Thursday, June 20:
R. works in the morning, but is sad at being so often disturbed, as again yesterday by the wedding. Family lunch. Fidi naughty to his papa, from whom he receives his first punishment.
In the afternoon a walk with R., after the arrival of some books (the life of Moscheles, etc.) had once more made us feel astonished at the things that get published nowadays and presumably find readers. A poor woman calls for alms in a rough voice; R. gives her something, and I remark that I can understand only too well why poor people feel nothing but a sense of rebellion toward the privileged.
“Yes,” says R., “if there is no bond connecting them with things, even with honors, it can lead only to hatred; this bond should be religion, but that has long ceased to be, national feeling also does not exist, newspapers are the only, and harmful, bond.”
We talked about America. “How lovely, how prosperous these West Indian islands, and yet how utterly uninteresting this whole continent is in comparison with even the tiniest of our territories! One can see that culture has nothing to do with large expanses, rail networks, and so on, and how rare and few the spots are which give rise to a significant culture! America has so far turned out to be unproductive.”
“I shall still do Parsifal,” R. says in the evening. “Art makes religions eternal. When they produce no art, and are thus incapable of satisfying the most educated as well as ordinary people, they are ephemeral (Mohammedanism).”
In the evening we go through Herr Tappert’s German songs, with little enjoyment. “God, how right I was!” R. jokes. “I said 25 years ago in The Artwork of the Future that the time was past for all this music making, that nothing would come of it.” (Eva remarkably good and modest.)