seemed Utopian to the point of sheer lunacy to the very comrades with
whom he was acting. The explosion came; barricades were thrown up in the
Dresden streets, and Wagner sought to bring about a quiet ending to the
crisis by appealing to the Imperial soldiers to join with, and not to
fight against, their own countrymen. Whether he actually shouldered a
musket or not it is hard to say. This much is certain, however: that
Wagner did take part in the rising, and that a warrant was issued for
his arrest. The fiasco resulted in a great gain to music, and, as far as
Wagner was concerned, there was no political loss. Had the insurgents by
some unthinkable chance succeeded, he would soon have been on worse
terms with them than ever he was with Kings and Imperial personages.
They tried revolt because they wished to alter all the conditions under
which men lived. Wagner, too, wanted to alter the conditions of life,
but mainly with a view of carrying out his operatic reforms. Look where
we will in his writings, we see that to be the secret of all his
incursions into practical politics. Passionate--a bursting volcano of
elemental energy--he was always a man of one idea at a time, and that
idea always involved Richard Wagner playing an important rôle, for he
was one of the most splendid egoists to be met in history.




ZURICH--PARIS (1849-1861).


He was now, indeed, in a pretty pickle. At Dresden he had an assured
livelihood and time to write operas; and, despite his former experience
of hunger and want, he threw away his position for the sake of an idea.
He afterwards was wont to complain that he only wished to be kept alive