If I look back on my life as a whole, I can find no event that produced so profound an impression upon me.  Any one who can remember that wonderful woman at this period of her life must to some extent have experienced the almost Satanic ardour which the intensely human art of this incomparable actress poured into his veins.  After the performance I rushed to a friend’s house and wrote a short note to the singer, in which I briefly told her that from that moment my life had acquired its true significance, and that if in days to come she should ever hear my name praised in the world of Art, she must remember that she had that evening made me what I then swore it was my destiny to become.  This note I left at her hotel, and ran out into the night as if I were mad.  In the year 1842, when I went to Dresden to make my debut with Rienzi, I paid several visits to the kind-hearted singer, who startled me on one occasion by repeating this letter word for word.  It seemed to have made an impression on her too, as she had actually kept it.

At this point I feel myself obliged to acknowledge that the great confusion which now began to prevail in my life, and particularly in my studies, was due to the inordinate effect this artistic interpretation had upon me.  I did not know where to turn, or how to set about producing something myself which might place me in direct contact with the impression I had received, while everything that could not be brought into touch with it seemed to me so shallow and meaningless that I could not possibly trouble myself with it.  I should have liked to compose a work worthy of a Schroder-Devrient; but as this was quite beyond my power, in my head-long despair I let all artistic endeavour slide, and as my work was also utterly insufficient to absorb me, I flung myself recklessly into the life of the moment in the company of strangely chosen associates, and indulged in all kinds of youthful excesses.

I now entered into all the dissipations of raw manhood, the outward ugliness and inward emptiness of which make me marvel to this day.  My intercourse with those of my own age had always been the result of pure chance.  I cannot remember that any special inclination or attraction determined me in the choice of my young friends.  While I can honestly say that I was never in a position to stand aloof out of envy from any one who was specially gifted, I can only explain my indifference in the choice of my associates by the fact that through inexperience regarding the sort of companionship that would be of advantage to me, I cared only to have some one who would accompany me in my excursions, and to whom I could pour out my feelings to my heart’s content without caring what effect it might have upon him.  The result of this was that after a stream of confidences to which my own excitement was the only response, I at length reached the point when I turned and looked at my friend; to my astonishment I generally found