The purpose to write a Tristan drama was in Wagner's mind three years before he began its execution. While living in Zurich, in 1854, he had advanced as far as the second act of his "Siegfried" when, in a moment of discouragement, he wrote to Liszt: "As I have never in my life enjoyed the true felicity of love, I shall erect to this most beautiful of my dreams" (i.e. the drama on which he was working) "a monument in which, from beginning to end, this love shall find fullest gratification. I have sketched in my head a 'Tristan und Isolde,' the simplest of musical conceptions, but full-blooded; with the 'black flag' which waves at the end I shall then cover myself--to die." Three years later he took up the project, but under an inspiration vastly different from that notified to Liszt. The tragedy was not to be a monument to a mere dream of felicity or to his artistic despair, but a tribute to a consuming passion for Mathilde Wesendonck, wife of a benefactor who had given him an idyllic home at Triebschen, on the shore of Lake Lucerne. Mme. Wesendonck was the author of the two poems "Im Treibhaus" and "Träume," which, with three others from the same pen, Wagner set to music. The first four were published in the winter of 1857-1858; the last, "Im Treibhaus," on May 1, 1858. The musical theme of "Träume" was the germ of the love-music in the second act of "Tristan und Isolde"; out of "Im Treibhaus" grew some of the introduction to the third act. The tragedy was outlined in prose in August, 1857, and the versification was finished by September 18. The music was complete by July 16, 1859. Wagner gave the pencil sketches of the score to Mme. Wesendonck, who piously went over them with ink so that they might be preserved for posterity.