patroness, the Princess Wittgenstein, received this note from him: "Can
you give the bearer sixty thalers? Wagner is obliged to fly, and I
cannot help him at this moment."

Early the next morning Wagner, provided with a false pass, left Weimar
and headed for Switzerland, which was to be his home for the greater
part of the following twelve years of his exile from Germany. Had he
been caught, like his friends, and, like them, imprisoned during these
years, it is not likely that the world would now possess those seven
monuments of his ripest genius, "Rheingold," "Die Walküre," "Siegfried,"
"Götterdämmerung," "Tristan and Isolde," "Die Meistersinger," and
"Parsifal." Even as it was, the world has undoubtedly lost an immortal
opera or two through his unfortunate participation in the rebellion. For
during the first four years of his exile, he did not compose any music.
He reasoned that he had written four good operas and nobody seemed to
want them; why, therefore, should he compose any more?

At the same time, he realized that there were natural reasons why his
operas were not understood. They were written in such a novel style,
both vocal and instrumental, that the singers, players, and conductors
found it difficult to perform them correctly, the consequence being that
they did not specially impress the audiences, which, moreover, were
bewildered by finding themselves listening to works so radically
different from what they had been accustomed to in the opera-houses. In
the hope of remedying this state of affairs Wagner devoted several years
to writing essays, in which he explained his aims and ideals for the
benefit both of performers and listeners. Little attention was, however,
paid to these essays, and although they are valuable aesthetic
treatises, most lovers of Wagner would gladly give them for the operas
he might have written in the same time,--operas uniting the