me news of Dresden, the
theatre, and the band. Do relieve this last Dresden longing. Do
you happen to know anything definite about the state of the
police inquiry? The fate of Heubner, Roeckel and Bakunin
troubles me much. Anyhow, these persons ought not to be
imprisoned. But don't let me speak of it! In this matter one can
only judge justly and adequately if one looks at the period from
a lofty point of view. Woe to him who acts with sublime purpose,
and then, for his deeds, is judged by the police! It is a grief
and a shame which only our times can show."

He had no real intention of returning to Paris. Earlier in the same
letter he speaks of ending the speculating by his proposed _Jesus of
Nazareth_. Indeed, the slavery of working for the market in Paris was
even more repugnant to him than the liveried bondage in Saxony.
Previous to the writing of this letter Liszt had lent him twelve
pounds, and by the end of July he was back in Zurich, and though, much
against his will, he did go to Paris again, and, in fact, much
farther, Zurich was thenceforth for some years his headquarters. His
host at first was an honest musician Alexander Mueller, who, I believe,
had known him in Wuerzburg long before; but he soon set up an
establishment of his own.

His main purpose at this time was to try to clear in his brain the
confused mass of theories and speculations concerning music, and
especially opera, which had long been seething there. _Lohengrin_, the
reader must have observed, was not a road leading anywhere, but an
impasse; a step towards the attainment of his ideal it was not: it
was, on the whole, a step backwards, although it is a much more
beautiful work than _Tannhaeuser_. Wagner's mind, like Thoreau's,
Carlyle's, Brahms', needed filtering--an operation that could only be
performed in perfect peace and loneliness. Thoreau went to Walden;
Carlyle to Craigenputtock; Brahms at any rate retired from public
musical life. They worked out their own salvation. Wagner felt he must
do the same; as we know, he did the same: hence many of those terrible
volumes of prose-writings. His mental condition is indicated in
another few sentences from the letter quoted above--

"Yet I must frankly confess that the freedom which I here inhale
in fresh Alpine draughts is intensely pleasing to me. What is
the ordinary care about the so-called future of citizen life
compared with the feeli