WAGNER AND LISZT IN THEIR CORRESPONDENCE.
By an Old Wagnerian.
No. II.— LISZT.
IT has been remarked with regard to the relations between Wagner and Liszt, as sliown in their correspondence, tiiat in friendship as in love there is always one person who worships while the other allows himself to be worshipped : that Wagner in this case takes the latter and easier part, while Liszt is the zealous admirer, it need scarcely be added. This goes some way to explain the curious phenomenon presented by the two great men, but it does not go the whole way. In most of the instances on record which illustrate the aforesaid theory, the party who worships is con- genitally prone to worship, is as soft as clay in the potter's hands, is in fact one of those clinging, pliable creatures — male or female — who look for support to a stronger being. Let me quote but one example from those friendships of authors which, pace the elder D'lsraeli, are quite as frequent as their quarrels. Any one who has read their works and their letters will easily perceive why the sensuous, impul- sive, imaginative, easily-repentant Boccaccio looked up as to a superior being to Petrarch, whom most people who know him at all know only as the senti- mental lover of Laura, but who in reality was a wit, almost a cynic, a shrewd man of the world, and a warm-hearted friend withal. But this was different in the case now under dis- cussion. Wagner's was by far the less staid, the less self-contained nature, wavering between the extremes of highest hope and deepest despair, and looking to his friend Liszt for that aid and comfort which he on his part was only too willing to grant as far as his purse and his power would go. It is indeed not too much to say that without this aid Wagner would never have written Tristan or the Niehelungen, for the simple reason that he would have died of starvation, or by his own hand, long before he could have begun them. Thoughts of suicide abound in these letters, and althouoli, as a rule, those who most frequently talk of such desperate acts are least likely to commit them, it must be owned that the situation was sufficiently desperate to make the ultima ratio of despair a likely and acceptable thing. A man teeming with ideas, prevented by the cares of life from giving reality to them, a dramatic and musical creator cut off from all contact with the theatre, and not hearing a good orchestra from one year's end to the other, a poet loving the beauties and luxuries of life with a poet's fancy, and being in want of firewood, and a warm greatcoat for the winter — skeins less entangled than these have been cut by the dagger, or the bullet of a pistol. In this emergency, then, Liszt steps in like a ' god from the machine,' succouring his friend, advising him, supply- ing the aforesaid greatcoat, and money for no end of raiment, and food, and comfort besides. Liszt's generosity in this matter can not be overpraised ; it is simply unique in history, for he was not himself a rich man. His earnings as a virtuoso had been enormous, and he might, had he been so minded, have built his soul a pleasure dome worthy of Craig y Nos, but his money had gone as fast as it came — charities of various kinds, monuments to Beethoven and Weber, had swallowed up vast sums, and would have swallowed up more had not his family insisted upon his placing his affairs in the hands of Belloni, a kind of secretary and factotum who frequently turns up in this correspondence, and seems to have been a most excellent man. Liszt, at the time over which these letters ex- tend, had rather less than two hundred pounds by way of salary from the Weimar Court, which was enough for him to live on, but not enough to lend or give Wagner 1000 francs as speedily and as often as Wagner was compelled to ask for it. The sorrow which Liszt feels at having to refuse his friend, and the sorrow which Wagner feels at his friend's sorrow, much more keenly than at the lack of the needful, are expressed with a naivete which would be almost amusing were it not so very pathetic. To return to our original problem, let the reader once more consider the positions of the two men — one on the pinnacle of fame surrounded by admiring princes, ladies, and disciples ; the other an exile, a pauper, and, as far as the world knew, the composer of one or two moderately successful operas. Let him weigh these circumstances in the balance and say which of these two men was more likely to lord it over the other to ' allow himself to be worshipped.' Supposition would naturally answer Liszt, but fact answers Wagner. In the earlier letters, which are of a merely formal character, Wagner approaches Liszt with the respect and deference due to his posi- tion, but when once the ' Dear Sir ' is exchanged for
