. Richard Wagner : his life and works . aid to a disinterested object, and for a motivepurely ideal. Such an act would have been all the more toits credit and glory, since the German people itself is poor,and has not vast resources at its disposal to satisfy its in-tellectual needs, whereas the government at that epoch wasoverflowing with wealth through the terms of treaty with itsvanquished neighbor. But the powers which reigned inGermany, neglectful as usual of the interests of true art,saw in my efforts at that time, as they had done in the past,only the expression of the most extreme perso
. Richard Wagner : his life and works . aid to a disinterested object, and for a motivepurely ideal. Such an act would have been all the more toits credit and glory, since the German people itself is poor,and has not vast resources at its disposal to satisfy its in-tellectual needs, whereas the government at that epoch wasoverflowing with wealth through the terms of treaty with itsvanquished neighbor. But the powers which reigned inGermany, neglectful as usual of the interests of true art,saw in my efforts at that time, as they had done in the past,only the expression of the most extreme personal ambition,and in the institution which I projected, nothing but theextravagant demand for an extraordinary and useless repre-sentation of my own works, solely for the gratification otmy personal self-love. Thenceforth the achievement of myenterprise was left entirely to myself and my friends. 1 Richard Wagner, The Work and the Mission of My Life, autobiographytranslated by M. Edmond Hippeau (1844). Wagner, then, had innocently flat-. E W, - .CT I RICHARD WAGNER 257 During the last days of his stay in Switzerland, in De-cember, 1870, he had published his study on Beethoven, inwhich he cleverly likened his own work to that of the masterof masters, by explaining that Beethoven had been irresis-tibly led, by the continuous progression of his genius, tounite words to the orchestra in his last symphony, and thathe, Wagner, had carried out the supreme idea of the master
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