any rate, the highest promise. Not even that can
justly be claimed for them. _Die Feen_ has a certain atmosphere and a
set artistic purpose which may, in the light of his subsequent
achievements, be taken as an indication, a small hint, that the
subsequent achievements were possible. So much, but not more, may be
conceded. _Das Liebesverbot_ is known to me only from descriptions and
brief quotations, but these suffice to show that here is not the true
Wagner. Of the orchestral music--the overtures and the symphonies--I
have heard oftenest and studied most closely the C major Symphony. Let
us take it first.

Already I have referred to the absence of what, in the popular
acceptation of the word, might be called the "romantic" element in
Wagner's daily life during this period, and the symphony supports my
suggested explanation. In the letters, in accounts written by Dorn and
others, we find fire, enthusiasm, even a good deal of blatherskite and
wild vapouring, but scarcely a hint of "poetry," of the special
poetical sense, of the poet's outlook on life: and in his music he was
chiefly occupied in mastering the technical side of the craft,
assimilating, and at the same time emancipating himself from, the
lessons with Weinlig, and, absorbed in the task, simply letting
romance, poetry, imagination, fancy and the rest go hang; his
practical outward life was devoted to talking what he thought was
politics and drinking lager.

Though the symphony is worth looking at because it shows how far
Wagner had then got, the general interest in it has for thirty years
been its history. It has led to a deal of unnecessarily acrimonious
and barren dispute. Wagner's disagreeable diatribes aimed subsequently
at the Jews were, and are, in part attributed to Mendelssohn's
behaviour regarding it. It was sent to Mendelssohn; and that
industrious gentleman never referred to the subject. Wherefore we are
asked two things--to contemn the Jew and accept the symphony as a
manifestation of tremendous genius. Possibly Mendelssohn never clapped
eyes on the symphony. Had he done so, one would have expected him to
pay Wagner a superficial, insincere compliment about the score, and
imply that something might be done, etc. We have Richard's written
word for it that Mendelssohn never referred to Wagner's work. All the
same, what I believe may have been the case, and what Wagner most
certainly would not have believed to be the case, is that Mendelssohn
saw