illed with doubt and melancholy. This desire for approval
is not a weakness--it seems to stand as a natural need of every human
soul. When the great Peg Woffington played, you remember, she begged Sir
Henry Vane to stand in the wings so as to meet her when she came off the
stage, take her in his arms just for an instant, kiss her on the
forehead and say, "Well done!"

Shallow people may smile at such a scene as this, but those who have
delved in the realm of creative art know this fervent need of a word of
encouragement from One who Understands.

The one man who held the mirror up to Nature for Wagner was Franz Liszt.
Were it not for the steadfast love and faith of this noble soul, Wagner
must surely have fallen by the way. Wagner worked first to please
himself, and having pleased himself he knew it would please Franz Liszt,
and having pleased Franz Liszt he knew it would please all those as
great, noble, excellent and pure in heart as Franz Liszt. To speak to
an audience made up of such as Liszt, and have them approve, was the
sublime dream and hope of Richard Wagner.

Some of the enemies of Wagner, having placed themselves on record
against the man, have sought to make out that Wagner and Liszt often
quarreled, but this canard has now all been exploded. Such another
friendship between two strong men I can not recall. That of Goethe and
Schiller seems a mere acquaintanceship, and the friendship of Carlyle
and Emerson a literary correspondence with an eye on posterity, as
compared with this bond of brotherhood that existed between Wagner and
Liszt.

During the ten years of Wagner's exile in Switzerland he received barely
enough from his work in music to support him, and several times he would
have been in sore need were it not for the "loans" made him by Liszt. He
did not even own a piano, and never heard his scores played, except when
Liszt made a semi-yearly visit. At such times a piano would be borrowed,
and the friends would revel in the new scores, and occasionally talk the
entire night away.

When Liszt would go home after such visits, Wagner would go off on long
tramps, climbing the mountains, lonely and bereft, sure that the mood
for high and splendid work would never come again. Then some morning the
mist would roll away, the old spirit would come back, and he would apply
himself with all the intense fire and burning imagination of which his
spirit was capable.

When the score was done it was sent straig