Among his friends, Wagner was one of the most
gentle, tender, and kind-hearted of men, and it made him frantic to
see even a dumb animal suffer. He wrote a violent pamphlet against
vivisection, and one day missed an important train because he stopped
to scold a peasant woman who was taking to the market a basket of live
fish in the agony of suffocation. I hardly know of a great composer
who, in his heart of hearts, was not gentle and generous. Bach,
Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Gluck, Schubert, Beethoven, Schumann,
Mendelssohn, Weber, Liszt, and a dozen others who might be named,
though not without their faults, were kind and honest men, living
arguments for the ennobling effects of music.
In no other profession can men and women be found so ready to aid a
colleague in distress. Take the case of poor Robert Franz, for
instance, who lost his hearing through the whistle of a locomotive,
and thereby lost his professional income, and was brought to the verge
of starvation because his stupid contemporaries (I mean ourselves)
refused to buy his divine songs. Hardly had his misfortune become
known when Liszt, Joachim, and Frau Magnus arranged a concert tour for
his benefit which netted $23,000, and insured him comfort for the rest
of his life.
Pages:
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190