All this we may joyfully concede, knowing how much may be said on the other side. Wagner not only was the most stupendous personage born into the nineteenth century: he was also one of the noblest, most generous men that have lived. There is not a mean trait in his character. He endured privation, actual starvation; he was shamefully treated; his wife did not believe in his genius; his simplest actions were misinterpreted; frantic endeavours were made to hound him out of the public life of opera; his publishers took advantage of his poverty to try to rob him; the scores of his masterpieces were returned unopened from theatres--in some cases they were not returned, and he had infinite difficulty to secure them; moreover, he was ill all his life: yet he never lost faith in mankind, and when he became, comparatively, a well-to-do man he went on doing generous deeds as though nothing had happened. With humbugs and pretenders he would have no dealings; but no genuine young artist ever asked his help in vain. He spared even that rancorous decadent Nietzsche; he owned his obligations to that soul of chivalry, Liszt. He spared that mediocre person Meyerbeer; he treated Mendelssohn with almost exaggerated courtesy. He fought a terrific fight with all the forces of reaction and stupidity, and he came through untainted, unstained; if he sorely belaboured the charlatans, he had all the finest musicians, and all other fine artists, on his side. The composer who won and held the friendship and esteem of such men as Liszt, Cornelius, Jensen, Tausig and Bülow, not to mention the admiration of our own Swinburne, is not a man to be dismissed by enumerating his defects. Some of us, I suppose, will admit that we may possibly have our defects: none of us, so far as I know, can possibly claim his great qualities.
He was rather an undersized man with an uncontrollable temper. As he let himself go in his music, so did he let himself go in his daily life. To any but the most patient he must have proved an impossible personage; Madame Cosima Wagner must have possessed the temper of an angel and the understanding of an archangel to put up with him. We see that every one did put up with him; every one who knew him had the same faith in his genius as he himself had; every one who knew him--really knew him--loved him. Those who did not know him belaboured him in the press or by word of mouth, and much honour and profit did they get by it. He stands unsmirched by the mud thrown by his detractors; he stands undamaged even by the adulation of his admirers.