or war as any Richard the Third, born
with hair and teeth. For he was born in the midst of the Napoleonic
wars at Leipzig, in 1813, and the dead bodies on the battle-field were
so many that they raised a pestilence, which carried off Wagner's
father when the child was six months old; and also threatened the life
of his elder brother and of the babe himself. His life was one long
truceless war. He once said to Edouard Schure: "The only time I ever
went to sea, I barely escaped shipwreck. Should I go to America, I am
sure the Atlantic would receive me with a cyclone."

Wagner's first love was his mother. In fact, Praeger, his Boswell,
said: "I verily believe that he never loved any one else so deeply as
his _liebes Muetterchen_." She must have been a woman of winning
manners, for, though she had seven children, the oldest fourteen, she
got another husband before her first one was a year in his grave; the
second was an actor. Wagner was so fond of his mother that through his
life he never could see a Christmas tree alight without tears.

There were other loves that busied his heart. He was remarkably fond of
animals, particularly of dogs. He suffered keenly when his parrot Papo
died; he wrote his friend Uhlig: "Ah, if I could say to you what has
died for me in this devoted creature! It matters nothing to me whether
I am laughed at for this." His dog Peps died in his arms, and he wrote
Praeger: "I cried incessantly, and since then have felt bitter pain and
sorrow for the dear friend of the past thirteen years, who has walked
and worked with me." One of Wagner's last plans was to write a book to
be called "A History of My Dogs." Anecdotes galore there are of his
humanity to dogs and cats and other members of our larger family.

Wagner had also a famous passion for gorgeous colours; his music shows
this. He liked fine stuffs peculiarly, and even in his pauperdom wore
silk next to his skin. When fortune found him, he made a veritable
rainbow of himself with his dressing-gowns, and even with many-coloured
trousers. His stomach was not so fond of luxury, and he was not
addicted to wine or beer, and for long periods drank neither at all. He
injured his health by eating too fast, though this was not, as in
Haendel's case, from gluttony, but from absent-minded interest in his
work. Yet there is something strangely human and captivating in the
story that, when he was eight years old, he traded off a volume of
Schiller's poems for