This was the culmination of my absurdities. What I did, above all things wrong, was a roll _fortissimo_ upon the kettle-drums, which returned regularly every four bars throughout the composition. The surprise which the public experienced changed first to unconcealed ill-humour, and then into laughter, which greatly mortified me. It was under Theodor Weinlig's teaching that he finally developed a fixed purpose of composition and something like regular study. When he first wished to marry, he could not for lack of money to provide a home for his wife. In time this difficulty was overcome, and later he started to London with his wife and his dog, which was named Robber. The terrors of that voyage impressed him so much that he was inspired with the idea for "The Flying Dutchman," one of his great operas. He was told the legend of "The Flying Dutchman" by the sailors; but long before he was able to write that splendid opera he was compelled to write music for the variety stage in order to feed his wife and himself. He wrote articles for musical periodicals, and did a great deal of what is known as "hack" work before his great genius found opportunity. One manager liked the dramatic idea of "The Flying Dutchman" so well that he was willing to buy it if Wagner would let him get _some one who knew how to write music_, to set it. After the production of "Rienzi" in Dresden, his difficulties were never again so serious, and soon he became _Hofkapellmeister_ (musical director at court), which gave him an income, leaving him free to write operas as he chose. When "Rienzi" was produced, a great musician said: "This is a man of genius; but he has already _done more than he can_! Listen to me, and give up dramatic composition!" But he continued to "do more than he could." When he wrote "Tannhaeuser" he was reduced almost to despair, for nobody liked it. Schumann said of it: "It is the empty and unpleasing music of an amateur." But Spohr wrote: "The opera contains certain new and fine things, which at first I did not like, but to which I became accustomed on repeated hearings." At last, this composer, whose inspirations had come entirely from historical subjects, found his mythological beginnings in the Scandinavian Eddas; and in a poem of the "Nibelung" he found the germ of "Siegfried." As _Kapellmeister_ of the court, Wagner did too many indiscreet things: allied himself with revolutionists and the like; and, before he knew it, he found himself an exile. Liszt was his friend, and when, on a visit to Weimar, politics made his presence hazardous, Liszt got him a passport which took him out of the country. He did not return for twelve years.