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Sulzer, who on one of his journeys had passed through Vienna and had witnessed a performance, had complained principally of the darkness of the house, which did not allow him to read a single word of the libretto, also of its having rained hard right into the middle of the audience. Another story was told me some years later by the son-in-law of Mme. Herold, the widow of the composer of that name.
Sulzer has remarked that the stage has arisen from an irresistible longing for the new and extraordinary. Man, oppressed by divided cares, and satiated with sensual pleasure, felt an emptiness or want. Man, neither altogether satisfied with the senses, nor forever capable of thought, wanted a middle state, a bridge between the two states, bringing them into harmony.
Several of his works in particular, a longish novel, Der Grune Heinrich had been recommended to me in favourable though not exaggerated terms by Sulzer. I was therefore surprised to find him a person of extraordinarily shy and awkward demeanour. Every one felt anxious about his prospects on first becoming acquainted with him, and it was indeed this question of his future that was the difficulty.
I adopted what seemed almost a new kind of religion: when I was driven into a corner by Sulzer and Herwegh, the latter of whom prided himself on his knowledge of chemistry and physiology, about the absurdity of Rausse's theory of the poisonous qualities contained in wine, I found refuge in the moral and aesthetic motive which made me regard the enjoyment of wine as an evil and barbarous substitute for the ecstatic state of mind which love alone should produce.
The first American representation took place at the Academy of Music, New York, on November 25, 1863, the parts being distributed as follows: Margherita, Miss Clara Louise Kellogg; Siebel, Miss Henrietta Sulzer; Martha, Miss Fanny Stockton; Faust, Francesco Mazzoleni; Mephistopheles, Hanibal Biachi; Valentine, G. Yppolito; Wagner, D. Coletti.
The only one who entered into it with any heartiness or real enthusiasm was Herwegh, with whom I frequently discussed it, and to whom I generally read aloud such portions as were completed. Sulzer was much annoyed at the remodelling of Siegfrieds Tod, as he regarded it as a fine and original work, and thought it would be deprived of that quality if I decided to alter it to any extent.
* I have a letter from the late excellent Sulzer, in which he asks me what can be the reason that moral instruction, although containing much that is convincing for the reason, yet accomplishes so little? My answer was postponed in order that I might make it complete.
His talents and learning obtained him the friendship of several distinguished men, and his acquaintance with English poetry induced Professor Sulzer to select him as one well qualified for opening a communication between the literature of Germany and that of England.
Roosevelt, Admiral Wain Wright, Admiral Peary, the British, Dutch and Swiss Ministers in Washington, Yúsúf Díyá Páshá, the Turkish Ambassador in that city, Thomas Seaton, Hon. William Sulzer and Prince Muḥammad-‘Alí of Egypt, the Khedive’s brother.
But Liszt visited him; Praeger undoubtedly did; Bülow, as said, was with him for some time; the Wesendoncks, his greatest pecuniary benefactors after a while, were there; Wille and his wife were there; Alexander Ritter, son of Frau Ritter, who made Wagner a regular allowance from 1851 to 1856, became his firm friend, and afterwards married one of his nieces; there were Baumgärtner and Sulzer in fact, a bare list of names would fill a few pages.
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