"I cannot live like a dog. I cannot sleep on straw and drink bad whiskey. I must be coaxed in one way or another if my mind is to accomplish the terribly difficult task of creating a non-existent world. Well, when I resumed the plan of the 'Nibelungen' and its actual execution, many things had to co-operate in order to produce in me the necessary, luxurious art mood. I had to adopt a better style of life than before. The success of 'Tannhäuser,' which I had surrendered solely in this hope, was to assist me. I made my domestic arrangements on a new scale. I wasted (good Lord, wasted!) money on one or the other requirement of luxury. Your visit in the summer, your example, everything, tempted me to a forcibly cheerful deception, or rather desire of deception, as to my circumstances. My income seemed to me an infallible thing. But after my return from Paris my situation again became precarious. The expected orders for my operas, and especially for 'Lohengrin,' did not come in; and as the year approaches its close I realise that I shall want much, very much, money in order to live in my nest a little longer."
That there is a plaintive and unmanly weakness in all this is not to be denied. But we have to bear in mind that if Wagner had not received the assistance of his friends and been enabled to live as he wished to live and to work according to his fancies, we should not require biographies of him, and his great dramas would not have been the delight of two continents. That there was still further weakness in the metal of this man is shown by the extremities of depression into which he sank. Suicidal thoughts were no strangers to him and restlessness and discouragement were much too common. In a letter of March 30, 1853, he says to Liszt:
"What can help me? My nights are mostly sleepless, weary, and miserable. I rise from my bed to see a day before me which will bring me not one joy. Intercourse with people who torture me and from whom I withdraw to torture myself! I feel disgust at whatever I undertake. This cannot go on. I cannot bear life much longer."
Yet in spite of these pitiable feelings the artistic impulse was all potent within him. In the beginning of 1859 he wrote to his fidus Achates: "Believe me implicitly when I tell you that the only reason for my continuing to live is the irresistible impulse of creating a number of works of art which have their vital force in me. I recognise beyond all doubt that this act of creating and completing alone satisfies me and fills me with a desire of life, which otherwise I should not understand." And yoked with these ideas always went his conviction that the world owed him a gratuitous living that he might accomplish the creative functions of his genius. In October, 1855, he wrote to the amiable Franz:
"America is a terrible nightmare. If the New York people should ever make up their minds to offer me a considerable sum, I should be in the most awful dilemma. If I refused, I would have to conceal it from all men, for everyone would charge me in my position with recklessness. Ten years ago I might have undertaken such a thing, but to have to walk in such by-ways now in order to live would be too hard—now when I am fit only to do and to devote myself to that which is strictly my business. I should never finish the 'Nibelungen' in my life. Good gracious! such sums as I might earn in America people ought to give me without asking anything in return beyond what I am actually doing, and which is the best that I can do."
And then he adds pathetically that he is better fitted to spend money than to earn it.
In such a man as Wagner the artistic traits are dominant. They rule the personality. The conviction of this man that he had in him the conception of epoch-making works, and his recognition of the fact that the world was his artistic enemy, were the moving forces of his life. Without constantly keeping this in mind, it is quite impossible to comprehend the character of Wagner. It explains at once its weakness and its strength. It accounts even for his domestic history, while it does not justify it. His first wife was a good woman, and in a way he loved her. But she was never able to become an essential part of his life, because she could not enter into his artistic thoughts and purposes. Hence she was unable to control his impulses to wander. Cosima von Bülow understood him before she went to live under the immediate influence of his mind. That they should have been drawn to one another was inevitable. He who in letters to Liszt had cried out in anguish of his need of a home and woman's care was very ready to accept them at her hands at no matter what sacrifice, and she in the same spirit was ready to give them. To her Wagner was constant in spite of the fact that temperamentally he was an inconstant man. She controlled his desires, and they needed control.
The artistic aspirations which governed his entire career made it a disappointment. Wagner died a disappointed man. That he was gratified by the production of the "Ring" at Bayreuth there need be no denial. That he enjoyed to the fullest the praises of those who seemed to comprehend his ideals is beyond doubt. But, nevertheless, he realised that he had not penetrated the public mind. He saw plainly that the applause for his works was not for their revelation of a new standpoint in operatic art, but for their purely theatrical effectiveness. The public never saw beneath the surface. He felt that he was wholly misunderstood. In a letter of 1859 to Liszt he said:
"I never had much pleasure in the performance of one of my operas, and shall have much less in the future. My ideal demands have increased, compared with former times, and my sensitiveness has become much more acute during the last ten years while I lived in absolute separation from artistic public life. I fear that even you do not quite understand me in this respect, and you should believe my word all the more implicitly."
Again and again he spoke in no doubtful terms of his knowledge that the public did not understand his aims. He was delighted by every evidence of sympathy, but he suffered untold agonies of mind from the fact that "Tannhäuser," "Lohengrin," and "Die Meistersinger" were treated by the world as mere operas, and that there was no evidence that the operatic public understood his departure from the old and insincere methods of the commercial theatre. The disappointment which Wagner experienced from the failure of the world to grasp his ideals would have continued, had he lived longer. Even now only a few ardent lovers of the loftiest things in art have entered fully into the spirit of his conceptions. One has only to attend a performance of "Siegfried" before an ordinary audience of professed Wagnerites to see how far short of a complete understanding of Wagner his friends still are. Thousands of well-meaning persons regard themselves as disciples of this unique master when they have learned the contents of Hans von Wolzogen's handbooks and can identify every leading motive in each score when it is heard in the orchestra. The praise of all such people was vinegar and gall to Wagner. He felt that he was utterly misunderstood, and that was torture to his sensitive spirit.