a cream puff.

Wagner's career shows a curious growth away from his early ideas. He
was at first an artistic disciple of Meyerbeer, and not only drew
operatic inspirations from him, but was saved from starving by
Meyerbeer's money and by his letters of introduction; later he came to
abhor Meyerbeer's operas, and to despise the man himself and his ways.
Wagner earned himself numberless powerful enemies by his fierce hatred
for the Jewish race, and by his ferocious attack in an article called
"Judaism in Music." Yet his first flirtation was with a Jewess, and it
was not his fault that he did not marry her. She lived in Leipzig, and
was a friend of his sister. She had the highly racial name of Leah
David, and was a personification of Jewish beauty, with her eyes and
hair of jet and her Oriental features. It has been remarked that all of
Wagner's heroes and heroines fall in love at first sight.

He began it. His first view of Leah plunged him into a frenzy. "Love
me, love my dog," was an easy task for Wagner, and he was glad of the
privilege of caressing Leah's poodle, and of mauling her piano. He
never could fondle a piano without making it howl. Now Leah had a
cousin, a Dutchman and a pianist. Wagner criticised his execution, and
was invited to do better. The man hardly lived who played the piano
worse than Wagner, and the result of the duel was a foregone defeat.
The last chapter of this romance may be quoted from Praeger:

"Wagner lost his temper. Stung in his tenderest feelings before the
Hebrew maiden, with the headlong impetuosity of an unthinking youth, he
replied in such violent, rude language, that a dead silence fell upon
the guests. Then Wagner rushed out of the room, sought his cap, took
leave of Iago, and vowed vengeance. He waited two days, upon which,
having received no communication, he returned to the scene of the
quarrel. To his indignation, he was refused admittance. The next
morning he received a note in the handwriting of the young Jewess. He
opened it feverishly. It was a death-blow. Fraulein Leah was shortly
going to be married to the hated young Dutchman, Herr Meyers, and
henceforth she and Richard were to be strangers. 'It was my first love
sorrow, and I thought I should never forget it, but after all,' said
Wagner, with his wonted audacity, 'I think I cared more for the dog
than for the Jewess.'"

Wagner entered the university at Leipzig and for a time went the pace of
student dissipations;