ntinued in the old pleasures. Wagner began again to feel more
and more his isolated position. The complete misunderstanding of
Tannhaeuser, which he began to write when he first arrived in Dresden,
and the refusals of the work by other cities, Berlin among them,
declaring it "too epic," rendered this sense of isolation complete.
The recurrence of such experiences as these showed him how far his art
was still removed from its ideal and his contemporaries from the
comprehension of their own resources. He realized the fact that his
own improved circumstances had deceived him, and that in truth the
same superficiality of life and degradation of the stage prevailed
everywhere. The course of events during the next generation but proved
the truth of this. Whatever of merit was produced met with hostility,
as in the case of our artist. The growing perception of these facts
led him gradually to revolt against the art-circumstances of his time,
and as he became convinced that the condition of art was but the
result of the social and political, indeed of the existing mental
condition of the people, he at last broke out into open revolution
against the entire system. This very agitation of soul, however,
became the source of his artistic creations, wherein he attempted to
disclose grander ideals and nobler art, and they form therefore, as in
the case of every real artist, his own genuine biography. In tracing
the origin of his works, we follow the inner current of his life.

Thus far we have availed ourselves of the biographical notes which
Wagner, prior to the representation of the "Flying Dutchman," gave to
his friend Heinrich Laube for publication in the "Zeitung fuer die
elegante Welt." We are now guided further by one of the most stirring
spiritual revelations in existence, his "Communication to my Friends,"
in the year 1851, in that banishment to which his noblest endeavors
had brought him, written with his heart's blood, as a preface to the
publication of the three opera poems, namely, "Flying Dutchman,"
"Tannhaeuser" and "Lohengrin." It is the consummation of his artistic
as well as human development out of which grew his highest creations.

We must recur to the "Flying Dutchman," whose real name was "Hel
Laender," the guide of the deadship, or the fallen sun-bark, which,
according to the Teutonic legend, conveyed the heroes to Hel, the
region of perpetual night. We shall confine ourselves however to the
later version of t