The Legacy

Should we not look for the first traces of imaginative activity as early as in childhood? The child's best-loved and most intense occupation is with his play or games. Might we not say that every child at play behaves like a creative writer, in that he creates a world of his own, or, rather, re-arranges the things of his world in a new way which pleases him? It would be wrong to think he does not take that world seriously; on the contrary, he takes his play very seriously and he expends large amounts of emotion on it. The opposite of play is not what is serious but what is real. In spite of all the emotion with which he cathects his world of play, the child distinguishes it quite well from reality; and he likes to link his imagined objects and situations to the tangible and visible things of the real world. This linking is all that differentiates the child's 'play' from 'phantasying'.
Sigmund Freud, Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming.
A man's maturity—consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child, at play.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.
Ludwig Geyer . . .
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
. . . Father Geyer . . .
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Thursday, December 26, 1878).
. . . had left him a toy theater for which he made himself some puppets, and at some point he started to write a play about knights of old.
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
“ . . . I made a little boat out of a cigar box and rag figures, with red and white shirts . . . blue ribbons around the head, and I put them out into the sunlight . . . ”
Helen A. Cooper, Thomas Eakins The Rowing Pictures.
. . . with all the men armed and arrayed in battle formation.
Medieval Sourcebook: The Battle of Hattin 1187.
The opening scene of this gory melodrama fell into his sisters' hands, and their scornful laughter was terrible to hear. It may well have been a similar play that Cacilie . . .
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
. . . Richard's eldest sister . . .
Hollis Alpert, Burton.
. . . recalled him presenting during a summer excursion to Loschwitz, where the Geyers owned a cottage.
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
May had begun, and after weeks of cold and wet a mock summer had set in.
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.
The young adventurer who was planning dramas on a Shakespearean scale almost as soon as . . .
Ernest Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner.
. . . the family had made its . . .
Alice Ferguson, Mouton brothers stake claim in Vermilionville.
. . . arrival in the country . . .
Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 6 ("The Pastoral").
. . . set up his miniature stage beside the steps on the castle hill.
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
On this high note the puppet show commences.
Herman Wouk, War and Remembrance.
As a boy, even as a child, I was thrown much upon myself.
Anthony Trollope, An Autobiography.
To be sure no one was aware of him. The family was entirely absorbed in . . .
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis.
. . . the continuing "ordinary cares of life."
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
Thus it came to pass that I . . .
Anthony Trollope, An Autobiography.
. . . an invisible scourge . . .
Richard Wagner, Das Rheingold.
. . . was always going about with some castle in the air firmly built within my mind.
Anthony Trollope, An Autobiography.
A seventh child, eight years after the last-born, I . . .
Arthur Rubinstein, My Young Years.
—fortunately or unfortunately—
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis.
. . . rang the bell at the gates of life as a belated and rather unwanted guest.
Arthur Rubinstein, My Young Years.
The family . . .
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis.
. . . were but . . .
Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop.
. . . used to him, it seemed; they suffered him among them . . .
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.
. . . while he, for his part, . . .
Leo Tolstoy, Boyhood.
. . . simply detached himself from the cold and unrewarding world and retreated into phantasy.
Frances Donaldson, P.G. Wodehouse.
Such was Wagner's response to a deep existential need—his means of escape.
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
His dreams . . .
Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay: A Novel.
. . . obscure and ambiguous . . .
Henry James, In the Cage.
. . . dreams of transcendence—
Richard Schickel, They Sorta Got Rhythm.
. . . had always been Houdiniesque: they were the dreams of a pupa struggling in its blind cocoon, mad for a taste of light and air . . .
Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventure of Kavalier & Clay: A Novel.
. . . yet enjoying in some curious way . . .
J. Moussaieff Masson, The Psychology of the Ascetic.
. . . the glory of its aloneness.
Roger Zelazny, Auto-da-Fe.
Through his sensibility and charm he was sought after as a friend. . . . But what he was searching for, and never found, was real spiritual involvement with another person.
Vivien Noakes, Edward Lear.
"I shall surely leave the world with my great longing to have seen and known a man I truly venerate, who has given me something, unsatisfied. In my childhood years I used to dream I had been with Shakespeare, had conversed with him; that was my longing finding expression."
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Friday, May 26, 1871).
He loved Geyer . . .
Robert W. Gutman, Richard Wagner: The Man, His Mind, and His Music.
