be consecrated through your
love, your good wishes and the deep obligation which I bear to you,
all of you who have encouraged, helped and given to me! May it be
consecrated by the German spirit which away over the centuries sends
forth its youthful morning-greeting to you."

The performance of the symphony of that artist, to whom Wagner himself
attributes religious consecration according to eye-witnesses, gave to
this festival, also "the character of a sacred celebration," as had
once been true of the great Beethoven academy in November, 1814.
At the evening celebration, however, Wagner recalled again the
large-heartedness of his King, and said that to this was due what they
had experienced to-day, but that its influence reached far beyond
civil and state affairs. It guaranteed the ultimate possession of a
high intellectual culture, and was the stepping-stone to the grandest
that a nation can achieve. Would the time soon come which shall fitly
name this King, as it already recognized him, a "Louis the German" in
a far nobler sense than his great ancestor? "Certainly no fear of the
always existing majority of the vulgar and the coarse is to prevent
us from confessing that the greatest, weightiest and most important
revelation which the world can show is not the world-conqueror but he
who has overcome the world:" thus teaches the philosopher, and we
shall soon perceive that this was also true of Wagner and his royal
friend.

The fame of this celebration, which had so deeply stirred everyone
present, resounded through all countries, appealed to all true
German hearts. And yet, how many remained even now indifferent and
incredulous! The "nation," as such, did not respond to the call. It
did not, or would not, understand it, uttered by a man who had told
us so many unwelcome truths to our face. It still lay paralyzed in
foreign and unworthy bondage, and was, besides, for the time too much
engrossed with the affairs of the empire, whose novelty had not yet
worn off.

"From morn till eve, in toil and anguish,
Not easily gained it was."

These words of _Wotan_, about his castle Walhalla, were only to
be too fully realized by our master. His "friends" alone gave him
comfort, and their number he saw constantly increase from out of the
midst of the people whose leaders in art-matters they were more and
more destined to become. The public interest was kept alive and
stirred afresh with concerts and discourses. The