When the regular time for my lesson recurred I hesitated to present myself again; but there was no way of avoiding the difficulty, so with a tremendous exercise of will I faced the situation. What was my surprise and relief when he greeted me with "Mr. Mason, I have examined your father's book with much interest and pleasure, and his admirable treatment of the voices is most musicianly and satisfactory. Please give him my sincere regards, and thank him for his attention in sending me the book." At the moment I could not understand how such a big contrapuntist could express himself in such strong terms of approval; but I knew him to be genuine, and so I straightened myself up and really began to be proud of my father. Another and more important result was the recognition of my own ignorance in imagining that a thing in order to be great must necessarily be intricate and complicated. It dawned upon me that the simplest things are sometimes the grandest and the most difficult of attainment. I also took lessons in instrumentation from Ernst Friedrich Richter, a pupil of Hauptmann. A VISIT TO WAGNER. My parents joined me in Leipsic in January, 1852, and in the spring of that year we planned a tour which was to take us to Switzerland in June. In Leipsic I made the acquaintance of a man named Albert Wagner, meeting him quite frequently at the restaurant where I took my meals. While I was planning the tour, I chanced to mention it to him, and when he heard that I was going to Zurich, he said: "My brother, Richard Wagner, lives there. I will give you a letter of introduction to him." This was the first intimation I had that Albert was a brother of the composer. I suppose he had not thought it worth while to tell me. Richard was still under a political cloud in Saxony, and was compelled to live in exile on account of the part he had taken in the revolution of 1848; nor was his reputation as a composer then so general that Albert would have thought his kinship much to boast of. [Illustration: Autograph of Moritz Hauptmann] We reached Zurich on June 5, 1852, and, the next morning, armed with the letter, I made my way to Wagner's chalet, which was situated on a hill in the suburbs. It was then about ten o'clock in the morning. When I asked the maid who opened the door if Herr Wagner was at home and to be seen, she answered, as I had feared she would, that he was busily at work in his study, and could not be disturbed. I handed her my letter of introduction, and asked her to give it to Herr Wagner, and to say to him that I was expecting to remain in Zurich three or four days, and would call again, hoping to be fortunate enough to find him disengaged. Just as I was turning to leave, I heard a voice at the head of the stairs call out, "Wer ist da?" I told the maid to deliver my letter immediately. As soon as Wagner had glanced through it, he exclaimed, "Kommen Sie herauf! Kommen Sie herauf!"