though delicacy forbade his entering the home, to which he had
regretfully but gracefully resigned his wife, like Ruskin, though not
for the same reasons. Once he broke forth in his dilemma: "If he were
only some one that I could kill, he would have been dead before this."
But he could not interfere with "the great cause," and even Liszt,
after some estrangement, was reconciled to Wagner.

Here Wagner's existence went tranquilly and busily on for twelve years,
till he was at the threshold of his three-score and ten. And now the
genius, whom we saw but lately juggling with starvation in the slums of
Paris, we find a figure of world-wide fame, with an annual income of
$25,000 and the ability to travel to Italy in a private car. But this
luxury was his last, for his health was on the ebb. And though he took
a suite of twenty-eight rooms in the Palazzo Vendramin, in Venice, with
his wife, his own two children, Siegfried and Eva, aged twelve and
fourteen years, Daniela and Isolde, Cosima's two children by her first
husband, and two teachers, four servants, and many guests, this was but
a splendid sarcophagus; for here Wagner had but less than half a year
to live. Those who would know more of the daily comforts and suffering
of this time, can read it in Perl's book, "Richard Wagner in Venedig."
He suffered constantly more and more from heart trouble and other
torments. One day his servant heard him calling, and, hastening to his
side, found him on a divan writhing in agony; his last words were:
"Call my wife and the doctor." Cosima flew to his aid, but could not
hold back the inevitable. When the doctor came and told her that Wagner
had finished his struggle with the arch-critic, Death, she screamed and
fainted. For twenty-six hours she refused to leave his body or to take
any food, and could be dragged away only when she had fainted from
exhaustion.

And now, the erstwhile exile, living on the pittances he could wheedle
from his few disciples, died in the fame of the world. Three kings sent
wreaths to his funeral, and the city of Venice twice asked for the
privilege of giving him a final pageant. But Cosima strangely would
have no ceremony at all, and no music. "She feared it would rend her
heart in twain," says Mr. Finck, "so the procession moved along the
canal in solemn silence, broken only by the tolling of the distant
bell."

The railroad station was guarded as for the funeral of a monarch. The
express-train was not