Nietzsche was right; Schopenhauer proved a powerful poison for Wagner. And Schopenhauer himself laughed at Wagner's music; he remained true to Rossini and Mozart and advised Wagner, through a friend, to stick to the theatre and hang his music on a nail in the wall; but when his library was overhauled several marginalia were discovered, one which he contemptuously wrote on a verse of Wagner's: "Ear! Ear! Where are your ears, musician?" Wagner, when Liszt adjured him to turn to religion as a consolation, replied: "I believe only in mankind." Ludwig compares this declaration with some of the latter opinions concerning Christianity, of which Wagner has said many evil things. Wagner's life was a series of concessions to the inevitable. He modified his art theories as he grew older, and with fame and riches his character deteriorated. He couldn't stand success--he, the bravest man of his day; the undaunted fighter for an idea crooked the knee to caste, became an amateur mystic and announced his intention of returning to absolute music, of writing a symphony strict in form--which, for his reputation, he luckily did not attempt. He was a colossal actor and the best self-advertiser the world has yet known since Nero. But I can't understand Herr Ludwig when he asserts that from 1866 to 1883 the composer did nothing but compose two marches, finish Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. Rather a large order, considering the labours of the man as practical opera conductor, prose writer, poet-dramatist, and composer. And then, too, the gigantic scheme of Baireuth was realised in 1876. Comparatively barren would be a fairer phrase. After Tristan and Isolde, what could any man compose? A work which its creator rightfully said was a miracle he couldn't understand. After the anecdotage of Wagner's career is forgotten, after Baireuth has become owl-haunted, Tristan and Isolde will be listened to by men and women who love or have loved. It isn't pleasant to read a book like Ludwig's, truthful as it may be in parts. Nor should he call our attention to the posthumous venom of the composer as expressed in his hateful remarks concerning Otto Wesendonk. There Wagner was his own Mime, his own Alberich, not the knightly hero who would not woo the fair Irish maid till magic did melt his will. Richard Wagner was once Tristan. CHAPTER XXVII MY FIRST MUSICAL ADVENTURE