When the incidental music to—­whatever the name of his play was—­obstinately refused to be written, young Wagner may have said something, though it is not on record; but having a finer instinct than Carlyle he perceived the necessity of acquiring the technique of his new trade.  So he got possession of Logier’s Method; in a few days made a complete study of it; then he set to work in earnest —­with, alas! no more satisfactory fruits.  Something that might serve, however, was achieved, and the ambitious composer went on to a fresh struggle.  He had heard Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, so, taking Goethe’s Laune des Verliebten, he started a kind of fantasia, concocting words and music together.  An account of Wagner’s youth would be incomplete without some mention of these brave doings; they show clearly how strong the instinct which led him on to the Ring was in him at this early time—­to what an unusual degree the child was father of the man.  But to take seriously his tragedy and these first musical attempts, made at the unusually advanced age of sixteen, even if I had seen them—­which I have not:  I do not know whether they are in existence—­would be preposterous.

Richard began to see that he could make no headway, and he persuaded his family to let him take lessons from Gottlieb Mueller, who must have been a bad teacher for such a boy.  Nothing was learnt.  Richard was told he must not do this and must not do that, and he was not told what he might or should do; in the end both he and Mueller grew disgusted and the lessons were abandoned.  I dare say Mueller was in a humdrum way a good coach; he could have prepared candidates for our absurd academic examinations; but for an artistic genius, bursting with inarticulate ideas and inchoate purposes he was worse than useless.  So Richard had to muddle along as he best might, while his good relatives doubted whether he would ever be able to do anything at all, until by good fortune he tried Theo.  Weinlig.  Weinlig saw what was wrong and what was wanted; instead of Mueller’s “you must not do this or that:  it is against ‘rule,’” he explained matters and showed Richard that if he once learnt the tricks of the trade he would be able to compose just as he liked; in six months Richard had become an expert contrapuntist and could fugue it with students who had toiled for years.  “Now,” said Weinlig at the last, “you will probably never want to write a fugue, but the knowledge that you can will give you confidence.”  According to the late Mr. Dannreuther his words were, “You have learnt to stand on your own legs.”  So it came to pass that Richard’s ambition was fulfilled:  he was a musician.