasant and encouraging significance of your Zürich visit become quite clear to me. By my sincere regret to know that you were in some degree hurt through a mistake of my servant,[31] you probably, nevertheless, understood even then how earnestly I realised the value of your visit; your friendly assurance that you were satisfied with my explanation of that misunderstanding was most tranquillising for me. Let me now say that I estimate highly the value of your advances, and with my whole heart I shall do my best to deserve your friendship—if you will favour me with it—can and most sincerely to reciprocate121 it. On the occasion of another personal meeting, if you will be so good, I hope that you will learn, with some satisfaction, in what sense I give you this assurance. I chiefly remember with the greatest pleasure that you expressed to me the wish that perhaps the first performance of my latest work, Tristan and Isolde, might be entrusted122 to you. I have so agreeable a recollection of this wish, that I can only regret not being able to gratify it immediately. Unfortunately just at the time when we met I was so grievously interrupted in this very work that only now again, for the first time, can I cherish the hope of getting into the proper mood for continuing and completing it. Consequently this opus is not one as to the time of whose coming to the light I can decide anything definite—which is in every respect unpleasant for me.
"The friendly wish you showed to occupy yourself with me once more soon, emboldens123 me, however, to approach you with regard to the granting of a very big request on my part. My Rienzi has again been given in Dresden with real success, and since I now no longer have any special reason for keeping back this effective work of my youth, I have been inviting124 the theatres that are friendly to me to take up this opera as quickly as possible; in so doing I am moved by the firm conviction that I am recommending to them a very good and remunerative125 work. Almost all whom I have approached have fallen in with my wishes. Would you therefore think it too bold of me if I were to request you also to get this score (which you have only to ask for, in my name, of Chorus-master Wilhelm Fischer, of Dresden), without much hesitation126 and delay, and to see what you can do with this tamed rebel (mit dem gez?hmten Unband) for my consolation127 and benefit, while I am finishing Tristan?
"I beg you to take this in good part. But in any case I owe you very great thanks, and if you are not angry with me on account of this request, I shall take this as a particularly good sign.
"In any case I may probably hope to receive soon from you a friendly reply; console me also with the assurance that you have forgiven me, and accept in return the assurance of the sincerest devotion and esteem128 of your most indebted
RICHARD WAGNER." [32]
Lachner at once got the score of Rienzi from Fischer, and wrote to Wagner (October 13) expressing his pleasure at the prospect129 of an early production of the opera. "In spite, however, of his sincere endeavours," says R?ckl, "Rienzi was not put into rehearsal. The reading committee felt the subject to be inadmissible on religious grounds."
In July 1860, von Frays had the idea of giving the Flying Dutchman, and wrote to Wagner on the matter. Wagner thought that Lachner had been the moving spirit in this, and thanked him warmly in a hitherto unpublished letter of 20th August 1860.[33] But again Wagner's malignant130 demon131 intervened. Von Frays had to resign the Intendantship on account of illness, and his successor abandoned the Flying Dutchman project owing to the expense of the new inscenation. It was taken up again in 1864, and produced on the 4th December, Wagner conducting. Lachner had taken most of the rehearsals132, and, though not much in sympathy with the work, he plainly did his best with it.[34]
The reader is now in a position to estimate the true value of Wagner's disparaging133 references to Lachner in Mein Leben. He seems to have started out with a prejudice against him that nothing could alter. Lachner was admittedly by temperament134 and training, and both as conductor and composer, in the opposite camp to Wagner. This, however, only entitles him to the more commendation for the pains he took to establish Wagner in Munich, and for the care he expended135 upon the performances.[35] Wagner nurses his imaginary grievance136 against the man, persists in believing that he is prejudicing all Munich against him, insults him, and denies him his door in Zürich; and then, when he has need of him, writes to him in the friendliest and most flattering way. Finally, when he pens his memoirs, he forgets all that Lachner had, on his own admission, done for him, forgets his own letters of thanks, and refers to him throughout in a tone of scarcely-veiled contempt and dislike. What conclusion can we come to except that it would be imprudent of us to accept, without corroborative137 evidence, Wagner's disparaging record of anyone he detested138? No doubt he found Lachner in his way when, under cover of King Ludwig's favour, he was trying to transform the musical life of Munich. But even if Lachner did intrigue139 against him then, as the Wagnerians always hold, he was simply acting140 in self-defence; and in any case Wagner, when he came to write his autobiography, should not have passed over Lachner's earlier services to him without a word, and still less have given the unsuspecting reader the impression that Lachner's opposition to him began several years before it actually did. Once more we feel that had Wagner only postponed141 the writing of Mein Leben for a few years, till he had quite got over the bitterness of his Munich failure, the book would have been both pleasanter in tone and more reliable in fact.
