tion of the "Mastersingers
of Nuremberg"--Final Return to Germany.

_Seeking with all the soul the Grecian land._--Goethe.

The first impression following his sudden change of fate appeared in
Wagner's own world as a good omen. "What I felt as I conceived this
music, he felt when he conducted it; what I intended to say as I wrote
it, he said as he interpreted it," he says of the Tannhaeuser
rehearsal under Liszt's direction in Weimar, where he had gone for a
few days for the sake of this "rarest of friends," who had already of
his own accord given "Rienzi" and "Tannhaeuser" in the small
Thuringian court-residence to which the Wartburg belongs.

His stay was cut short however, and disguised as a waggoner he left
the city. Unfortunately the only place which he could reach in safety
was Paris, and from this city he also speedily fled as from a dismal
spectre whose disgusting features were again recognized. And yet he
was destined to return to it, to retrieve his fortunes, with a
possible success as an opera-composer, but also to be permanently
convinced that this "modern Babylon," where others had conquered the
world with their art-substitutes, was in absolute contrast with that
which he sought and needed for his labors. But of Weimar he exclaimed:

"How wonderful! By the love of this rarest of friends, in the time
when I was homeless, I secured the long desired and true home for my
art, which I had hitherto sought in vain elsewhere. When I was doomed
to wander in foreign lands, he who had wandered so much, retired
permanently to a small town and there provided me a home."

Liszt had given up entirely his career as a performer, and acted
mainly as Hofkapellmeister at the grand-ducal court in Weimar. Wagner
made his acquaintance "in the terrible Parisian past," but did not
then understand him. Liszt, however, lovingly watched his progress
like an elder brother, and drew the misunderstood genius to his great
heart. "Everywhere and always he cared for me. Ever prompt and
decisive where aid was required, with a cordial response to all my
wishes, and devoted love for me, he was to me what I had never found
before, and with that intensity whose fullness we only comprehend when
it actually embraces us in all its vastness."

Among the inspiring mountains of Switzerland he wrote a protest
against the pretense of the momentary victors of the revolution,
that they were the protectors of art. His pamphlet, "Art and the