To be sure, I experienced all this not as a reality, but only as the foretaste of a thing to come—but a thing whose coming I did not doubt, which seemed to me like a boundless wealth that was not indeed in my hands in the form of gold, but I had in my possession well-secured drafts for it. Not only did the study of the rôles afford me this enjoyment, but even the mere practice of scales and the composition of roulades, the dry work of the technic of my art, gave me gladdening and enlivening sensations. For the concept “Art” had taken hold of me with all the power that is inherent in it, that results from the worship of art in books on the history of art, and from the worship of artists by the public. When studying for the chosen calling, one feels—at least I felt—intrusted with a mission which carried with it something priestly, something holy. The question arises, Was not vanity also involved? Was I not gloating rather over the prospect of arousing admiration, of enjoying a world-wide fame (for I was not expecting anything small, thanks to my master’s indefatigable praise and expressions of wonder), or else over the thought that the heroine whom I should represent would be so graciously personified in me, that the brilliant satin train in the first acts would make my tall, slender figure so effective, and that my loosened hair in the tragic final scene would fall down below my knees in billowy natural abundance? Should I not—apart from the might of song—also as a woman set all hearts afire? Oh, but nothing, nothing should or could turn me from my art; all homage I would put away from me, every discreditable demand the proud lady in me would spurn, and every enticement to renounce the stage and enter wedlock would leave the proud artist unmoved. Whoever stands on the highest pinnacle of Art belongs henceforth and forever to its temple service. Such were my thoughts and intentions as I practiced solfeggios or wrote out my harmony exercises; and I was happy in it. We lived in absolute retirement; my guardian visited us only once or twice a month, and nothing of these musical plans was divulged to him. The first that he should learn was to be the _fait accompli_, when I had made my appearance in a great theater with overwhelming success. We had no intercourse with the families that wintered in Baden, and we never went to Vienna. It was a rigorous novitiate in art; nothing was to divert me from my studies, nothing else but learn, learn, learn, was to fill my time. I was no longer so young, and I had to make up in a single year what other pupils accomplish in four or five years.