Volume II Part 2 (1/2)

Writing to the princess on the 21st of June, 1872, he e to Cosima von Bulow (_nee_ Liszt) scandalised the world and alienated even Liszt There are biographers who deny this, but in this letter to the princess, Liszt encloses Wagner's letter of most affectionate appeal for reconciliation, and with it his answer, giving his long-withheld blessing Describing this reunion with Wagner, Liszt is moved to say to the princess:

”God will pardonhis and abandoning myself entirely to it As for the world, I ae of what you call 'raphy' The only chapter that I have ardently desired to add to it, ish s this vain ”_leit- could remove the spell the Church had cast upon the princess

She sank deeper and deeper into seclusion, and during the twenty-seven years she lived in Rome she left her home in the Via del Babuino only once for twenty-four hours She grew ororius said she fairly ”sputtered spirituality” She began to write, and certain of her essays were revised by Henri Lasserre, under the name, ”Christian Life in Public,”

and idely read, being translated into English and Spanish Her chief as a twenty-four-volu title, ”Interior Causes of the Exterior Weakness of the Church” This ponderous affair she finished a few days before her death, with hand already swollen al the pen

Here in Rome, as in Russia and at Weireearier and wearier of life, and weaker and weaker, until she spent months and months in bed, and would rarely cross her door-sill To the last she and Liszt were lovers, however remote And his letters are rarely n himself, even in the final year of his life, ”Umilissie of his granddaughter Daniela von Bulow to anahter, Cosiner's home, ”Wahnfried,” in Bayreuth

It was appropriate that Liszt should spend his last years in the coner, for whose success he had been the chief crusader, as for the success of how many another famous musician, and for the charitable co, and in what countless ways! It was doubly appropriate that his last appearance in public should be at the performance of ”Tristan and Isolde”--that utmost expression of love that was fiery and lawless and yet worthy of the peace it yearned for and never found

Liszt died on the 31st of July, 1886 His will declared the princess to be his sole heir and executrix She outlived hi time On the 8th of March, 1887, she died of dropsy of the heart She was buried in the Gerrave bore the legend:

”Yonder is my hope” At her funeral they played the Requiem, Liszt had written for the death of the E her soul to rest”

CHAPTER II

RICHARD WAGNER

Surely, one would say, if love were ever to be the woof of any life, it ave to every whim and fervour of the passion an expression so nearly absolute that we are driven als are, ave full voice to desire in all its throbs until Richard Wagner created a new orchestra, a new libretto, a new music, a new harmony, and a new fabric of melody

”Tristan and Isolde” seems to be so nearly the last word in dramatised love that it seems also to be nearly the first word Frory with despair and longing, to the last nation and divinely sad with the apotheosis of adoration, this opera sounds every note of the emotion of man for woman, and woman for man

Surely, you would say, the creator of this hty passion for woe devotion

But how often, how often wethe creator from his creations, the artist fro his intention to write this very opera, Wagner said:

”As I have never in life felt the real bliss of love, I must erect a monuinning to end that love shall be thoroughly satiated I have in my head 'Tristan and Isolde,' the simplest, but fullest, ,' which waves at the end, I shall then cover ner, as so enius, spent his love chiefly upon the beings that he begot within his own heart

Every genius is ination is the Aphrodite that gives life to the Galateas that he carves I have shown by this time that certain musicians have been h to prove Wagner another, but we know it for a fact that his one great passion was for his art

There is not recorded anywhere, I think, another such idolater of ideals as Richard Wagner To his theory of the perfect ,--his heart's blood, his sensitiveness to criticisms, his extraordinary fondness for luxuries, his sense of pride, and to these he added human sacrifice,--his wife, his friends, and any one who stood in his way He ed and borrowed every penny he could scrape fro his creeds As a result, after years of humiliation such as few ainst the highest and the lowest intellects, he attained a point of glory which hardly another artist in the world's history ever reached He reached such a pinnacle that critics were not lacking who said that he often threatened to give Art abut thebut the most beneficial revolution could justify such a creed or such a life as Wagner's Both were eminently justified He reaped a superb reward, but he earned every lory came, however, he spent theh all his struggles with him; had suffered all that he suffered, without any aid from hope, without any belief in his personality or his creeds, supported only on the courage and the dog-like fidelity of a Gerner was as plainly destined for war as any Richard the Third, born with hair and teeth For he was born in the , in 1813, and the dead bodies on the battle-field were so ner's father when the child was six months old; and also threatened the life of his elder brother and of the babe hi truceless war He once said to Edouard Schure: ”The only time I ever went to sea, I barely escaped shi+pwreck Should I go to America, I am sure the Atlantic would receive ner's first love was his er, his Boswell, said: ”I verily believe that he never loved any one else so deeply as his _liebes Mutterchen_” She h she had seven children, the oldest fourteen, she got another husband before her first one was a year in his grave; the second was an actor Wagner was so fond of his h his life he never could see a Christht without tears