e school which has now ousted the older
inartistic men. It was precisely this fact that maddened the older men
and their friends.

Another discomforting circumstance was Wagner's intense Germanism. It
was through his efforts that Weber's remains were brought from the
Roman Church in Moorfields and re-interred in Dresden (December,
1844); for the ceremony he compiled some funeral music and delivered
an oration. He was not content to claim Germany for the Germans: he
claimed all Europe, or at least all European art, for the Germans. The
Germans themselves were contentedly jogging on with the hybrid music
of Spontini, Bellini, Donizetti, Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn; and Wagner
never tired of telling them to create an art of their own, or really
he would have to do it for them. He did as well as talked and wrote;
he produced the nearest thing he could find to pure German opera--for
instance, Marschner's _Adolph von Nassau_ in 1845. Of course, he
ceased not to press Weber upon his audiences; and Weber at that period
appears to have gone temporarily out of favour. Wagner lived in an
atmosphere of depreciation and disapprobation which must have got upon
his nerves and hastened the catastrophe--that of his taking active
part in the attempted revolution. Sneers from artistic enemies
outside; whimpering and nagging inside because he would not conform to
court rules, and seek popularity as a good livery-wearing conductor
should--no wonder he gave a sigh of relief at quitting Dresden.

He had no option. The Prussian troops were ruthless; the judges were
paid to "punish" those whose crime was fighting for their ordinary
rights; and as the judges' billets would not have been worth twenty
minutes' purchase if they had not obeyed orders, they cheerfully
obeyed them. It is a fine thing to accept a handsome salary to do
dirty work and to call the doing of it doing your "duty": duty is a
fine word that has covered a million crimes since it was invented.
Bakunin, who said Richard Wagner was "a visionary"--obviously meaning
a harmless fool--and many others got long terms of imprisonment.
Wagner had left the town without leave, and for that offence he was
dismissed from his post at the opera. Next, the police issued a
warrant for his arrest.

He had gone quietly to visit Liszt at Weimar, meaning to "lie low"
till the storm had blown by. He was apparently quite unconscious of
having broken any laws. Liszt was not so easy in his mind. He made