Wagner sketches 1849 Author:William Ashton Ellis Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LEAF 3 " WHITEWASH " OR SPRING-WATER ? I NOW propose to deal with the facts of Wagner's share in the actual Dresden Insurrection—i.e., in the "May-days" of 1... more »849, and with the glosses that have been put upon them; and I think that it will soon appear that it is not the " whitewashes" who have been the offenders. Ferdinand Praeger, however, expresses a different opinion; I will therefore start with citing that, from page 191 of his book : " I have alluded to the whitewashing, as it were, of Wagner by his biographers, when treating of this period. If it were to be asked who is to blame, the answer might fairly be ' Imperfect or inadequate knowledge of the facts,' fostered, I regret to add, by Wagner's own later utterances and writings upon the point. When Wagner visited London in 18S5 the Revolution and the thousand and one episodes connected therewith were related and discussed fully, and dwelt upon with affection, but as the years rolled on he exhibited a decided aversion towards any reference to his participation." Praeger then goes on to deprecatea"harsh judgment," but, almost immediately after, proceeds to accuse his friend of permitting " almost an untruth to be inferred and history falsified ; " adding, " I have stated what / know to have been the true facts." (The italics are in each case my own.) Now so much capital has been made of this group of assertions, that I have felt bound to investigate the matter; in fact, I may add that my present Sketch and the inquiries which have led to its writing, have been chiefly prompted by the feeling of regret that one who had shared Wagner's friendship, however sporadically, should have allowed any gossipping desire to blind his judgment. With a portion of this subject I have already dealt, in a contribution to the Musical News o...« less