litz, where he sketched _Das
Liebesverbot_, his second opera to get finished and the first to be
performed--performed, by the way, in a very unusual fashion. Obviously
his spirits were not damped: obviously, also, the family which is
supposed not to have assisted him assisted him to the extent, at any
rate, of enabling him to take a holiday he could not pay for. He had
as yet not earned sufficient for his travelling expenses from Leipzig
to Wuerzburg and back, to say nothing of holiday trips. As on this trip
he planned _Das Liebesverbot_ his thanks were due to his family for
being able to begin that work. It is true he had Apel as a friend, but
he had not yet formed the habit of borrowing right and left, nor is
there any hint in his correspondence of Apel having paid his expenses.

I wish now to pass rapidly over two fresh adventures--the
conductorship at Magdeburg and that at Koenigsberg; but first let me
point out how the boy's was changing to a man's character. It is
plain that he worked very hard at Wuerzburg, for the score of _Die
Feen_ is a big one, and teaching his chorus must have occupied many
hours a day. It is equally plain that he set to work with the greatest
vigour on the new opera. Now, Nietzsche declared that Wagner by sheer
will and energy "made himself a musician." That is pure nonsense; but
it points to an important characteristic--namely, Wagner did not, even
at the age of twenty, trust to inspiration alone, as with his hot and
impulsive nature we might have expected, but also to unremitting work.
For the remaining fifty years of his life the labours of each day were
almost incredible.

IV

At this point the reader must be asked to bear in mind that the
operatic companies with which Wagner was connected in these early
days--until he left Riga in 1839 and set sail for Paris _via_
London--were unlike anything in existence to-day. Dickens in _Nicholas
Nickleby_ and Thackeray in _Pendennis_ gave us pictures of the old
stock theatrical companies, with all their good-fellowship, jealous
rivalries, lack of romance and understanding of the dramatic art, and
abundance of dirt. One has only to read Wagner's accounts of the
enterprises at Wuerzburg, Magdeburg, Koenigsberg, and even at Riga, or
to glance at his letters of the period, to see that these concerns
differed in no essential from the companies ruled over by Mr.
Crummles and Miss Costigan's manager. Life went on in an utterly
careless way: the reh