Sunday, June 23:
R. works in the morning and I write some letters (Marie Schl., etc.), then read Lusch the story of the beautiful Melusina. The Fontaine de Soif and various other things remind me of Tribschen and our former life.
Regarding the strangeness of Melusina’s children R. says, “The urge to individualize figures caused people to depict gods and creatures of divine origin with physical defects, Wotan with one eye, etc.” (I think in this connection of the limping devil.) “That also expresses the belief that spiritual power precludes regular physical beauty; just as we know no genius of regular beauty, the women took Hephaestion to be the King, for he seemed more beautiful to them than Alexander. Wherever this thoroughbred, regular beauty appears, the brain is reduced in potency; Nature had intended something different.”
Coming back to Melusina, R. says, “In this one can still see the Christian aim of making the heathen element at least look repulsive, for heathenism was still very powerful and the significant families, in this case the Luxemburgians, had their roots in it.”
Jokingly he says to me, “You would like your Fidi to have just such a Hungarian nose and Neapolitan eyes.” A conductor from Coburg visits R. and tells him he can have no idea how popular he is; it is the people, the ordinary men in the street, who demand his operas, etc.
Letter from the concertmaster Hill, expressing enthusiastic thanks for the 9th Symphony, which became clear to him for the first time in Bayreuth. Letter from Herr Coerper, misspelled and poor in style, but in its sentiments good. R.’s letter to Prof. N. has appeared in the Neue Allgemeine Zeitung.
Long walk with R.