tainly times when he is
past understanding himself. He allows himself to drift where chance will
take him,[4] like an old Scandinavian pirate laid at the bottom of his
boat, staring up at the sky; and he dreams and groans and laughs and
gives himself up to his feverish delusions. He lived with his emotions
as uncertainly as he lived with his art. In his music, as in his
criticisms of music, he often contradicts himself, hesitates, and turns
back; he is not sure either of his feelings or his thoughts. He has
poetry in his soul, and strives to write operas; but his admiration
wavers between Gluck and Meyerbeer. He has a popular genius, but
despises the people. He is a daring musical revolutionary, but he
allows the control of this musical movement to be taken from him by
anyone who wishes to have it. Worse than that: he disowns the movement,
turns his back upon the future, and throws himself again into the past.
For what reason? Very often he does not know. Passion, bitterness,
caprice, wounded pride--these have more influence with him than the
serious things of life. He is a man at war with himself.

[Footnote 4: "Chance, that unknown god, who plays such a great part in
my life" (_Memoires_, II, 161).]

Then contrast Berlioz with Wagner. Wagner, too, was stirred by violent
passions, but he was always master of himself, and his reason remained
unshaken by the storms of his heart or those of the world, by the
torments of love or the strife of political revolutions. He made his
experiences and even his errors serve his art; he wrote about his
theories before he put them into practice; and he only launched out when
he was sure of himself, and when the way lay clear before him. And think
how much Wagner owes to this written expression of his aims and the
magnetic attraction of his arguments. It was his prose works that
fascinated the King of Bavaria before he had heard his music; and for
many others also they have been the key to that music. I remember being
impressed by Wagner's ideas when I only half understood his art; and
when one of his compositions puzzled me, my confidence was not shaken,
for I was sure that the genius who was so convincing in his reasoning
would not blunder; and that if his music baffled me, it was I who was at
fault. Wagner was really his own best friend, his own most trusty
champion; and his was the guiding hand that led one through the thick
forest and over the rugged crags of his work.

Not onl