[Footnote 189: Detlev von Liliencron offered him an American subject.
"But in spite of my admiration for Buffalo Bill and his unwashed crew,"
said Wolf sarcastically, "I prefer my native soil and people who
appreciate the advantages of soap."]

But the main thing was that Wolf's creative genius had returned. In
April, 1896, he wrote straight away the twenty-two songs of the second
volume of the _Italienisches-Liederbuch_. At Christmas his friend Mueller
sent him some of Michelangelo's poems, translated into German by Walter
Robert-Tornow; and Wolf, deeply moved by their beauty, decided at once
to devote a whole volume of _Lieder_ to them. In 1897 he composed the
first three melodies. At the same time he was also working at a new
opera, _Manuel Venegas_, a poem by Moritz Hoernes, written after the
style of Alarcon. He seemed full of strength and happiness and
confidence in his renewed health. Mueller was speaking to him of the
premature death of Schubert, and Wolf replied, "A man is not taken away
before he has said all he has to say."

He worked furiously, "like a steam-engine," as he said, and was so
absorbed in the composition of _Manuel Venegas_ (September, 1897) that
he went without rest, and had hardly time to take necessary food. In a
fortnight he had written fifty pages of the pianoforte score, as well as
the _motifs_ for the whole work, and the music of half the first act.

Then madness came. On 20 September he was seized while he was working at
the great recitative of Manuel Venegas in the first act.

He was taken to Dr. Svetlin's private hospital in Vienna, and remained
there until January, 1898. Happily he had devoted friends who took care
of him and made up for the indifference of the public; for what he had
earned himself would not have enabled him even to die in peace. When
Schott, the publisher, sent him in October, 1895, his royalties for the
editions of his _Lieder_ of Moerike, Goethe, Eichendorff, Keller, Spanish
poetry, and the first volume of Italian poetry, their total for five
years came to eighty-six marks and thirty-five pfennigs! And Schott
calmly added that he had not expected so good a result. So it was Wolf's
friends, and especially Hugo Faisst, who not only saved him from misery
by their unobtrusive and often secret generosity, but spared him the
horror of destitution in his last misfortunes.

He recovered his reason, and was sent in February, 1898, for a voyage to
Trieste and Venetia t