. . . and gilded with mythical significance . . .
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.
. . . several lines from . . .
Harry Rusche, John Hamilton Mortimer. The Poet, 1775.
. . . a little play that Geyer wrote for the family circle in . . .
Ernest Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner.
. . . I think it was toward the end of December, 1817.
Ludwig van Beethoven, Conversation Book.
" . . . As for Richard, there's no need to worry about him. He goes his own way so quietly, . . .
Ludwig Geyer, Die Uberraschung.
. . . but he . . .
William Shakespeare, Hamlet.
. . . will find his public."
Ludwig Geyer, Die Uberraschung.
They are words, mere words, are they not? . . . But yet there is something in them—
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Der Rosenkavalier.
Had Geyer been gifted with prophetic vision he could not have painted a truer picture of . . .
Ernest Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner.
. . . a son . . .
Richard Wagner, Siegfried.
. . . who later became great—
Erik H. Erikson, Young Man Luther.
. . . by preserving in . . .
Charles Darwin, The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication.
. . . himself the clear eye of the . . .
Erik H. Erikson, Insight and Responsibility.
. . . child who satisfies . . .
U.S. Social Security Administration, Disability Requirement to Entitle a Grandchild When a Parent is Disabled.
. . . the charismatic hunger of mankind . . .
Erik H. Erikson, Young Man Luther.
. . . by waving . . .
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels.
. . . his wand of magic over the world
Richard Wagner, Die Walkure.
Geyer pinned all his brightest hopes on Richard . . .
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
. . . his tender heir . . .
William Shakespeare, Sonnet No. I
. . . and it was with a feeling of placid exultation that . . .
Mark Twain, Roughing It.
. . . the older man perceived that the lad was not entirely unresponsive to all the tender notice lavished on him.
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.
But by the autumn of 1821, when the boy was barely eight and a half years old, Geyer was already dead.
Hans Mayer, Portrait of Wagner.
On the afternoon of . . .
Adam Gopnik, The City and the Pillars: Taking a Long Walk Home.
. . . the day my father died . . .
Richard Ford, Love Lost.
. . . the old schoolmaster . . .
Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop.
. . . came and took me . . .
Richard Wagner, My Life.
. . . for a journey . . .
Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop.
. . . to the country. We walked all the way, and did not arrive until nightfall. On the way I asked him many questions about the stars, about which he gave me my first intelligent notions.
Richard Wagner, My Life.
I never saw the heavens so . . .
William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale.
. . . brim with . . .
Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop.
. . . stars—countless stars.
Bertolt Brecht, Galileo.
I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future.
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine.
It was a . . .
Mark Twain, Roughing It.
. . . dream night, the comet, the Wain, Orion, full moon, the mildest air, and motionless silence!
Cosima Wagner’s Diaries (Tuesday, October 31, 1882).
I believe I was too frightened and amazed to cry.
Richard Wagner, My Life.
In Richard’s account, . . .
Hollis Alpert, Burton.
. . . his schoolmaster had said . . .
Jerome Jerome, Three Men In A Boat.
. . . “Of you he hoped to make something.”
Richard Wagner, My Life.
I remember that for a long time after I used to imagine . . .
Richard Wagner, Autobiographical Sketch.
. . . father's posthumous approval . . .
Michael Elkin, Jerry Lewis: The former Borscht Belter, now 69, plays the Devil in Damn Yankees on Broadway.
. . . and . . .
Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography. 1907-1910.
. . . desired to please . . .
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.
. . . him; . . .
Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography. 1907-1910.
. . . suffered agonies at the thought of failure
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.
I could not help thinking . . .
Jack London, The Mutiny of the Elsinore.
'If my father were alive, what would he say to this?'
Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams.
The earliest recollections of my childhood are fixed on this stepfather and pass from him to the theater.
Richard Wagner, My Life.
Incidentally, a word about Wagner's . . .
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner.
. . . Autobiographical . . .
Sigmund Freud, An Autobiographical Study.
. . . writings:
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner.
Throughout his life . . .
Hollis Alpert, Burton.
. . . he was an . . .
Mark Twain, Roughing It.
. . . endless and remarkable raconteur. He liked most of all to delve into the past and tell of his origins
Hollis Alpert, Burton.
The reader will already have noticed . . .
K.R. Eissler, Talent and Genius.
. . . that Wagner . . .
