, where she spent the rest
of her life.

Wagner's immortal hope was not even yet dead; as late as 1863 he wrote
to Praeger from St. Petersburg:

"I would Minna were here with me; we might, in the excitement that now
moves fast around me, grow again the quiescent pair of yore. The whole
thing is annoying. I am not in good spirits: I move about freely, and
see a number of people, but my misery is bitter."

Minna herself seems to have toyed with the idea of reconciliation, for
she wrote to Praeger, who told Wagner, and received the following
bitter complaint:

"And so she has written to you? Whose fault was it? How could she have
expected I was to be shackled and fettered as any ordinary cold common
mortal? My inspirations carried me into a sphere where she could not
follow, and then the exuberance of my heated enthusiasm was met by a
cold douche. But still there was no reason for the extreme step;
everything might have been arranged between us, and it would have been
better had it been so. Now there is a dark void, and my misery is
deep."

A year later, Wagner's regret is not yet dead, and he writes to Frau
Wille:

"Between me and my wife all might have turned out well! I had simply
spoiled her dreadfully, and yielded to her in everything. She did not
feel that I am a man who cannot live with wings tied down. What did she
know of the divine right of passion, which I announce in the
flame-death of the Walkuere who has fallen from the grace of the gods?
With the death-sacrifice of love the Dusk of the Gods (Gotterdammerung)
sets in."

And again he bewails his loneliness to Praeger:

"The commonest domestic details must now be done by me; the purchasing
of kitchen utensils and such kindred matters am I driven to. Ah! poor
Beethoven! now is it forcibly brought home to me what his discomforts
were with his washing-book and engaging of housekeepers, etc., etc. I
who have praised woman more than Frauenlob, have not one for my
companion. The truth is, I have spoiled Minna; too much did I indulge
her, too much did I yield to her; but it were better not to talk upon a
subject which never ceases to vex me."

Yet he was destined to know wedded happiness some years later. And he
showed that he could make happy a woman who could understand him. As
Mr. Finck comments:

"The world is apt to side with the woman in a case like this,
especially if her partner is of the _irritabile genus_, a man of
genius. No doubt, Minna ha