you a few words in which to make me acquainted with the intentions of the adored Devrient!  Does she really wish to sing in my opera?—­that is the question.

    “Good heavens! only to know how all this stands!  I have written
    to Herr Tichatschek, and commended myself to his amiability: 
    shall I be able to count on this gentleman?”

Again, on January 4 of the following year: 

“Should it really come to this, that my opera must be laid aside for the whole winter, I should indeed be inconsolable; and he or she who might be to blame for this delay would have incurred a grave responsibility—­perhaps for causing me untold sufferings.  I cannot write to Madame Devrient; for that I am much too excited, and I know too well that my letters make no impression upon her.  But if I have not yet worn out your friendly feeling toward me, and if I can be assured that you rely upon my fullest gratitude, I earnestly beg of you to go to Madame Devrient.  Tell her of my astonishment at the news that it is she who hinders my opera from at length appearing; and that I am in the highest degree disturbed to learn that she by no means feels that pleasure in and sympathy for my work which so many flattering assurances had led me to believe.  Give her an inkling of the misery she would prepare for me, if (as I have now good reason to fear) a performance of Rienzi could not after all take place this year!  But what am I saying?  Though you may be the most approved friend of Madame Devrient, even you will not have much influence over her.  Therefore, I do not know at all what I should say, what I must do, or what advise!  My one great hope I place in you, most valued friend!  I have written to Herr von Luettichau, and herewith turn to Reissiger.  If Devrient cannot give up her Armida, if she cannot afford me the sacrifice of a whim, then all my welfare rests only on the promptness with which this opera is brought out, and my own is taken up.  I therefore fervently pray Reissiger to hurry:  and you—­I beseech you—­do the same with Devrient.  By punctuality and diligence everything can still be set right for me; for the chief thing is—­only that my opera should come out before Easter (that is to say, in the first half of March).  I am truly quite exhausted!  Alas!  I meet with so little that is encouraging, that it would really be of untold import to me if, at least in Dresden, things should go according to my wish!”

These excerpts afford some notion of the struggles and disappointments of this time—­struggles that were to be repeated when, more than twenty years later, Tristan and the Mastersingers were produced in Munich.  More need not be quoted, for the story is always the same—­delays caused by intrigues and the whims and caprice of singers, and the indifference of inartistic directors.