m in life, the result would have been notable in
the annals of the century.

Wagner seriously contemplated writing a biography of Beethoven at one
time, and devoted several months to collecting materials for it. But his
finances were still in bad shape, and he was unable to undertake it
without an order from some publisher, who would have been required to
advance money. He was unable to find such a party, and the project was
abandoned, most unfortunately, as he would have made a valuable
contribution to the subject. The short biographical sketch he wrote on
Beethoven on the centenary anniversary of the master's birth, shows
marvellous insight, especially in relation to the critical and
analytical parts of it. This work, instinct with worship of the master,
is a product of Wagner's mature years. Here, as in his earliest
utterances on Beethoven, he is the disciple glad to do homage to his
master.

"A century may pass," said Schopenhauer in a letter to the publishers of
the (English) Foreign Review and Continental Miscellany, offering to
translate Kant for them, in response to a wish he had seen expressed in
their journal that England might ere long have a translation of Kant, "a
century may pass ere there shall again meet in the same head so much
Kantian Philosophy, with so much English, as happen to dwell together in
mine." Likewise centuries may elapse before another such musician will
appear possessing the literary ability, critical faculty, ardor and
enthusiasm that Wagner had for this work.

There is an affinity between them in which mind speaks to mind. When
writing on Bach's influence on Beethoven, he says:[H] "If Haydn passed
as teacher of the youth, for the mightily unfolding art-life of the man,
our great Sebastian Bach became his leader. Bach's wonder-work became
his Bible; in it he read, and clean forgot that world of clangor heard
no longer." This describes Wagner's own spiritual relationship to
Beethoven, and the exaltation that must have been his on reading the
symphonies, the Mass in D, the overtures. He exhausts himself in praise
of each. He makes the Third Leonore Overture of as much account as the
entire opera; he continually refers to the Egmont and the Coriolanus
Overtures, and says that in the latter and in the Third Leonore,
Beethoven stands alone and beyond all imitation.

[H] Mr. Ellis's translation.

An evidence of Wagner's overpowering genius exists in the originality
and unique character