II

There is not much, then, to detain us during this period.  Rosalie and Albert had their engagements, Rosalie being the mainstay of the family.  On May 1, 1824 Clara made her debut.  Uncle Adolph, ceaseless in objurgations touching every one who had any connection with the court or trade theatres of the day, had to accept the situation; and, apparently in desperation, or because he found life intolerable with two nagging females in the house where he dwelt, quietly went in 1824 and married Sophie, a sister of his friend Amadeus Wendt.  Thenceforward he lived in peace at a house called “The Hut,” visiting his two nagging ladies every day, however.  One was his sister, Friederike, the other Jeannette Thomae.  He was a studious, retiring man, and in the course of time produced some books that are worthless, or all but worthless, now.  Of course the Bayreuth worshippers and idolizers of the Wagner family will have it that he, being one of the family, was inevitably a man of superlative gifts; but as I have already indicated, there is nothing to justify such an assumption.  A cultivated man of sound sense he must have been; and it is true he was in some slight touch with a few of the stronger artistic and literary spirits in that very dull and disheartening period; it is true that he influenced, wholly for good, Richard a few years afterwards.  When that is said all is said.

Richard is said to have studied English, but how much he actually learnt I never could ascertain.  I have been told with solemn mysteriousness at Bayreuth that, like the parrot, he could have rattled off our tongue with tremendous volubility had he chosen; but the fact that he never chose lends colour to the supposition that in reality he had no choice.  However, in the original or in translations he read Shakespeare; and it may be presumed that he knew Goethe and Schiller almost by heart.  Naturally he determined to rival them.  In that heyday of the big Romantic movement he just as naturally determined to rival or to beat them by piling terror on terror, horror on horror.  At that period the latest word in the theatre was melodrama of the wildest sort, and a play which did not contain a few murders, ghosts, enchanted woods and haunted castles had not the faintest chance of success.  According to Wagner’s own account he made a handsome bid for success; for nearly all the dramatis-personae came to an untimely end, and a spectre told one, not yet finished off, that if he moved another step his nose would then and there crumble to powder.

While this masterwork was in process of construction, circumstances so altered that Frau Geyer thought it wisdom to quit Dresden and return to Leipzig.  Albert, Rosalie, Louise and Clara were in various towns fulfilling engagements; she was left alone with the younger children.  In 1826 Rosalie had gone to Prague; Albert and Clara were in Augsburg; Louise had been in Breslau, had tried Berlin, then finally took a permanent post at the theatre in Leipzig.  So a move was determined on, and the family made another migration in 1827.  Richard stayed on for some time, in connection with his schooling, I presume; then he followed, incidentally taking the most momentous step in his young life.