A VISIT TO ST. PAUL’S.
He said he would not do any work next day, and arranged that we should visit the city. We went first to the Guildhall. It was astonishing how he absorbed everything to himself, to his purposes, how his fancy freely exercised itself. Gog and Magog! they were his Fafner and Fasolt; then his humour leaped in advance of the period, and he laughingly asked me whether there was a “Götterdämmerung” in store for the City Fathers, and whether Guildhall, their Walhalla, supported by the giants Gog and Magog, would also crumble away through the curse of gold. We next went to the Mint. There, too, the central figure was Wagner; the main theme of discussion, Wagner. When the attendant put into his hands, as was the custom, a roll of cancelled bank notes, amounting to thousands of pounds sterling, he turned to me and said, “The hundredth part of this would build my theatre, and posterity would bless me.” His speech certainly savoured of the consciousness of genius. I do not think this is a euphemistic way of saying he had a good opinion of himself. I say it, because I feel it to be the truth. It was through this very consciousness that he triumphed over the many difficulties that beset him. Without it he could not have achieved what he did. The buoyancy of hope begotten of conscious strength is a powerful factor in the securing of success. The theatre he had in his mind then, I thought to be that which he had urged the Saxon authorities to establish, the scheme for which I was then well acquainted with, but his latter discourse showed how, during his exile, that original thought had amplified itself. Of our visit to St. Paul’s Cathedral I can recall but one observation of Wagner, to the effect that it was as cold and uninspiring as the Protestant creed—a strange remark from one whose own religious tendencies were Lutheran, and who could express his religious convictions so powerfully and poetically in his last work, “Parsifal.”
Richard Wagner’s intense attachment to the canine species led him to make friends with our dog, a large, young, black Norwegian beast, given me by Hainberger, the companion of Wagner in the forward movement of 1848-9, and sharer of his exile. The dog showed in return a decided affection for his newly made acquaintance. After a few days, when Wagner found that the dog was kept in a small back yard, he expostulated against such “cruelty,” and proposed to take the dog’s necessary out-door exercise under his own special care—a task he never shirked during the whole of his London stay. Whenever he went for his daily promenade, a habit never relinquished at any period of his life, the dog was his companion, no matter who else might be of the party. Nor was the control of the dog an easy task. It was a curious sight to witness Wagner’s patience in following the wild gyrations of the spirited animal, who, in his exultation of that semi-freedom, tugged at his chain, dragging the Nibelung composer hither and thither.
ANIMALS ON THE STAGE.
Part of Wagner’s daily constitutional was to the Regent’s Park, entering by the Hanover Gate. There, at the small bridge over the ornamental water, would he stand regularly and feed the ducks, having previously provided himself for the purpose with a number of French rolls—rolls ordered each day for the occasion. There was a swan, too, that came in for much of Wagner’s affection. It was a regal bird, and fit, as the master said, to draw the chariot of Lohengrin. The childlike happiness, full to overflowing, with which this innocent occupation filled Wagner, was an impressive sight never to be forgotten. It was Wagner you saw before you, the natural man, affectionate, gentle, and mirthful. His genuine affection for the brute creation, united to a keen power of observation, gave birth to numberless anecdotes, and the account of the Regent’s Park peregrinations often formed a most pleasant subject of after-dinner conversation. I should explain that though Wagner had rooms in Portland Place, St. John’s Chapel, Regent’s Park, he only took his breakfast there, and did such work in the matter of scoring in the morning, coming directly after to my house for his dog and rolls, returning for dinner and to spend the rest of the day under my roof, where also a room was provided for him.
THAT UNHAPPY DRAGON.
