However, there is—­or was in Wagner’s case—­a divinity that shapes our ends.  Much as he hungered after comforts, luxuries and the flesh-pots of Egypt, the daemon within his breast was too strong for him.  He had planned a new work, more or less on the lines of Rienzi, and perhaps some lucky or unlucky accident might have sent him the inspiration to start with the music.  But just at this juncture Lehrs’ copy of the Saengerkrieg attracted his attention:  the complete drama of Tannhaeuser, and the first vague notion of Lohengrin, flashed upon him.  As he said, and as I have repeated, a new world was opened before his amazed eyes.  The Saracen Young Woman and the rest all went to the wall; and when on April 7, 1842, he set out for Dresden he had different plans altogether in his head.  Before he could start Schlesinger advanced the money for more cornet-a-piston arrangements of opera-airs, and he had to take the scores of those operas amongst his luggage.

As yet I have said nothing about his acquaintance with Liszt.  It began at this time, and of course was destined to have wonderful results, but for the moment it was of no importance.  Wagner was an unknown composer; Liszt was a world-famous pianist.  Wagner, moreover, had written only Rienzi and the Dutchman, and was unable even to play them on the piano.  He probably made only the slightest impression on Liszt.  The incident is worth noticing in this chapter, because, though this Paris episode seems to be nothing but a series of disasters, it is an instance of the good that came of it.  Wagner undoubtedly learnt a lot about the stage; he got to know Liszt; he had the world of Tannhaeuser and Lohengrin opened out to him.  When he went off to Dresden and touched German soil once more he swore he would never again leave his fatherland.  But he had learnt what his fatherland was quite unable to teach him.  His friends said his character changed entirely during this period.  Undoubtedly it did change:  the Wagner who had aimed only at worldly, commercial success, changed into Wagner the artist whose sincerity carried him through all troubles to the crowning triumph—­and discomfiture—­of Bayreuth.  I have referred before to the fact of the old momentum keeping him going in a certain direction even after he knew that direction to be a wrong one; and the same thing was to occur again, as we shall see in a moment.  After writing the Dutchman he actually deliberated as to the wisdom of doing another Rienzi.  The claims of his stomach were, naturally after a two years of semi-starvation, very strong, and another Rienzi might have meant easily earned bread-and-butter.  But the Paris change was fundamental; and even if he had tried to do another Rienzi he could not possibly have done it.  Without his knowing it, the artist in him had triumphed over the merely commercial composer.

CHAPTER VI