Mark Twain, At the Shrine of St. Wagner.
. . . is above all an actor.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner.
But to continue:—
George Gordon, Lord Byron, Don Juan.
What attracted me so strongly to the theater, in which I include the stage itself, the compartments behind the scenes, and the dressing-rooms, was not so much the desire for entertainment and diversion, such as motivates today's theatergoers, but rather a tingling delight in finding myself in an atmosphere that represented such a contrast to normal life by its purely fantastic and almost appallingly attractive quality. Thus a set, or even a flat—perhaps representing a bush—or a costume or even only a characteristic piece of one, appeared to me to emanate from another world and be in a certain sense interesting as apparitions, and contact with all this would serve as a lever to lift me out of a monotonous everyday reality into that fascinating demoniacal realm.
Richard Wagner, My Life.
And so I learned that there were two kinds of reality, but that of the stage was far more real.
Arthur Miller, Timebends.
One birthday, probably his tenth, was made memorable by a sudden storm that swept the flimsy . . .
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
. . . toy . . .
Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography. 1907-1910.
. . . theater into the air, ripped the curtain to shreds, and scattered the puppets in all directions. The heavens opened, sending the audience scampering down the steps . . .
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
. . . they had to turn this way and that . . .
John Russell Brown, Shakespeare and His Theatre.
. . . in search of shelter but the bedraggled playwright continued his performance in a voice choked with tears, clasping the remains of his ruined theater in his arms.
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
The others called him, at first gaily, then imploringly; he would not hear.
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.
He eventually consented to be taken home, still weeping. For some time afterward, mutilated puppets would occasionally be discovered and returned to him by sympathetic playmates.
That was how it all began. It was his first theatrical rumpus, a characteristic clash with incalculable forces.
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
In the space of a few minutes the sky had turned black and it began to rain. Soon the rain increased until it became a stubborn downpour and the thick earth . . . changed to a blanket of mud, a hands-breadth deep.
Primo Levi, Moments of Reprieve: A Memoir of Auschwitz.
What is difficult to render in adult language is the combination, almost the fusion of delight and menace, of fascination and unease I experienced as I retreated to my room, the drains spitting under the rain-lashed eaves, and sat, hour after entranced hour, turning the pages, committing to memory . . .
George Steiner, Errata: An Examined Life.
Hardly was he well inside his room when the door was hastily pushed shut, bolted and locked. The sudden noise in his rear startled him so much that his little legs gave beneath him. It was his sister who had shown such haste.
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis.
Until then I had had so many ways out of everything, and now I had none.
Franz Kafka, A Report to an Academy.
I was glad . . .
Hermann Hesse, Demian.
. . . glad and grateful . . .
Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 6 ("The Pastoral").
. . . when I finally lay in my bed.
Hermann Hesse, Demian.
I felt that it had become my . . .
Ulrich Baer, Listening to Survivors’ Testimonies.
. . . haven of refuge
Isaac Deutscher, Israel’s Tenth Birthday.
Beyond the open window . . .
William Faulkner, Light in August (Chapter 16).
—one could hear rain drops beating on the window gutter—
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis.
. . . the sound of insects has not ceased, not faltered.
William Faulkner, Light in August (Chapter 16).
When I had lain in bed awhile, enveloped by its warmth and safety, my fearful heart turned back once more in confusion and hovered anxiously above what was now past.
Hermann Hesse, Demian.
There I lay aside . . .
Arnold Schoenberg, A Survivor From Warsaw.
. . . turning the pages, committing to memory . . .
George Steiner, Errata: An Examined Life.
. . . the contents of . . .
Jack London, The Mutiny of the Elsinore.
. . . a small book in blue waxen covers.

It was a pictorial guide to coats of arms in the princely city [of Salzburg] and surrounding fiefs. Each blazon was reproduced in color, together with a brief historical notice as to the castle, family-domain, bishopric, or abbey which it identified. The little manual closed with a map marking the relevant sites, including ruins, and with a glossary of heraldic terms.
Even today, I can feel the pressure of wonder, the inward shock which this chance "pacifier" triggered.
George Steiner, Errata: An Examined Life.
The creative writer does the same as the child at play. He creates a world of phantasy which he takes very seriously—that is, which he invests with large amounts of emotion—while separating it sharply from reality.
Sigmund Freud, Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming.