Let us now take another case—his treatment of Hanslick in Mein Leben. At one time these deadly enemies had been friends.[36] In the course of years Hanslick's antipathy142 to Wagner became more and more pronounced, and by the spring of 1861, when Wagner visited Vienna, the critic of the Neue Freie Presse was an opponent to be feared. Wagner, as he more than once tells us, never troubled to be particularly polite to critics; but in Vienna he seems, by his own account, to have been gratuitously143 rude to Hanslick. The critic was introduced to him on the stage at a rehearsal of Lohengrin. "I greeted him curtly144, and as if he were a total stranger; whereupon Ander, the tenor, introduced him to me a second time with the remark that Herr Hanslick was an old acquaintance of mine. I replied shortly that I remembered Herr Hanslick very well, and turned my attention to the stage again."[37] The opera singers did their best to smooth matters over, but Wagner was irreconcilable145; and to his refusal to be friendly with Hanslick he attributes his subsequent failure to make headway in Vienna.
A little while after, they met again at a dinner party at Heinrich Laube's, where Wagner refused to speak to Hanslick.[38] They met a third time, at an evening party at Frau Dustmann's, who was to sing Isolde in the projected performance of Tristan. Wagner being, as he tells us, in a good temper, he treated the critic as "a superficial acquaintance." Hanslick, however, drew him aside, "and with tears and sobs146 assured me that he could no longer bear to be misjudged by me; whatever extraordinary there might be in his judgment147 of me was due not to any malicious148 intention, but solely149 to his limitations; and that to widen the boundaries of his knowledge he desired nothing more ardently150 than to learn from me. These explanations were made with such an explosion of feeling that I could do nothing but try to soothe151 his grief, and promise him my unreserved sympathy with his work in future. Shortly after my departure from Vienna I heard that Hanslick had praised me and my amiability152 in unmeasured terms."[39]
Whether Wagner's account of the interview is strictly153 accurate or not, we have no means of knowing; but the story, even as he tells it, indicates that Hanslick was not at this time a hopelessly prejudiced or evil-natured antagonist116. In November 1862 they met again at the house of Dr. Standhartner in Vienna. Wagner read the Meistersinger poem to the company. "As Dr. Hanslick was now supposed to be reconciled with me, they thought they had done the right thing in inviting him also. We noticed that as the reading went on the dangerous critic became paler and more and more out of humour; and it was noticed that at the end he could not be persuaded to stay, but took his leave at once with an unmistakable air of irritation154. My friends all agreed that Hanslick regarded the whole poem as a pasquinade against himself, and the invitation to listen to it as an outrage155. And truly from that evening the critic's attitude towards me underwent a striking change; it ended in an intensified156 enmity, of the consequences of which we were soon made aware."[40]
The innocence157 of it, the air of perfect candour, of conscious rectitude, of surprise that men should be found so base as Hanslick proved himself to be! Would it be believed from this ingenuous158 record that Wagner had given Hanslick the most unmistakable cause of offence? It may have occurred to more than one reader to ask how Hanslick managed to recognise a caricature of himself in Beckmesser. It is hardly likely that he could have done so from the poem alone. We may be tolerably sure he had something more to go upon.