In our friendly talks upon the animal kingdom, we soon came to a decided dissension. I casually remarked on the ludicrous effects animals produce at times, and under all circumstances on the stage; here I found myself in direct opposition to Wagner’s notions on the subject. Had he not the dragon Fafner, the young bear in “Siegfried,” the Gräne, the steed of the Valkyrie, even the fluttering bird in the tetralogy? Was not the swan in “Lohengrin” another proof of his predilection for realistic representation of animals on the stage? It was in vain that I cited the lamentable failure of the serpent in Mozart’s “Magic Flute,” which, even at the best theatres in Germany, never produced other than a burst of hilarity at its wriggling in the pangs of death, when pierced by the three donnas; or again the two lions in the same opera which are rolled on to the stage like children’s wooden horses; or Weber’s mistake of introducing a serpent in his “Euryanthe,” which always mars that scene! But I found myself obliged to cease quoting examples, and seek a basis for establishing principles for my argument against the introduction of animals on the stage. Here more success awaited me on the strength of Wagner’s own exalted notion of the histrionic art; viz. that an actor, to be worthy of the name, must possess the creative power of a poet, and become, as it were, inspired into the state impersonated, which might not inaptly be likened to that of mesmerism. The actor must believe himself another being, must be unconscious of aught else. One such artist, he asserted, was Garrick, in the delivery of monologues, when the great tragedian was said to have isolated himself to such a degree, that though with his eyes wide open, he became, as it were, visionless. It was on this ground that I attempted my argument against Wagner’s illogical and intemperate introduction of the brute creation into his dramas. If, I argued, you will not accept an actor properly so-called, a reasoning man, unless his poetic creative fancy can enable him to transport his identity into a character entirely different from his own, how still less can you expect any animal to impersonate a set rôle in any performance? Whatever actions may be required from it, a dog will always represent a dog; a horse, a horse. Wagner saw the argument, but reluctant as at all times to confess himself beaten, he advanced “training” as a defence. This, however, served only to destroy his case the more; for he had previously reasoned, and with much force, that all training for the stage as a profession was useless, and but so much mis-directed effort and waste of time, unless the student had given evidence of a genius, which nature, alas! is chary in bestowing. So much for the introduction of real animals upon the stage; there the case is bad enough, and the results occasionally disastrous and ludicrous; but when one has to make shift with imitation, the matter is still worse. Here, too, however, Wagner was reluctant to forego the semblance as much as he was the reality. Yet, let the case be tested by oneself. Recall the bear Siegfried brings with him into the smithy, think of the ridiculous effect produced by the actor’s antics in his vain efforts to worthily perform his part and seem a real bear. There is no margin left for the imagination, and the sad attempt at a mistaken realism defeats its own purpose. It is an extraordinary feature in a poetic brain like that of Wagner, that he would cling persistently to such a realism. This subject remained always one on which we dissented, and I never failed to prognosticate a failure for his pets in the Nibelung tetralogy, which to my mind was fully proved even under his own supervision, and on the hallowed ground of Bayreuth at the performances there, which were, in all other respects, so marvellously perfect. Who is there that was terribly impressed by the sight of the dragon, or who could divest himself of the thought that a recital of the combat would have proved infinitely more impressive than the slaying of the snorting monster, however well Siegfried bears himself towards the pasteboard pitiful imitation of a fabulous beast? Who, again, would not sooner have heard a description of the wild, spirited steed, Gräne, than witness the nervous anxiety of Brünhilde in mounting and dismounting a funeral charger, which is the cynosure of all eyes while on the stage, to the loss of the music-dramatic setting? The attention of the dramatis personæ and audience is distracted from the action of the drama, and centred on the probable next movement of an animal unable to grasp the situation. This question of realism is a debatable point; but if it be not kept within strictly defined limits, I fear there will be danger of the ludicrous triumphing over the serious.
An inquiry into the probable causes of an exaggerated tendency to realism, in a man like Wagner, cannot but be interesting to those who, without bias, accept him as a master-mind. After many years of an ardent study of his character, compelled by his commanding genius, I am forced to a conclusion, the key to many of his actions, which is equally the explanation in the present instance, is the lack of self-denial. He yearned for unlimited means to achieve his purpose, and would have the most gorgeous and costly trappings, to set off his pictures of the imagination. It was the same in every-day matters of life. Nor, must I add, did he ever care from whence the means came. That this was the case in real life, all who know him will testify. How much more, then, would such a tendency be fed in realizing the vivid impressions with which his active poetical fancy so freely provided him. Unlimited means! that was the dream of his life, and up to a late period, when these means at last realized themselves by the astounding success of his works and the enormous sums they produced, his inability to curb his wants down to his actual means kept him in a state of constant trouble and yearning for freedom from those shackles.
THE THIRD LONDON CONCERT.
He accepted his humble descent, fully convinced from earliest time of having the patent of nobility in his brain—in his genius! He ever bore himself with the consciousness of superiority, but as for titles and decorative distinctions, he disdained them all. Were they not bestowed on numskulls? therefore, he has loudly proclaimed genius should not dishonour its lofty intelligence in accepting empty baubles. But riches and the profuse luxurious splendour that can be purchased thereby would not have seemed too much for him, had they equalled the fabulous possessions of a Monte Cristo. The traditional humble state of the great composers, if not actual poverty, as compared with the fortunes amassed in other arts, was a continual source of complaint with him.