Delving back into the past, immersing himself in his childhood and adolescence, contemplating his early career, conjuring up all the joy and anguish of a lifelong quest for fulfillment—all the errors and delusions, too—Wagner was inundated with a profusion of mental images during his weeks and months in Venice . . .
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
. . . the city from which . . .
H.G. Wells, When the Sleeper Wakes.
. . . a shocked and respectful world received the news of his decease.
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.
He lived off the past and was haunted by it. He dreamed of going skating . . .
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
. . . on a frozen lake, . . .
Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams.
. . . recalled scenes from his childhood and described them to Cosima, was once more addressed in his dreams as Richard Geyer . . .
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
. . . Geyer, . . .
Theodor Herzl, Old-New Land.
. . . the name of the musician’s real father
Desmond Stewart, Theodor Herzl: Artist and Politician. A Biography of the Father of Modern Israel.
I had the lonely child's habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued. I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts, and I felt that this created a sort of private world in which I could get my own back for my failure in everyday life.
George Orwell, Why I Write.
I remember a little incident in connection with . . .
Arthur Rubinstein, My Young Years.
. . . Grandmother Geyer, who was still alive, . . .
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
. . . and shared . . .
Charles Dickens, Bleak House.
. . . her gloomy back room with some captive robin redbreasts.
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
Lest it . . .
William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale.
. . . grieve her deeply . . .
Richard Wagner, Gotterdammerung.
. . . her eldest . . .
Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
. . . son's death had to be . . .
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
. . . hidden from her . . .
Richard Wagner, Gotterdammerung.
. . . a pretense in which Richard, too, was expected to join. He took off his mourning and talked to the ailing old woman as though Ludwig still existed—strangely enough, without difficulty.
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
Be that as it may.
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.
I felt adventure in my blood . . .
Arthur Rubinstein, My Young Years.
I had put together a drama in which Shakespeare, principally through . . .
Richard Wagner, My Life.
. . . both Hamlet and Lear . . .
K.R. Eissler, Discourse on Hamlet and HAMLET.
. . . had contributed.
Richard Wagner, My Life.
Once more:
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner.
Words, words, mere words . . .
William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida.
The plot was essentially a variation of Hamlet; my alteration consisted in the fact that my hero, upon the appearance of the ghost of a father murdered in similar circumstances and calling for vengeance, is galvanized into immediate action and goes mad after a series of murders.
Richard Wagner, My Life.
The unreality of the writer's imaginative world, however, has very important consequences for the technique of his art; for many things which, if they were real, could give no enjoyment, can do so in the play of phantasy, and many excitements which, in themselves, are actually distressing, can become a source of pleasure for the hearers and spectators at the performance of a writer's work.

There is another consideration for the sake of which we will dwell a moment longer on this contrast between reality and play. When the child has grown up and has ceased to play, and after he has been labouring for decades to envisage the realities of life with proper seriousness, he may one day find himself in a mental situation which once more undoes the contrast between play and reality. As an adult he can look back on the intense seriousness with which he once carried on his games in childhood; and, by equating his ostensibly serious occupations of to-day with his childhood games, he can throw off the too heavy burden imposed on him by life and win the high yield of pleasure afforded by humour.
Sigmund Freud, Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming.
Oh, that is my salvation, this ability to convert the most serious of things into nonsense in a flash—it has always kept me from going over the brink. Thus, for example, in the midst of my composing today, I . . .
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Tuesday, August 6, 1878).
. . . found it quite impossible to compose . . .
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities.
. . . a single modulation or turn.
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Friday, April 12, 1878).
He took up his pen several times and laid it down again because he could not make up his mind what he ought to . . .
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities.
. . . write and . . .
Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
. . . rose up and wandered . . .
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
. . . through the rooms and now and again . . .
Cosima Wagner’s Diaries (Tuesday, October 3, 1882).
. . . wrote . . .
Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography. 1907-1910.
. . . down a joke . . .
Cosima Wagner’s Diaries (Tuesday, October 3, 1882).
. . . but was . . .
Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography. 1907-1910.
. . . indisposed.
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Tuesday, October 3, 1882).
He resolved, he rose to his feet . . .
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.
. . . to leave the . . .
Mark Twain, Roughing It.
. . . noble apartment of the palace . . .
Mark Twain, The Prince and the Pauper.
. . . where he lived . . .
Mark Twain, A Burlesque Biography.
—and now undertook a walk, in the hope that air and exercise might send him back refreshed to a good evening's work.
