did know that all these scandalous rumours had been flying about for years, that the “entertainment” was not ordinary opera, that the opening of Bayreuth was to mark the beginning of a millennium—­a new moral, religious, political and goodness knows what sort of era.  Bayreuth from the first had attracted a very disagreeable set of persons, men whom fathers would not allow to speak to their daughters—­or to their sons.  Wagner himself had invited ridicule by claiming that his theatre was not to be a mere opera-house, but, as he told Sir Charles Halle, the centre of the intellectual and artistic world.  “A noble ambition!” scornfully replied the pianist.  In a word, nothing was done to conciliate; everything was done to create resentment and opposition.  King Ludwig’s unpopularity must not be forgotten.  Not Bavarians only, but all the German-speaking peoples, knew Bavarian national finances to be in a deplorable, desperate condition, and it seemed to them scandalous that State funds should be used—­as, rightly or wrongly, was thought—­for Ludwig’s own gross, unspeakable pleasures.  While the Germans were thus alienated, Wagner immediately after 1871 had stirred up the wrath of the French by speaking of the German army as the “world-conquerors”; he had angered the English musicians by the many remarks concerning them uttered by or attributed to him after his exploits with the Philharmonic society.  He had written against the Jews, and though their finest musicians were with him, the bulk were against him.

That the performances were in many respects admirable, indeed without any precedent, we are bound to believe.  The artists, great and little, had toiled for months to attain perfection.  Most of the orchestra, headed by Wilhelmj, had slaved without payment that there might be no deficiencies in their department.  The stage machinery, crude though it seems to us nowadays when we read of it, was on all sides reckoned marvellous.  Interminable rehearsals had been held, Wagner supervising them all.  In the end, even the anti-Wagnerites who went to curse, admitted that unheard-of results had been achieved:  they would not give in about the music, which remained, in their crass ears, “without form or melody”; and we may therefore the more readily accept their testimony as to Wagner’s supremacy as a musical director.  The late Mr. Joseph Bennett’s reports—­and he was till his last breath a violent anti-Wagnerite—­are typical:  they may be read in the files of the Daily Telegraph, and are well worth reading.  But, alas! when those heartless people called accountants came to add up their mysterious sums and to put figures on the credit side and on the debit side, they proved incontestably that an appalling deficit was the most obvious result of the whole proceedings; and if Wagner had any doubts, the steady inflowing tide of bills to be met must have finally convinced him.  To pay the deficit, dresses and scenery had to be sold; and for a time, at any rate, it was clear the theatre