At this point the reader must be asked to bear in mind that the operatic companies with which Wagner was connected in these early days—­until he left Riga in 1839 and set sail for Paris via London—­were unlike anything in existence to-day.  Dickens in Nicholas Nickleby and Thackeray in Pendennis gave us pictures of the old stock theatrical companies, with all their good-fellowship, jealous rivalries, lack of romance and understanding of the dramatic art, and abundance of dirt.  One has only to read Wagner’s accounts of the enterprises at Wuerzburg, Magdeburg, Koenigsberg, and even at Riga, or to glance at his letters of the period, to see that these concerns differed in no essential from the companies ruled over by Mr. Crummles and Miss Costigan’s manager.  Life went on in an utterly careless way:  the rehearsal for the day over, the company met in cafes or beer-gardens and stayed there until it was time to move, in view of the evening performance; any one who had a shilling spent it, while those who had no shillings accepted their friends’ hospitality and hoped for the good time coming.  Ladies quarrelled and then kissed; gentlemen threatened to kill each other in honourable duel and sank their differences deep in lager; one member left, another joined, some members seemed to go on for ever; the great times were always coming and never came.  There was a company of this sort, the head being one Bethmann, that wintered at Magdeburg and in the spring and summer months played at Lauchstaedt and Ruedelstadt; and Wagner got the position of conductor—­the first real position he had yet held, for the Wuerzburg office, after all, was a very small affair.  He now went out to conquer the world for himself; he became nominally self-dependent, though neither now nor in the future was he really so.  He did the usual round with his troop, arriving at Magdeburg in October; and arriving there, he tells us, he at once plunged into a life of frivolity.  This may be true, but we must again note the stupendous industry which enabled him to finish Das Liebesverbot in so short a time.  The most important event in Richard’s life about this time was his engagement to Minna Planer.  She is said to have been a handsome young woman; and, as impecuniosity is everlastingly an incentive to marriage, of course he married her.  In the meantime he thoroughly enjoyed directing all the rubbish of the day, the season ended and he returned to Leipzig.

The next season barely began before Bethmann, according to custom, went bankrupt; the company disbanded, and Richard was left with a young wife and nothing to live on.  An engagement at Koenigsberg proved no better; but at last the conductorship of the opera at Riga was offered to him, so off he went eagerly, never dreaming, we may suppose, of the extraordinary adventures that lay before him.  Here in outward peace he was to remain until 1839, rehearsing and directing operas; but here also he was inspired with the first