We possess three prose sketches159 of the Meistersinger libretto. The first was made in 1845, the second and third—there is hardly any difference between the two—in the winter of 1861. The actual libretto was written in Paris in November 1861 and January 1862. In the second sketch160 the Marker is given the name of "Hanslich."[41] In the third he becomes "Veit Hanslich." In these two later sketches the Marker is drawn161 with a perceptibly harsher hand. That the conferring of this name on the Marker was something more than a passing joke is shown by its appearing in both sketches, and not merely in the list of dramatis person?, but written out in full throughout. These two sketches were made, as we have seen, after the first meeting of Wagner and Hanslick in Vienna in 1861. With an author so fond of reading his own works to his friends as Wagner was, it is incredible that news of Hanslick being satirised as the pedantic162 Marker in the forthcoming opera should not have spread through musical Vienna, and have reached the critic's ears. His feeling, therefore, at the party in November 1862, that the shaft163 was aimed at himself may safely be put down not so much to his own intuition as to a pre-suspicion of the truth. He would be quite justified164, then, in regarding the invitation to be present at the reading as an insult. But even if we allow no weight at all to this theory, in spite of its inherent probability, what are we to think of Wagner's later conduct? He tells us more than once of Hanslick's enmity towards him; he makes no mention of himself having treated Hanslick, in the Meistersinger sketches, in a way that the critic and his friends could only regard as insulting. Hanslick was of course hopelessly wrong about Wagner the musician; but after Wagner's brusque treatment of him whenever he met him, and after the attempt to ridicule165 him in the Meistersinger, who will say that Hanslick was under any obligation to be fond of Wagner the man? Yet it is only Wagner's side of the case, as usual, that is given us in Mein Leben.
The autobiography, then, has to be used with caution: not that Wagner, I suppose, ever consciously perverted166 the truth, but that it was impossible for him to believe he was ever in the wrong in his judgments167 of other people, and that it would therefore be necessary to let the reader have the whole of the story in order that he might judge for himself. Nor can the careful student of his letters resist the feeling that Wagner was often writing with at least one eye on the possibility of the publication of his words at some time or other. His intense egoism—I use the term here in no condemnatory168 sense, but simply to denote the passion of vigorous temperaments169 like his for mastery—his intense egoism could probably not bear the thought that any estimate of his conduct but his own should obtain currency. Time after time we feel that his letters to and about Minna are speeches of the counsel for the defence, addressed to a larger audience than their first recipient170. Here again it is only a thick-fingered psychological analysis that would write him down as a deliberate trickster. Wagner was in some respects a selfish man, as numberless testimonies agree; but he was not a bad man in the sense that it ever gave him pleasure to inflict171 suffering. His heart no doubt bled for Minna, but it is probable that he pitied her out of the vast fund of ?sthetic and ethical feeling that was in him, as in all artists, without being a motive172 part of his life. The commonest daily facts prove that a musician need not have a beautiful soul of his own in order to write beautiful music or to perform music beautifully. This implies no conscious insincerity; it is simply the actor's faculty173 for dramatisation, for momentary174 self-hypnosis. And many of them can carry the exercise of this faculty beyond art into life itself. Wagner was apparently one of these. When he pitied Minna, it was in the abstract, detached way that we pity Desdemona or Cordelia on the stage—without feeling in the least impelled175 to rise from our seats and run any personal risk in order to save her. Nietzsche, who, for all his tendency to over-write his subject, often saw to the secret centre of Wagner's soul, was always laying it down that the instinct of the actor was uppermost in everything Wagner did. "Like Victor Hugo," he says, "he remained true to himself even in his biography—he remained an actor."[42] An actor he certainly is in many of his letters—an actor so consummate176 as to deceive not only his audience but himself. And so, when we read the plentiful177 and handsome certificates of good conduct that he gives himself, in Mein Leben and the letters, with regard to Minna,[43] we may be pretty sure that he believed every word he said, and really regarded himself as a monumentally patient and saintly sufferer of unmerited misfortunes. But the Hornstein and other affairs have shown us that Wagner is not always a perfectly veracious178 witness in his own behalf; and we may reasonably decline to give him a verdict in this or that episode of the Minna matter on his unsupported testimony.
