a load had fallen from my heart.  In triumph I showed the letter to Franck, who, much abashed, and by way of excusing himself, opened a correspondence with Frau von Luttichau, which certainly cannot have been lacking in interest, though I was never able to see any of it.  In any case, the upshot of it was that Lohengrin remained as I had originally conceived it.  Curiously enough, some time later, I had a similar experience with regard to the same subject, which again put me in a temporary state of uncertainty.  When Adolf Stahr gravely raised the same objection to the solution of the Lohengrin question, I was really taken aback by the uniformity of opinion; and as, owing to some excitement, I was just then no longer in the same mood as when I composed Lohengrin, I was foolish enough to write a hurried letter to Stahr in which, with but a few slight reservations, I declared him to be right.  I did not know that, by this, I was causing real grief to Liszt, who was now in the same position with regard to Stahr as Frau von Luttichau had been with regard to Franck.  Fortunately, however, the displeasure of my great friend at my supposed treachery to myself did not last long; for, without having got wind of the trouble I had caused him, and thanks to the torture I myself was going through, I came to the proper decision in a few days, and, as clear as daylight, I saw what madness it had been.  I was therefore able to rejoice Liszt with the following laconical protest which I sent him from my Swiss resort:  ‘Stahr is wrong, and Lohengrin is right.’

For the present I remained occupied with the revision of my poem, for there could be no question of planning the music to it just now.  That peaceful and harmonious state of mind which is so favourable to creative work, and always so necessary to me for composing, I now had to secure with the greatest difficulty, for it was one of the things I always had the hardest struggle to obtain.  All the experiences connected with the performance of Tannhauser having filled me with true despair as to the whole future of my artistic operations, I saw it was hopeless to think of its production being extended to other German theatres—­for I had not been able to achieve this end even with the successful Rienzi.  It was perfectly obvious, therefore, that my work would, at the utmost, be conceded a permanent place in the Dresden repertoire.  As the result of all this, my pecuniary affairs, which have already been described, had got into such a serious state that a catastrophe seemed inevitable.  While I was preparing to meet this in the best way I could, I tried to stupefy myself, on the one hand, by plunging into the study of history, mythology, and literature, which were becoming ever dearer and dearer to me, and on the other by working incessantly at my artistic enterprises.  As regards the former, I was chiefly interested in the German Middle Ages, and tried to make myself familiar with every point relative to