The Conceited Wagner

Richard Wagner was an undersized little man, with a head too big for his body -- a sickly little man. His nerves were bad. And he had delusions¹ of grandeur².

 

He was a monster of conceit³. Never for one minute did helook at the world or at people,  except in relation to himself. He was not only the most important person in the world, to himself; in his own eyes he was the only person who existed. He believed himself to be one of the greatest dramatists in the world, one of the greatest thinkers, and one of the greatest composers. To hearhim talk, he was Shakespeare, and Beethoven, and Plato , rolledinto one. And you would have had no difficulty in hearing himtalk. He was one of the most exhausting conversationalists thatever lived. An evening with him was an evening spent in listeningto a monologue⁴. Sometimes he was brilliant; sometimes he wasmaddeningly tiresome⁵. But whether he was being brilliant ordull, he had one sole topic of conversation：himself. What hethought and what he did.

 

He had a mania⁶ for being in the right. The slightest hint of disagreement, from anyone, on the most trivial point, was enough to set him off on a harangue⁷ that might last for hours, inwhich he proved himself right in so many ways, and with suchexhausting volubility, that in the end his hearer, stunned⁸ anddeafened, would agree with him, for the sake of peace.

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