calumnies of irresponsible writers did I not know that they represent
the popular opinion among the less well-informed in England of to-day,
as in Germany thirty or forty years ago. They begin with people who
ought to know better, and in time find their way into the magazines
and popular literature of the day, to be greedily read by a public
which, next to a prurient divorce case, likes nothing so well as
slander of a great man. We have heard much of late years about the
decadence of the English Press, but editors know very well the public
for whom they cater.

That Wagner's was one of those serene and universally lovable
characters who live at peace with God and man it is far from me to
wish to convey. Such men there are, and women, who seem lifted above
the meaner elements of human existence, without envy, without
reproach, untouched by its iniquities, unsullied by its vileness. Pure
themselves and self-contained they see no guile in others, or if they
see it they notice it not. Who has not met with such? who has not felt
their power? When such innate purity of soul is united with high
intellectual gifts we have the noblest creation of nature, and to have
been called "friend" by one such is the highest honour that life has
to offer.

But Wagner was not one of these. His was a stormy spirit--"The
never-resting soul that ever seeks the new." He likens himself to a
wild animal tearing at its cage and exhausting itself with fruitless
struggles. He could not make terms with falsehood and sophistry, or
leave them to perish naturally, but lived in ceaseless defiance of
them. He was a man who inspired intense, devoted love, or intense
hatred, according to the people with whom he was dealing. With his
moral character in itself we have indeed no concern, but it seems