would never
resound from the deathly pale paper; two words I wrote to Liszt, the
answer to which was nothing else than the information that, as far as
the resources of the Weimar Opera permitted, the most elaborate
preparations were being made for the production of 'Lohengrin.'"

It was in "Lohengrin" that he first put in play his theory of the
marriage of poetry and music, his idea being their complete devotion,
with poetry as the master of the situation. He believed in independent
melodies no more than in strong-minded wives. He lived this artistic
theory in his own domestic relations, and it was not his fault that
Minna, his melody, found it impossible to live in the light upper air
of his poetry. He was so discouraged, however, by this time, by finding
no encouragement at home, and a frenzy of hostility from the
critics,--a frenzy almost incredible at this late day, in spite of the
monumental evidences of it,--that for six years, after the completion
of "Lohengrin," he wrote no music at all.

He felt that he must first prepare the soil of battle with the critics
in their own element--ink-slinging. On this fact Mr. Finck comments as
follows:

"Five years,--nay, six years, six of the best years of his life,
immediately following the completion of 'Lohengrin,'--the greatest
dramatic composer the world has ever seen did not write a note! Do you
realise what that means? It means that the world lost two or three
immortal operas, which he might have, and probably would have, written
in these six years had not an unsympathetic world forced him into the
role of an aggressive reformer and revolutionist."

He received some money, and more fame, and still more enemies as a
result of his powerful literary tilts against Philistinism. Then he
took up the Nibelungen idea, planning to devote three years to the
work; "little dreaming that it would keep him with interruptions for
the next twenty-three years." For the accomplishment of this vast
monument he asked only a humble place to work. He wrote Uhlig:

"I want a small house, with meadow and a little garden! To work with
zest and joy,--but not for the present generation.... Rest! rest! rest!
Country! country! a cow, a goat, etc. Then--health--happiness--hope!
Else, everything lost. I care no more."

He found all in Zuerich, where he and his wife rowed about the lake, and
accumulated friends. He found special sympathy in the friendship of
Frau Elise Wille, a novelist. Perhap