r her
open disbelief in his genius and his creeds; and yet he thought he
could not prosper without her.

In 1860 he is again borrowing money for her, and writing to Liszt:

"According to a letter; just received, D. thinks it necessary to refuse
me the thousand francs I had asked for, and offers me thirty louis d'or
instead. This puts me in an awkward position. On the one hand I am, as
usual, greatly in want of money, and shall decidedly not be able to
send my wife to Loden for a cure, unless I receive the subvention I had
hoped for."

These letters to Liszt make a remarkable literature. The two men were
bound together by such artistic sympathy, and Liszt was so much a
soldier for Wagner's crusade, and so ready with financial help, that he
was more than friend or brother. It was, in Wagner's own phrase, "the
gigantic perseverance of his friendship," that endeared him beyond
words to the struggler. Even Minna seems to have been extremely fond of
Liszt--what woman was not? It was to Liszt that she was indebted for
rescue from downright starvation. More than this, Minna's parents were
supported _via_ Liszt, and it somewhat beautifies the otherwise
unbeautiful spectacle of Wagner's splendid mendicancy that, when he
borrowed, it was as much for his wife and her parents as for himself.

Liszt was not the only friend in need. There was Frau Julie Ritter, who
sent him money from Dresden for several years.

This brings us to a time of stress when Minna began to suffer from the
fickleness of some one nearer to her than fortune. Wagner began to cast
meaning glances over the garden wall. As Mr. Henderson says: "He was as
inconstant as the wind, a rover, and a faithless husband. His misdoings
amounted to more than peccadilloes."

It was in Zuerich that Wagner gave Minna some other causes for
uneasiness than his habit of being late at meals. Hans Belart, in his
"Wagner in Zuerich," refers to Wagner's flirtation with Emilie Heim, the
wife of a conductor, who lived so near the Wagners that their
kitchen-gardens adjoined. Emilie was a beautiful blonde with a
beautiful voice, and she and Wagner were wont to sing duets together,
as he wrote them; and she was the soloist in a concert he gave. How
much cause Minna may have had for jealousy, we can hardly know, but it
seems certain that she felt she had a sufficiency, and that she made so
much ado about it that Wagner found it advisable to move. In later
years he and Emilie met again.