else. I cannot and will not endure any more the martyrdom of
things done by halves. With this my new conception I withdraw
entirely from all connection with our theatre and public of
to-day; I break decisively and for ever with the formal present.

"Do you now ask me what I propose to do with my scheme?--First
of all to carry it out, so far as my poetical and musical powers
will allow. This will occupy me at least three full years. And
so I place my future quite in R----'s hands; God grant that
they may remain unfalteringly true to me!

"I can only think of a performance under quite other conditions.
I shall erect a theatre on the banks of the Rhine, and issue
invitations to a great dramatic festival. After a year's
preparation, I shall produce my complete work in a series of
four days.

"However extravagant this plan may be, it is, nevertheless, the
only one to which I can devote my life and labours. If I live to
see it accomplished, I have lived gloriously; if not, I die for
something grand. Only this can still give me any pleasure."

His creditors from Dresden were everlastingly at his heels; even in
Dresden, with a substantial and regular salary, he could not keep out
of debt--though it must be remembered that older debts pursued him
from the Riga days, and even earlier. By April of 1856 the _Valkyrie_
was scored and _Siegfried_ begun; next year he finished the first act
of the latter. His life, apparently, went on pretty much as before;
but the financial situation was rapidly becoming intolerable--even to
him. The famous invitation to write an opera for Rio de Janeiro
arrived, and he promptly set to work on the subject he had mentioned
in a letter to Liszt a few years before, _Tristan and Isolda_. His
health grew worse than ever, and somehow he found the means to spend
the winter in Venice. Then he settled for a while in Lucerne, and
completed _Tristan_.

Afterwards he removed to Paris, where in 1860 he gave some concerts;
in the same year the score of _Tristan_ was issued; next year came the
_Tannhaeuser_ fiasco at the opera, and later he heard _Lohengrin_, in
Vienna, for the first time; next he stayed for a while at Biebrich,
and finally settled in Vienna.

This is all the biography of ten of the fullest years of his life that
we need trouble about at present. His everyday existence is only
diversified and variegated by little anecdot