[234] He never had any objection to accepting money from Jews, nor to calling on their assistance in the production of his operas. The first performance of Parsifal was conducted by Hermann Levi.
[235] "If the assumption be correct that a flesh diet is indispensable in Northern climates, what is to prevent us from carrying out a rationally conducted emigration into such countries of the globe as, by reason of their luxuriant fertility, are capable of sustaining the present population of the whole world,—as has been asserted of the South American peninsula itself?... The unions we have in mind would have to devote their activities and their care—perhaps not without success—to emigration; and according to the latest experiences it seems not impossible that these northern lands, in which a flesh food is said to be absolutely indispensable, will soon be wholly abandoned to hunters of boars and big game...." Religion und Kunst, in G.S., x. 243.
[236] See Eine Mittheilung an meine Freunde, in G.S., iv. 279, and the letter to Roeckel of 23rd August 1856; also a general discussion of the subject in Henri Lichtenberger's Wagner, Poète et Penseur, pp. 109-16.
[237] See, for example, the very prejudiced and rather foolish book of Emil Ludwig, Wagner, oder die Entzauberten (1913).
[238] Afterwards in book form as the Briefe Richard Wagners an eine Putzmacherin. Vienna, 1906.
[239] We must always remember that his extremely sensitive and irritable skin made coarse fabrics intolerable to him.
[240] Briefwechsel zwischen Wagner und Liszt, ii. pp. 4, 5.
[241] "Das Überschwängliche meiner Natur." In the English version of the Correspondence this is rendered "the transcendent part of my nature."
[242] "Bedenklich"—rendered in Hueffer's version "dangerous."
[243] Briefwechsel zwischen Wagner und Liszt, ii. 10.