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.
Moored at ground-floor level and ready for use at all times was the gondola presided over by Luigi, Wagner's favorite gondolier. Luigi used to ferry him to St. Mark's Square, . . .
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
. . . beneath balconies of delicate marble traceries flanked by carven lions . . .
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.
. . . through the canal under the Bridge of Sighs . . .
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Thursday, November 16, 1882).
. . . round slippery corners of wall, past melancholy fa¸ades with ancient business shields reflected in the rocking water.
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.
There, there . . .
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister.
. . among the . . .
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
. . . Notable Sights of Venice . . .
Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad.
. . . Wagner . . .
Mark Twain, At the Shrine of St. Wagner.
. . . liked to sit on the stone bench in front of the basilica, unrecognized and unnoticed by the strollers and tourists who gazed up at the four bronze horses on the portico. He would sit there hunched with his elbows propped on his knees, a pose in which he half-humorously predicted that his corpse would someday be discovered.
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
This leads to many jokes!
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Sunday, November 26, 1882).
The Sense of Humor . . .
Max Eastman, The Sense of Humor.
. . . was a palliative that never failed to ease the strain and pain of his relations with the world around him.
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
"It would be my greatest triumph if I were to make you all laugh in my final hour."—
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Wednesday, May 19, 1880).
When we know what all are, we must bewail us,
But ne'ertheless I hope it is no crime
To laugh at all things—for I wish to know
What, after all, are all things—but a show?
George Gordon, Lord Byron, Excerpt from Don Juan.
But yet . . .
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Der Rosenkavalier.
The human theater of life, . . .
Erik H. Erikson, Young Man Luther.
. . whether . . .
Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger.
. . . circumscribed for each . . .
Erik H. Erikson, Young Man Luther.
. . . person . . .
Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger.
. . . by the power of . . .
Erik H. Erikson, Young Man Luther.
. . . comedy or tragedy . . .
R.D. Laing, The Self and Others.
. . . Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, . . .
William Shakespeare, The Tempest.
. . . and will not be recall'd
George Gordon, Lord Byron, Manfred.
Not that he knew it, Wagner's own bond with Venice was already sealed.
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
Wagner had, in fact, signed his own death warrant in going . . .
Ernest Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner.
. . . to Venice, . . .
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.
. . . though his resilient temperament and his indomitable will were able to postpone execution of the sentence for a few . . .
Ernest Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner.
. . . priceless, equable days . . .
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.
. . . yet.
Ernest Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner.
—Ah, this old magician!
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner.
Verily, . . .
William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale.
. . . like an aging actor . . .
Mike Wilson, Death of a Pumpkin: Day 8.
. . . set down in the middle of a Shakespeare play!
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Friday, September 5, 1879).
—But, alas, . . .
William Shakespeare, Cymbeline.
. . . the old wizard . . .
Joseph Conrad, Tales Of Unrest.
. . . no longer had the strength to play a part.
Robert W. Gutman, Richard Wagner: The Man, His Mind, and His Music.
My friends! His death . . .
Is Jesus The Son Of God.
. . . was as glorious as his life.
Paul von Joukowsky, Letter to Malwida von Meysenbug Describing the Death of Wagner.
Our adventurer felt his senses wooed by . . .
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.
. . . the shrill, folklike singing of a boy rowing a gondola through storm and rain . . .
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Saturday, October 28, 1882).
It seemed to him the pale and lovely Summoner out there smiled at him and beckoned; . . .
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice.
. . . the journey home, beneath glittering stars with the bells tolling, is wonderful.
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Tuesday, October 31, 1882).
Already the burning Pleiades descend into the sea.
Arrigo Boito, Otello (after the play by William Shakespeare).
And in the evening . . .
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Tuesday, October 31, 1882).
. . . as the . . .
Mark Twain, Christian Science.
. . . deathly stillness grows ever deeper . . .
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities.
—it was an . . .
Mark Twain, Christian Science.
. . . unforgettable moment . . .
Hermann Levi, Letter to His Father (Rabbi Levi of Giessen).
. . . when with weary eyes . . .
Celia Moss, Mordecai: A Tale of the English Jews in the Thirteenth Century.
. . . he remarked slowly,
Emma Goldman, Living My Life.
. . . laying down his pen, . . .
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness.
"I am like Othello. The long day's task is done."
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.