scenes that Wagner can rank as a poet. His next literary ventures
were a series of dramatic scenes, based on classical subjects learned in
school. These were followed a year later by a full-length tragedy,
inspired by his first introduction to Shakespeare. Behind all this
work is the idea of dramatic effect, the attempt to invent theatrically
impressive characters and situations, or what appealed as such to the
imagination of a thirteen-year-old boy. "Forty-two characters died
in the course of that piece, and I found it necessary to bring most of
them on again as ghosts!" said the grown-up Wagner later. That
this was humorous exaggeration is proved by a rough draft of Leubald,
since discovered, and found to bear a strong resemblance to Kleist
Familie Schroffenstein. Nevertheless Wagner's memory had retained
the essential quality of the work, showing the propensity of his fancy
to theatrical effect, to the bold presentation of stirring and sensational
incident.

The boy's talent for music developed considerably later than his
"taste for play-acting"--a taste, be it noted, for making, not for
acting plays. In music Wagner was no enfant prodigue, and as a
child he showed no particular aptitude for it. No one instrument at-
tracted him more than another, nor did he indulge his imagination
musically. This is the more surprising because at the theatre he had
opportunities of hearing not only drama but opera. After his mother's
second marriage in 1814, the family moved to Dresden, where Carl
Maria Weber had been active since 1817. The first performance of
Der Freischütz was given in 1822. Wagner, then nine years old, was
not present, as, following his stepfather's death, he had been sent
to stay for a few months with relatives in Eisleben. Shortly after his
return, however, he heard the new work and received his first deep
impression of dramatic music. He was then taking pianoforte lessons,
and tried, secretly, to get the Freischütz overture by heart. He asked
his mother for money to buy score paper so that he could copy out
"Lützow's wilde Jagd," and got up a performance of the "Wolf-
schlucht" scene among his schoolfellows, assigning himself the part
of Kasper, in which rôle, as he recalled later, he "adopted a perfectly
diabolic tone of voice and gesture for an effective rendering of the
'Hier im ird'schen Jammertal.'" Such were some of the after-
effects of the impression made by Der Freischütz. They differed from
those arising out of drama. Opera stirred him merely to imitative
reproduction; as yet there was no manifest impulse to create on similar

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