Wagner as Man & Artist

by Ernest Newman

[78] See, for instance, Mr. Ashton Ellis's Introduction to the English edition of the letters to Mathilde Wesendonck.

[79] Especially when the wife does not believe the husband on this point. As we shall shortly see, Minna had good reasons for doubting the purely ideal attitude of Wagner towards other women.

[80] Chamberlain actually tells us (Richard Wagner, Eng. trans., p. 65) that she was "personally unknown to Wagner." Glasenapp ignores the whole episode.

[81] Mein Leben, p. 429.

[82] Mein Leben, p. 510.

[83] Mein Leben, p. 515.

[84] See Mein Leben, p. 530, and his letter to Minna of February 13, 1850.

[85] She was about twenty-two years of age.

[86] Mein Leben, p. 516.

[87] One is reminded of his calm recitals of how he almost shouldered Otto Wesendonck and François Wille off their own hearths.