The next period of Wagner's life, from the date of finishing _Tristan_, 1859, till King Ludwig sent for him, 1864, was stormy. The struggles and endless disappointments made of him the somewhat hard and embittered Wagner of later years. The constant battles, the few victories and the many disappointments must be related in my next chapter, as it is simpler and easier for the author, if not the reader, to consider the _Mastersingers of Nuremberg_ immediately after _Tristan_. A few facts may be mentioned now to enable us to place the second opera in its true chronological order. The _Nibelung's Ring_ was still in abeyance; _Tristan_ finished, Wagner, in search of means of subsistence--the patience and indeed the means of his friends fast giving out--undertook a series of concert trips, going to Brussels, Paris, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Marienfeld, Leipzig and Vienna. In 1861 his last hopes of a Paris success with _Tannhäuser_ were extinguished; his concerts up till then had resulted only in an increasing burden of debt; his domestic existence was unendurable; things were as bad as bad could be. So he sat down and wrote his only comedy. It was not a simple case of "tasks in hours of insight willed can be through hours of gloom fulfilled." The _Mastersingers_ had been sketched, as we know, in 1845; but the new work was a change, in that he created the character of Hans Sachs afresh, and the opera became an entirely different thing. He himself gave an account of the joy with which he worked at it, incidentally proving the truth of his assertion that he was a "wholly [creative] artist." He was not built to be happy in the outer world, but in his world of art he was content; in the outer world he might have an hour of felicity and months of misery, but given a chance of settling down for a while to his operas he at once became and remained cheerful. Fate did not will that in the case of the _Mastersingers_ his contentment should endure any length of time. No sooner was his text written than he had to set out on his travels again, hunting his daily food from land to land. It was not until 1862 that he began the music; not until 1867 did he get it finished, and in the interval many things tragic and other, had occurred. These, I say, will occupy us presently.