RICHARD WAGNER 339 as Capellmeister there (January, 1843). In the following year the " Flying Dutchman " was not so enthusiastically received, hut it has since easily distanced the earlier work in popular favor. The story was suggested to his mind during the stormy voyage from Riga ; and it is a remarkable fact that the wonderful tone-picture of Norway's storm-beaten shore was painted by one who, till that voyage, had never set eyes on the sea. In 1845 his new opera, *' Tannhauser," proved at first a comparative failure. The subject, one which had been proposed to Weber in 1814, attracted Wagner while he was in Paris, and during his studies for the libretto he found also the first suggestions of " Lohengrin " and " Parsi- fal." The temporary failure of the opera led him to the consideration and self- examination which resulted in the elaborate exposition of his ideal (in " Opera and Drama," and many other essays). " I saw a single possibility before me," he writes, " to induce the public to understand and participate in my aims as an artist." "Lohengrin" was finished early in 1848, and also the poem of " Sieg- fried's Tod," the result of Wagner's studies in the old Nibelungen Lied ; but a too warm sympathy with some of the aims of the revolutionary party (which reigned for two short days behind the street barricades in Dresden, May, 1849) rendered his absence from Saxony advisable, and a few days later news reached him in Weimar that a warrant was issued for his arrest. With a passport procured by Liszt he fled across the frontier, and for nearly twelve years the bitterness of exile was added to the hardships of poverty. It is this period which is mainly respon- sible for Wagner's polemical writings, so biting in their sarcasm, and often unfair in their attacks. He was a good hater ; one of the most fiendish pamphlets in existence is the "Capitulation " (1871), in which Wagner, safe from poverty (thanks to the kindness of Liszt and the munificence of Ludwig II., of Bavaria), and nearing the summit of his ambition, but remembering only his misfortunes and his slights, gloated in public over the horrors which were making a hell of the fairest city on earth. There is excuse at least, if not justification, to be found for his attacks on Meyerbeer and others ; there are considerations to be taken into account while one reads with humiliation and pity the correspondence between Wagner and his benefactor, Liszt ; but it is sad that an affectionate humane, intensely human, to say nothing of an artistic, nature, could so blas- pheme against the first principles of humanity. In 1852 the poem of the "Nibelungen Ring Trilogy" was finished. In 1854 " Rheingold" (the introduction of " Vorabend") was ready, and " Die Wal- kure " (Part I.) in 1 856. But " tired," as he said, " of heaping one silent score upon another," he left " Siegfried" unfinished, and turned to the story of "Tristan." The poem was completed in 1857, and the music two years later. At last, in 186 1, he received permission to return to Germany, and in Vienna he had the first op- portunity of hearing his own " Lohengrin." For three years the struggle with fort- une seems to have been harder than ever before, and Wagner, in broken health, had practically determined to give up the unequal contest, when an invitation was sent him by Ludwig II., the young King of Bavaria — "Come here and finish your work." Here at last was salvation for Wagner, and the rest of his life was
