CHAPTER XVI.

1850-1854.

Wagner seeks an asylum in Paris--His reception disappointing--Leaves for Switzerland--A second time within the year he returns to Paris--Again vexed at the little recognition he meets with--Finally settles in Zurich and becomes a naturalized subject--Reflections on the French and their attitude towards art--His abruptness of speech, impatience of incapacity, and vehement declamation wear the air of rudeness--Episode at Bordeaux--He possesses the very failings of amorousness, Hebraic shrewdness, and Gallic love of enjoyment denounced by him in others--At Zurich unable to settle to work for some time--His exile the grandest part of his life as regards art--Period of repose--For five years not one single bar of music did he compose--Describes his Zurich life as spent in “walking, reading, and literary work”--His literary activity--Writes “Art and Revolution,” “The Art Work of the Future,” “Art and Climate,” “Judaism in Music,” and “Opera and Drama”--The period of his banishment the cradle of nearly all his great music-dramas: the “Nibelung’s Ring,” “Tristan and Isolde,” the “Mastersingers,” and a fragment of “Parsifal”--His pretty chalet, “The Retreat,” at Zurich. The Wesendoncks--Compares himself to the philosopher Hegel--The first printing of the Nibelung poem, 1853--Resents allusion to it as a work of literary merit--Recites portions of the lied--At Zurich conducts the opera house--Hans von Bülow his pupil--Wagner’s festival week at Zurich--Chapelmaster Lachner’s prize symphony--His health always bad: dyspepsia and erysipelas--At hydropathic establishments--His love for the animal kingdom--Anecdote of “Peps,” the Tannhäuser dog.....194