[Footnote 107:  This solitude struck Wagner.  “Berlioz’s loneliness is not only one of external circumstances; its origin is in his temperament.  Though he is a Frenchman, with quick sympathies and interests like those of his fellow-citizens, yet he is none the less alone.  He sees no one before him who will hold out a helping hand, there is no one by his side on whom he may lean” (Article written 5 May, 1841).  As one reads these words, one feels it was Wagner’s lack of sympathy and not his intelligence that prevented him from understanding Berlioz.  In his heart I do not doubt that he knew well who was his great rival.  But he never said anything about it—­unless perhaps one counts an odd document, certainly not intended for publication, where he (even he) compares him to Beethoven and to Bonaparte (Manuscript in the collection of Alfred Bovet, published by Mottl in German magazines, and by M. Georges de Massougnes in the Revue d’art dramatique, 1 January, 1902).]

WAGNER

“SIEGFRIED”

There is nothing so thrilling as first impressions.  I remember when, as a child, I heard fragments of Wagner’s music for the first time at one of old Pasdeloup’s concerts in the Cirque d’Hiver.  I was taken there one dull and foggy Sunday afternoon; and as we left the yellow fog outside and entered the hall we were met by an overpowering warmth, a dazzling blaze of light, and the murmuring voice of the crowd.  My eyes were blinded, I breathed with difficulty, and my limbs soon became cramped; for we sat on wooden benches, crushed in a narrow space between solid walls of human beings.  But with the first note of the music all was forgotten, and one fell into a state of painful yet delicious torpor.  Perhaps one’s very discomfort made the pleasure keener.  Those who know the intoxication of climbing a mountain know also how closely it is associated with the discomforts of the climb—­with fatigue and the blinding light of the sun, with out-of-breathness, and all the other sensations that rouse and stimulate life and make the body tingle, so that the remembrance of it all is carved indelibly on the mind.  The comfort of a playhouse adds nothing to the illusion of a play; and it may even be due to the entire inconvenience of the old concert-rooms that I owe my vivid recollection of my first meeting with Wagner’s work.

How mysterious it was, and what a strange agitation it filled me with!  There were new effects of orchestration, new timbres, new rhythms, and new subjects; it held the wild poetry of the far-away Middle Ages and old legends, it throbbed with the fever of our hidden sorrows and desires.  I did not understand it very well.  How should I?  The music was taken from works quite unknown to me.  It was almost impossible to seize the connection of the ideas on account of the poor acoustics of the room, the bad arrangement of the orchestra, and the unskilled players—­all