the initiated than the sweet delights
of an opium eater--a musical intoxication which does not only fill the
brain with floods of voluptuous delight, but sends thrills down the
spinal column and to the very finger-tips, like so many electric
shocks. As a boy, every experience of this sort fired my imagination
with ambition, and led to all sorts of noble resolutions, some of
which, at any rate, were carried into execution. The deepest
impression ever made on me by any work of art was at Munich, ten years
ago, when I heard for the first time Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde,"
which I was already familiar with through the pianoforte score. The
performance began at six o'clock, and I had had nothing to eat since
noon. It lasted till eleven o'clock, and one might imagine that, after
all this emotional excitement, I must have been ravenously hungry. So
I was; but without the slightest affectation, I was horrified at the
mere thought of indulging in such a coarse act as eating after
enjoying such ravishing music. So I hurried back to the hotel, eager
to get into my room and indulge in a long fit of weeping; and not a
wink did I sleep that night, the most passionate scenes from the opera
haunting me persistently, and almost as vividly as if I had been back
in the theatre.

Indeed, it was the irresistible power of Wagner's music that first
made me go to Europe, and that changed the whole current of my life.
After graduating from Harvard I had only a few dollars in my pocket;
but instead of trying to find employment and earn my daily bread, I
recklessly borrowed $500 of a good-natured uncle and went to Europe,
for the sole purpose of attending the first Bayreuth Festival. I had
about four hundred dollars when I arrived in Bayreuth, and of these I
spent two hundred and twenty-five dollars for tickets for the three
series of Nibelung performances, not knowing what would become of me
after the remaining one hundred and seventy-five dollars was spent. It
was several weeks before the performances, and Wagner had given strict
orders that no one, without exception, should be admitted to the
rehearsals. But I was not to be so easily baffled, and one afternoon I
sneaked into the lobby and succeeded in catching some wonderful
orchestral strains by applying my ear to a keyhole. But my pleasure
was short-lived. An attendant espied me and summarily ordered me off
the premises, despite my humble entreaties and attempts at bribery. I
now resolved