t is done and the scenes
arranged, the opera itself is completed, and the detailed musical
treatment becomes rather a thoughtful and quiet after-work which the
moment of actual composition has already preceded." The humor which at
times prompted even the aged Beethoven to spring over tables and
benches, frequently seized upon our master in such strange fashion
that in the midst of company he would suddenly stand upon his head in
a corner of the room for some time.

His friends observed with pleasure his rapturous happiness in the
certainty of reaching the goal, even though it should bring him to the
grave during this period of the "Meistersinger" composition. He lived
in the most quiet retirement upon a small and beautiful estate in
Triebscheu, near Lucerne, where Frau von Buelow, with her children,
provided for his domestic comfort. His own wife had unexpectedly died
a short time before. During her last years she had lived separately
from the "fiery wheel" whose mad flight she could no longer grasp
nor endure, but by no means in that poverty which the abominably
slanderous press of Munich and elsewhere had accused him of inflicting
upon her. On the contrary, she lived in circumstances fully
corresponding to her husband's means.

In October, 1867, after the lapse of 22 years, the "Meistersinger" was
at last completed. He now strove to secure as far as possible a model
representation. It was of course to take place in Munich, where
"Tristan" had already given the orchestra at least a sure tradition of
style. The event was destined to win for him the very heart of the
nation. If the general culture of the last generation by its shallow
optimism and stale humanitarianism blunted the feeling for the tragic,
as Wagner for the first time had deeply expressed it, yet of one
quality we were never deprived, it ever remained undisturbed, and
that was our German good-nature, from the depths of which humor
springs. At a casual meeting in Kuxhasen, during a friendly contest in
the expression of emotions by gestures of the face, even the great
Kean could not rival the greater Devrient in one thing, and had to
yield to him the victory, and that was the tearful smile which springs
from real compassion with the sorrows of humanity. It was with this
"German good-nature" that Wagner this time conquered the nations. It
was Beethoven who had again quickened the flow from this deepest
source of blessing in life which Shakespeare had been t