t, and still more to her father,
who was a never-failing friend. In a work published in 1851, Wagner
says: "I was thoroughly disheartened from undertaking any artistic
scheme. Only recently I had proofs of the impossibility of making my
art intelligible to the public, and all this deterred me from beginning
new dramatic works. Indeed, I thought that everything was at an end
with artistic creativeness. From this state of mental dejection I was
raised by a friend. By most evident and undeniable proofs, he made me
feel that I was not deserted, but, on the contrary, understood deeply
by those even who were otherwise most distant from me; in this way he
gave me back my full artistic confidence.

"This wonderful friend, Franz Liszt has been to me. I must enter a
little more deeply into the character of this friendship, which to many
has seemed paradoxical; indeed, I have been compelled to appear
repellent and hostile on so many sides, that I almost feel the want of
disclosing all that relates to this sympathetic intercourse.

"I met Liszt for the first time in Paris, and at a period when I had
renounced the hope, nay, even the wish, of a Parisian reputation; and,
indeed, was in a state of internal revolt against the artistic life I
found there. At our meeting Liszt appeared the most perfect contrast
to my own being and situation. In the Parisian society, to which it
had been my desire to fly from my narrow circumstances, Liszt had grown
up from his earliest age, so as to be the object of general love and
admiration, at a time when I was repulsed by general coldness and want
of sympathy. In consequence, I looked upon him with suspicion. I had
no opportunity of disclosing my being and work to him, and therefore
the reception I met with on his part was altogether of a superficial
kind, as indeed was quite natural in a man to whom every day the most
divergent impressions claimed access. But I was not in a mood to look
with unprejudiced eyes for the natural cause of his behaviour, which,
friendly and obliging in itself, could not but hurt me in that state of
my mind. I never repeated my first call on Liszt, and, without knowing
or even wishing to know him, I was prone to look upon him as strange
and adverse to my nature.

"My repeated expression of this feeling was afterward reported to
Liszt, just at the time when the performance of my 'Rienzi,' at
Dresden, attracted general attention. He was surprised to find hims