For all this trouble and loss of time (he found himself unable in London
to do any satisfactory work on the uncompleted "Valkyrie" score), he
received the munificent sum of $1,000,--considerably less than many
Wagner singers to-day get for one evening's work. Shortly before leaving
London he wrote to a friend that he would bring home about 200
francs,--$40! For this he had wasted four months of precious time and
endured endless "contrarieties and vulgar animosities," to use his
own words.

Equally unsuccessful were his efforts, a few years later, to better
himself financially by a series of concerts in Paris (1860). They
resulted in a large deficit. Nor was he benefited by the performances of
his "Tannhäuser," which were given at the grand opera in March, 1861, by
order of Napoleon, at the request of the influential Princess
Metternich. He had refused to interpolate a vulgar ballet in the second
act for the benefit of the members of the aristocratic Jockey Club, who
dined late and insisted on having a ballet on entering the opera-house.
They took their revenge by creating such a disturbance every evening
that after the third performance Wagner refused to allow any further
repetitions, although the house on the third night had been completely
sold out. He was to receive $50 for each performance. The result was
$150, or less than 50 cents a day, for a year's hard work and no end of
worry in connection with the rehearsals.

How many men are there in the annals of art who would have refused,
after all these disappointments and bitter lessons, to make _some_
concessions? Wagner was writing a gigantic work, the Nibelung Tetralogy,
which, he was convinced, would never yield a penny's profit during his
lifetime. Sometimes despair seized him. In one of his letters he