for perusal and guidance.  But from that time I have never heard of a single person who had either read this pamphlet or taken any notice of it.  In the year 1864, when all my own copies had been exhausted, owing to my painstaking distribution of them, I found to my great delight, among the theatrical archives, several copies that had been sent to the Munich Court Theatre, quite intact and uncut.  I was therefore in the agreeable position of being able to procure copies of the missing pamphlet for the King of Bavaria, who wished to see it, as well as for myself and some friends.

It was a singular coincidence that the news of the diffusion of my opera through the German theatres should synchronise with my resolve to compose a work in the conception of which I had been so decidedly influenced by the necessity of being absolutely indifferent to our own theatres; yet this unexpected turn of events in no wise affected my treatment of my design.  On the contrary, by keeping to my plan, I gained confidence and let things take their own course, without attempting in any way to promote the performances of my operas.  I just let people do as they liked, and looked on surprised, while continual accounts reached my ears of remarkable successes; none of them, however, induced me to alter my verdict on our theatres in general or on the opera in particular.  I remained unshaken in my resolve to produce my Nibelungen dramas just as though the present operatic stage did not exist, since the ideal theatre of my dreams must of necessity come sooner or later.  I therefore composed the libretto of the Rheingold in the October and November of that year, and with that I brought the whole cycle of the Nibelungen myth as I had evolved it to a conclusion.  At the same time I was rewriting Junger Siegfried and Siegfrieds Tod, especially the latter, in such a way as to bring them into proper relation with the whole; and by so doing, important amplifications were made in Siegfrieds Tod which were in harmony with the now recognised and obvious purpose of the whole work.  I was accordingly obliged to find for this last piece a new title suited to the part it plays in the complete cycle.  I entitled it Gotterdammerung, and I changed the name Junger Siegfried to Siegfried, as it no longer dealt with an isolated episode in the life of the hero, but had assumed its proper place among the other prominent figures in the framework of the whole.  The prospect of having to leave this lengthy poem for some time entirely unknown to those whom I might expect to be interested in it was a source of great grief to me.  As the theatres now and then surprised me by sending me the usual royalties on Tannhauser, I devoted a part of my profits to having a number of copies of my poem neatly printed for my own use.  I arranged that only fifty copies of this edition de luxe should be struck off.  But a great sorrow overtook me before I had completed this agreeable task.  It is true, I met on all