ourt livery had grown too tight for him. He had
had a comfortable income, and had he not been Richard Wagner he might
have vegetated happily, in the Reissiger way, for life. Minna would
have been content. Being Richard Wagner, he felt his soul strangled;
and that Minna had for some time been worrying about what he might do
next is shown by his remark to a friend--that other people had their
enemies outside their houses: _his_ enemy sat at his own table.

III

Things had not gone well at the theatre. In spite of performances
never before equalled in the town--nay, probably because of them--he
had enemies all around, especially in the Jew-controlled press. His
carefulness about rehearsals was called fussiness; his determination
that the singers should not at their own sweet pleasure mar fine
operas with interpolations, alterations and "liberties" generally, was
called interference with their rights. Even when he played
Beethoven's Pastoral and Ninth Symphonies, as they had never been
given before, he was impertinently taken to task by press scribblers
for departing from the Mendelssohn tradition. I have already expressed
the opinion that _Judaism in Music_ was a huge mistake; yet one must
own that when one considers how the Jews consistently attacked him for
venturing to challenge inferior Jew composers and conductors on their
own ground, the thing seems almost excusable. At any rate, it is
surprising that he dealt so tenderly with Mendelssohn. There is one
point always to be borne in mind. Wagner was assailed at this time not
so much _qua_ composer as _qua_ conductor. Now we of the generation of
to-day--the younger members, anyhow--are so accustomed to really able
conductors, that it is somewhat difficult to realize what things were
like throughout Europe in 1843-49. Perhaps the nearest approach to a
true idea may be formed by those who heard our own precious
Philharmonic Society under the late Cusins. As in London in the
'eighties, so in Dresden in the 'forties. Callous indifference to the
beauty of fine music and complete slovenliness in every detail of the
rendering of it went hand in hand. If Europe to-day is stocked with
competent conductors, that is a debt we owe to Wagner. Himself one of
the greatest conductors who has lived, he almost created a new art,
and by his immediate and direct example and through his pupils Buelow,
Richter, Levi and Seidl, not to mention his influence on Liszt, he
certainly created th