works, which are in reality always hampered by the superficiality of the dilettante, much should have been altered and rewritten for stage effect.  Karl would not hear of this; on the contrary, he thought he had discovered, in an intelligent theatrical manager in Stettin, the very man who would lay aside any such considerations as were peculiar to me.  He had, however, been disappointed in this hope, and had come back to Venice intending to carry out his fond desire of living aimlessly.  To wander through Rome clad in the garb of a capuchin, studying the treasures of art from hour to hour, was the kind of existence he would have preferred to any other.

He would not hear of a remodelled version of Armida, but declared his intention to set to work on some new dramatic material which he had taken from Machiavelli’s Florentine histories.  He would not specify what this material was more definitely, lest I should dissuade him from using it, inasmuch as it contained only situations, and absolutely no indication of any purpose.  He seemed no longer to have any desire to give himself up to musical work, although even in this respect the young man showed himself to me in a thoroughly interesting light by a fantasy for the piano which he had written soon after his arrival in Venice.  Nevertheless he displayed a more highly intelligent appreciation than before of the development of the second act of Tristan, in which I had at last made regular progress.  In the evening I frequently played to him, Winterberger and Tessarin, the portions I had completed during the day, and they were always deeply moved.  During the previous interruption in my work, which had lasted rather a long time, Hartel had engraved the first act of the score, and Bulow had arranged it for the piano.  Thus a portion of the opera lay before me in monumental completeness, while I was still in a fruitful state of excitement with regard to the execution of the whole.  And now in the early months of the year the orchestration of this act, which I continued to send in groups of sheets to the publisher to be engraved, also neared completion.  By the middle of March I was able to send off the last sheets to Leipzig.

It was now necessary to make new decisions for my plan of life.  The question presented itself as to where I was going to compose the third act; for I wished to begin it only in a place where I had a prospect of finishing it undisturbed.  It seemed as if this was not destined to be the case in Venice.  My work would have occupied me until late into the summer, and on account of my health I did not think I dared spend the hot weather in Venice.  Its climate about this time of the year did not commend itself to me.  Already I had found great disadvantages and anything but favourable results from the fact that it was not possible to enjoy the invigorating recreation of rambling about in this place.  Once in the winter, when I wanted a good walk, I had gone