The Brown Book

Diary Entry of October 23, 1881

Overview

Wagner sets out a racial and gender speculation about mixture, decline, and the transfer of power from men to women. He then connects feminine redemption with art and the Christian image of the Virgin bearing the Saviour.

Content

Sunday, October 23:

In the mingling of races the blood of the nobler males is ruined by the baser feminine element: the masculine element suffers, character founders, whilst the women gain as much as to take the men’s place. (Renaissance). The feminine thus remains owing deliverance: here art — as there in religion; the immaculate Virgin gives birth to the Saviour.