The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1909-05-09

with . stupid, unsympathstio wife and
an indifferent or hostile world. NOT
6isyphua 20 toilsd UP tho mountain %
did this nervous Little Saxon, t~orfnontod
by promsthean ambitions and stuns by
the ssdAy Of domestic misery's It not
q wonder that 10 wrote anything after
1Risnzii' IL was an unhappy marriages.
much more unhappy one than b Car
lyles'. Jane Carlyle was . woman OF
character, brsins; above all she posssssed
humor. but poor Minna Wagner had moth
iDs bat q fair share Of good looks. which
she o outsrew; slender abilities a.
an actress. Q spoonful Of brains; coupled
with these qualities . nagsins. Jealous
disposition. Wamer's life was Q hell.
Almost every letter in this collection
shows II. Nor was the unfortunats
woman Il blame at every point. Fol
nearly thirty years she saw failure writ
large over the attempts made by her hus-
band to achieve not fame alone but Q
footing, . homo. She didn't help mat
ters with her constant advice to compose
popular music- second SRienzi' was her
conception Of Wsgner's powers. All else
to her was the dream Of the genial )unatic,
whose brain was turned by dattery
-women's 6attery, AZ she bitterly re-
marked. Nor must she be blamed for
not discerning the genius Of her Richard.
After trailing over Europe--he was the
Wandering Jew Of m~usio-often in actual
want, her spirit and health broken, one
hope after another shattered, should
she too DO condemned for her lack OF
faith? With Liszt there was only a hand
ful Of choice spirits ~ho recognized the
genius Of Wagner.
1t Ii q grave defect Of recently pub
lished Wagner letters that one-half our
enjoyment ID cut Oh by the suppression
Of one-hak Of the correspondence. The
Liszt-W Wagner letters are q complete whole;
we see mirrored therein the souls OF one
noble man and another less noble. though
a genius, and sorely tried by fate. Some
day whom We know al We shall be able
to build up . definite picture Of Wagner.
He wa ungrateful, to be sure. but not in
his letters to Liszt. Without Liszt he
would have no doubt by sheer force OF
his genius stumbled through somehow;
but without Liszt's music We should not
have the Wagner We know to-day. That
mysterious Usbsrgang in Riohard's style.
In his very ideas and the orchestral color
Of them dates from his acquaintance with
Lis1t's compositions. He literally alb
sorbed Liszt, a. he absorbed all that Ber-
lios could give him. Think Of the early
operas with their Wholesale plagiarisma
from Meysrbesr. Weber. Marsohner.
above all. from the composer Of 'Hans
Heiling' (lsas). Sixty years ago critics
didn't sorupls to denounoe -The Flying
Dutohman" a. q steal from Marsohner-
which precisely It was not; and then tho
magnificent transferenoe Of the Schubert
and Schumann songs to tho scores Of
the Ring and Die Meistersinger.'
Shakespeare, Handel and Wagner are the
three master assimilators-and who cares
q rap for their original sources to-day?
All great art ID q link In q chain. Ham
let the Messiah Tristan and Isolde
had their precursors. They are moro
original than the originals. Al Emerson
would say.
We complained of tho one sidedness Of
these ketters. The same was almost the
case with tho Wagner Wesendonck let
tors. but few Of tho lady's were printed,
and, while We admire tho tact displayed
In Withholding the epistles Of Wagner's
prototype Of Isolde. why print all of
his? Mr.. Ellis dwells upon the 'delicaoy'
displayed by Wahnfried in not directly
fathering tho correspondence Of Wagner
with Minna. We know all about that
rare 'dsNoacy.' It peeps out at every
page Of these delightful letters. Richard
the martyr; Richard the good husband;
Richard. bon bosrosois; Richard playing
tag In ohildish glee with hts child wife
Though her seniority In years Is care
fully insisted upon); Richard full OF wise
saws; Richard begging tho poor deserted
devil not to drink German champagne
Certainly q horrible thing for Minna to
have done). and Richard posing as a de-
ceived husband Whitewash, and again
whitewash! Minna did resort to drugs
and she did listen to scandal: Of the latter
there was always plenty on tap at Dresden
and elsewhere. To the Wesendonck
affair it il hardly necessary here to
refer; Il Minna had not intercepted and
opened that letter, il she had not gone
hotfoot and shrill voiced to Otto Wesen-
uOnCk, II sac IRo HOt ScCUboA CT0u "0
sendonck-h these thin@ had not come
to pass she would have saved herself a
world Of misery and her husband much
agony. His letters. however. are the
quintessence Of kindness; il he no longer
loved Minna he pitied her.
In all the interesting letters in these
two volumes We find that Minna has been
raking Richard over the Goals. Follow
the translator's advice and read first Lot
ter III; therein Richard presents his side
OF the question, defends the homer OF
the Wesendonck naturally and. rightly
enough. prays Minna to forget. to for
give. He admits he loved Mathilde.
and Mlnna could neither forget nor for
give; but follow this lad letter with the
247th, and perhaps. despite its elaborate
explanations. We may realize that Wagner
always played fast and loose with his
vito. No doubt he loved her. and he
loved other women. On page IL there
10 Q f~ootnote which gives tho gist Of a
letter to Cornelius; from 1t We learn that
. letter and . package had arrived at an
inopportune moment when Minna was
visiting her husband ct Bieberich on tho
Rhine. OF course abe was enrased, a.
the letter 1t least. II not the gifts, came
from Madame Wessndonok; and this,
remember. VA In 1854, several, years
after the alleged rupture with the wesen-
donoks. Tho truth 10 Wagner was al
ways intimate with this cultured couple,