What I have called his passion for self-justification is shown in nothing more clearly than in the device of postponing179 his autobiography for some thirty years after his death, when the persons so liberally criticised in it would all be tolerably certain to be no more. It is singular, indeed, how fortunate Wagner has been in having the stage to himself throughout. This has materially helped to create and sustain the Wagnerian legend. Most of the people with whom he came into unfriendly or only partially180 friendly relations in his youth or middle age died before it was realised what a world-figure he was to become; consequently they have left hardly any records of their impressions of him. Meyerbeer, for example, died in 1864. We need not take up any brief for Meyerbeer as a whole; but will anyone contend that if we could get his account of his dealings with Wagner, the present story would not have to be modified at many points? Wagner, it must be confessed, was often lacking in delicacy of soul. Had Liszt and Bülow, Wesendonck and Wille, Cornelius and Tausig been equally indelicate, and written as frankly181 of Wagner the man as he has written of them, would not many features of Wagner's portraits of all of them need altering? And if Minna had had something of her husband's literary faculty and passion for special pleading, could she not have shown more alloy182 than he ever suspected in the golden image he loved to make of himself? Everywhere, in fact, in dealing5 with the memoirs and the letters, we have to remember that we are face to face with an artist who is as persuasive183 as he is powerful, with an overwhelming lust for mastery and for unfettered self-realisation, and with a faith in himself that must have made other people's occasional scepticism a pure mystery to him. Wherever, then, his written words involve the interpretation184 of his own or other men's acts and motives185, they are to be accepted with caution. For the rest, the psychologist can only be thankful that Wagner poured himself out in such profusion186. Let us now try to trace from his own records his general development as a man.
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1
justifiable
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| adj.有理由的，无可非议的 | |
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impartial
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| adj.(in,to)公正的，无偏见的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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brutally
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| adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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autobiography
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| n.自传 | |
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testimonies
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| （法庭上证人的）证词( testimony的名词复数 )； 证明，证据 | |
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11
constructive
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| adj.建设的，建设性的 | |
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psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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tragically
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| adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地 | |
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copious
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| adj.丰富的，大量的 | |
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publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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steadfastness
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| n.坚定，稳当 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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aquiline
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| adj.钩状的，鹰的 | |
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irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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dealer
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| n.商人，贩子 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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yearned
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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heresy
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| n.异端邪说；异教 | |
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31
revolve
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| vi.(使)旋转；循环出现 | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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34
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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tyrant
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| n.暴君，专制的君主，残暴的人 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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lengthy
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| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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chary
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| adj.谨慎的，细心的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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46
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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50
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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51
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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52
glossing
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| v.注解( gloss的现在分词 )；掩饰（错误）；粉饰；把…搪塞过去 | |
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53
repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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54
well-being
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| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
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55
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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56
veracity
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| n.诚实 | |
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57
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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58
implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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59
baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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60
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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61
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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credible
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| adj.可信任的，可靠的 | |
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memoir
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| n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录 | |
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64
allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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65
animus
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| n.恶意；意图 | |
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66
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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67
eccentricities
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| n.古怪行为( eccentricity的名词复数 )；反常；怪癖 | |
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obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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71
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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72
sneering
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| 嘲笑的，轻蔑的 | |
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73
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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74
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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75
raved
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| v.胡言乱语( rave的过去式和过去分词 )；愤怒地说；咆哮；痴心地说 | |
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76
hamper
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| vt.妨碍，束缚，限制；n.(有盖的)大篮子 | |
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77
appeased
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| 安抚，抚慰( appease的过去式和过去分词 )； 绥靖（满足另一国的要求以避免战争） | |
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78
reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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provocation
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| n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因 | |
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81
disparagement
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| n.轻视，轻蔑 | |
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82
alludes
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| 提及，暗指( allude的第三人称单数 ) | |
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83
retrieve
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| vt.重新得到，收回；挽回，补救；检索 | |
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84
seclusion
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| n.隐遁，隔离 | |
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85
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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86
contrive
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| vt.谋划，策划；设法做到；设计，想出 | |
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87
censure
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| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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88
muster
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| v.集合，收集，鼓起，激起；n.集合，检阅，集合人员，点名册 | |
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89
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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90
caustically
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| adv.刻薄地；挖苦地；尖刻地；讥刺地 | |
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91
memoirs
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| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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92
omission
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| n.省略，删节；遗漏或省略的事物，冗长 | |
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93
scrupulous
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| adj.审慎的，小心翼翼的，完全的，纯粹的 | |
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94
libretto
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| n.歌剧剧本，歌曲歌词 | |
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95
librettist
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| n.(歌剧、音乐剧等的)歌词作者 | |
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96
paltry
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| adj.无价值的，微不足道的 | |
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97
vocal
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| adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目 | |
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98
depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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99
