To a musical student, who spoke to him [Richard Wagner] of Mendelssohn's and Schumann's works rather contemptuously, he presented such of their compositions as he happened to possess, with the recommendation to ' thoroughly study the works of those composers and of others spiritually akin to them, before finding fault with them.' .... He never would allow himself to be measured against or compared with Mozart and Beethoven. "I should be the greatest fool alive," he used to say, "if I attempted to equal those Masters, or to produce anything like what they have produced. I can only hold my own, after and anywhere near them, by proving my intention to do otherwise than they did."