of it, he had once more decided to take up the career of a dramatic composer, which of recent years had brought him such scant success.  His last work was an opera—­Die Kreuz-fahrer—­which he had sent to the Dresden theatre in the course of the preceding year in the hope, as he himself assured me, that I would urge on its production.  After asking this favour, he drew my attention to the fact that in this work he had made an absolutely new departure from his earlier operas, and had kept to the most precise rhythmically dramatic declamation, which had certainly been made all the more easy for him by the ‘excellent subject.’  Without being actually surprised, my horror was indeed great when, after studying not only the text, but also the score, I discovered that the old maestro had been absolutely mistaken in regard to the account he had given me of his work.  The custom in force at that time that the decision concerning the production of works should not, as a rule, rest with one of the conductors alone, did not tend to make me any less fearful of declaring myself emphatically in favour of this work.  In addition to this, it was Reissiger, who, as he had often boasted, was an old friend of Spohr’s, whose turn it was to select and produce a new work.  Unfortunately, as I learned later, the general management had returned Spohr’s opera to its author in such a curt manner as to offend him, and he complained bitterly of this to me.  Genuinely concerned at this, I had evidently managed to calm and appease him, for the invitation mentioned above was clearly a friendly acknowledgment of my efforts.  He wrote that it was very painful for him to have to touch at Dresden on his way to one of the watering-places; as, however, he had a real longing to make my acquaintance, he begged me to meet him in Leipzig, where he was going to stay for a few days.

This meeting with him did not leave me unimpressed.  He was a tall, stately man, distinguished in appearance, and of a serious and calm temperament.  He gave me to understand, in a touching, almost apologetic manner, that the essence of his education and of his aversion from the new tendencies in music, had its origin in the first impressions he had received on hearing, as a very young boy, Mozart’s Magic Flute, a work which was quite new at that time, and which had a great influence on his whole life.  Regarding my libretto to Lohengrin, which I had left behind for him to read, and the general impression which my personal acquaintance had made on him, he expressed himself with almost surprising warmth to my brother-in-law, Hermann Brockhaus, at whose house we had been invited to dine, and where, during the meal, the conversation was most animated.  Besides this, we had met at real musical evenings at the conductor Hauptmann’s as well as at Mendelssohn’s, on which occasion I heard the master take the violin in one of his own quartettes.  It was precisely in these circles that I was impressed by the touching and venerable dignity of his absolutely calm demeanour.  Later on, I learned from witnesses—­for whose testimony, be it said, I cannot vouch—­ that Tannhauser, when it was performed at Cassel, had caused him so much confusion and pain that he declared he could no longer follow me, and feared that I must be on the wrong road.