All this was done by Liszt. Next to Wagner's own genius, which would eventually have fought its way into the open, the influence that first brought Wagner some degree of recognition was Franz Liszt. His assistance to Wagner at this stage in that composer's career cannot be overestimated. He was his tonic in despair, his solace in his darkest hours. Few men appear in a nobler rôle than Liszt in his correspondence with Wagner during this period. Is it not marvellous that some twenty years later, at another crisis in Wagner's life, another being came to his aid and became to him as a haven of rest; and that that being should have been none other than the daughter of his earlier benefactor, Franz Liszt? Fate often is cruel and often unaccountable, but in this instance it seems to have acted the rôle of Cupid with an exquisite sense of what was appropriate, and to have set the crowning glory of a great woman's love upon Wagner's career.
When Liszt was producing "Lohengrin," aiding Wagner pecuniarily, and cheering him in his exile, Cosima Liszt was a young girl in Paris, where she, her elder sister Blandine (afterward the wife of Emile Ollivier, who became the war minister of Napoleon the Third) and her brother Daniel lived with Liszt's mother. It was in Mme. Liszt's house that Wagner first met her. He had gone to Paris in hopes of furthering his cause there. During his sojourn he held a reading of his libretto to "The Ring of the Nibelung" at Mme. Liszt's before a choice audience, which included Liszt, Berlioz and Von Bülow. This occurred in the early fifties. Cosima, who was among the listeners, was at the time fifteen or sixteen years old. The mere fact of her presence at the reading is recorded. Whether she was impressed with the libretto or its author we do not know. It is probable that their meeting consisted of nothing more than the mere formal introduction of the composer to the girl who was the daughter of his friend Liszt, and who was to be one of the small and privileged gathering at the reading. Wagner soon left Paris, and if she made any impression on him at that time, he does not mention the fact in his letters.
[Illustration: Cosima, wife of Wagner. From a portrait bust made before her marriage.]