sides with indications of sympathetic interest in the completion of my great lyric work, although most of my acquaintances regarded the whole thing as a chimera, or possibly a bold caprice.  The only one who entered into it with any heartiness or real enthusiasm was Herwegh, with whom I frequently discussed it, and to whom I generally read aloud such portions as were completed.  Sulzer was much annoyed at the remodelling of Siegfrieds Tod, as he regarded it as a fine and original work, and thought it would be deprived of that quality if I decided to alter it to any extent.  He therefore begged me to let him have the manuscript of the earlier version to keep as a remembrance; otherwise it would have been entirely lost.  In order to get an idea of the effect of the whole poem when rendered in complete sequence, I decided, only a few days after the work was completed in the middle of December, to pay a short visit to the Wille family at their country seat, so as to read it aloud to the little company there.  Besides Herwegh, who accompanied me, the party there consisted of Frau Wille and her sister, Frau von Bissing.  I had often entertained these ladies with music in my own peculiar fashion during my pleasant visits to Mariafeld, about two hours’ walk from Zurich.  In them I had secured a devoted and enthusiastic audience, somewhat to Herr Wille’s annoyance, as he often admitted that he had a horror of music; nevertheless, he ended in his jovial way by taking the matter good humouredly.

I arrived towards evening, and we attacked Rheingold at once, and as it did not seem very late, and I was supposed to be capable of any amount of exertion, I went on with the Walkure until midnight.  The next morning after breakfast it was Siegfried’s turn, and in the evening I finished off with Gotterdammerung.  I thought I had every reason to be satisfied with the result, and the ladies in particular were so much moved that they ventured no comment.  Unfortunately the effort left me in a state of almost painful excitement; I could not sleep, and the next morning I was so disinclined for conversation that I left my hurried departure unexplained.  Herwegh, who accompanied me back alone, appeared to divine my state of mind, and shared it by maintaining a similar silence.

However, I now wished to have the pleasure of confiding the whole completed work to my friend Uhlig at Dresden.  I carried on a regular correspondence with him, and he had followed the development of my plan, and was thoroughly acquainted with every phase of it.  I did not want to send him the Walkure before the Rheingold was ready, as the latter should come first, and even then I did not want him to see the whole thing until I could send him a handsomely printed copy.  But at the beginning of the autumn I discerned in Uhlig’s letters grounds for feeling a growing anxiety as to the state of his health.  He complained of the increase in his serious paroxysms of coughing, and eventually of complete hoarseness.  He thought