his back on the great thoughts of life, on life’s colour, romance, poetry—­call it what we like.  About the Poles he is enthusiastic and fiery enough.  Hundreds of these heroes passed through Leipzig, living on charity as they went to their new homes in all quarters of the globe—­where many of their descendants live on charity to this day.  Richard wept over their griefs, and got the idea for a “Polonia” overture; and his ardour was sufficiently hot to last out until 1836, when he wrote the work at Koenigsberg.  Or it may be that he had forgotten all about the Poles till he got into the vicinity of their dismembered country.  Richard himself confesses to leading a dissipated life during this period; but probably he exaggerated when in after years he began to realize the brevity of life and to regret wasted hours.  His guide, counsellor, friend, and, I doubt not, inspirer of most of his great achievements, Praeger, tells a fine story of this part of his life; and one can have no hesitation in calling it a pack of lies.  On the other hand, forger though he was, Praeger is quite as worthy of credence as those writers who want us to believe that Wagner as a boy of fourteen had a fully developed character and clearly foresaw the Ring and Tristan as things before him, only waiting to be accomplished.  Richard was still a boy, impulsive to the point of madness, a hotheaded fanatic, with his character still in the making, his artistic purposes neither defined nor capable of being defined.  He was not yet a great man.  But he had the makings of a great man in him; and in the meantime it is much that he gained the affection of most of the people he came across.  In fact it was as true now as ever it was in later life that of those with whom he came in contact most became his friends and the rest his enemies:  few could disregard him or remain indifferent.

His apprenticeship was by no means run out in 1832.  He had written and heard performed some overtures, and he set to work and completed the big Symphony in C major, “in the style of Beethoven”; and this done he went for a holiday and to gain some little experience in Vienna.  That he could afford such a trip, when at the age of nineteen he could not contribute a penny to the household expenses, bears out what I have said about the assistance he received from his family.  He contributed nothing, and, considering his headstrong temper, only a courageous or reckless man would have prophesied that he would ever be able to contribute anything.  However, to Vienna he went, and heard Zampa—­many more times than he wished.  He heard Strauss’ waltzes and liked them; he saw Raymund’s forgotten achievements and waxed eloquent about them too.  He seems to have learnt nothing but a lively contempt for a frivolous people who had forgotten how lately Beethoven had died amongst them—­only five years before; a people who danced and made merry and went philandering while every hour cholera was carrying