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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100
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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101
incompetent
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| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
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102
knave
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| n.流氓；（纸牌中的）杰克 | |
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103
overture
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| n.前奏曲、序曲，提议，提案，初步交涉 | |
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104
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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105
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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106
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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107
postponement
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| n.推迟 | |
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108
cholera
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| n.霍乱 | |
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109
honorarium
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| n.酬金，谢礼 | |
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110
rehearsal
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| n.排练，排演；练习 | |
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111
tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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112
friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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113
emboldened
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| v.鼓励，使有胆量( embolden的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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114
conspired
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| 密谋( conspire的过去式和过去分词 )； 搞阴谋； （事件等）巧合； 共同导致 | |
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115
frays
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| n.（使布、绳等）磨损，磨破( fray的名词复数 )v.（使布、绳等）磨损，磨破( fray的第三人称单数 ) | |
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116
antagonist
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| n.敌人，对抗者，对手 | |
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117
antagonists
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| 对立[对抗] 者，对手，敌手( antagonist的名词复数 )； 对抗肌； 对抗药 | |
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118
imprinted
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| v.盖印（imprint的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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119
exculpation
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| n.使无罪，辩解 | |
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120
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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121
reciprocate
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| v.往复运动；互换；回报，酬答 | |
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122
entrusted
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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123
emboldens
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| v.鼓励，使有胆量( embolden的第三人称单数 ) | |
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124
inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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125
remunerative
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| adj.有报酬的 | |
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126
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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127
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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128
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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129
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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130
malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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131
demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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132
rehearsals
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| n.练习( rehearsal的名词复数 )；排练；复述；重复 | |
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133
disparaging
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| adj.轻蔑的，毁谤的v.轻视( disparage的现在分词 )；贬低；批评；非难 | |
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134
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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135
expended
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| v.花费( expend的过去式和过去分词 )；使用（钱等）做某事；用光；耗尽 | |
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136
grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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137
corroborative
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| adj.确证（性）的，确凿的 | |
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138
detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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139
intrigue
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| vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋 | |
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140
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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141
postponed
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| vt.& vi.延期，缓办，（使）延迟vt.把…放在次要地位；[语]把…放在后面（或句尾）vi.（疟疾等）延缓发作（或复发） | |
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142
antipathy
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| n.憎恶；反感，引起反感的人或事物 | |
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143
gratuitously
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| 平白 | |
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144
curtly
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| adv.简短地 | |
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145
irreconcilable
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| adj.（指人）难和解的，势不两立的 | |
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146
sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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147
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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148
malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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149
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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150
ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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151
soothe
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| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
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152
amiability
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| n.和蔼可亲的，亲切的，友善的 | |
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153
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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154
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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155
outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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156
intensified
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| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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157
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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158
ingenuous
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| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
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159
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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160
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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161
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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162
pedantic
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| adj.卖弄学问的；迂腐的 | |
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163
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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164
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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165
ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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166
perverted
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| adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落 | |
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167
judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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168
condemnatory
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| adj. 非难的，处罚的 | |
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169
temperaments
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| 性格( temperament的名词复数 )； （人或动物的）气质； 易冲动； （性情）暴躁 | |
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170
recipient
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| a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器 | |
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171
inflict
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| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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172
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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173
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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174
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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175
impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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176
consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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177
plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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178
veracious
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| adj.诚实可靠的 | |
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179
postponing
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| v.延期，推迟( postpone的现在分词 ) | |
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180
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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181
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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182
alloy
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| n.合金，(金属的)成色 | |
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183
persuasive
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| adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的 | |
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184
interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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185
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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186
profusion
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| n.挥霍；丰富 | |
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