Saturday, August 31:
From Chicago, R. is invited to inaugurate the new opera house during the celebrations of the revival of the city; from Herr Löser, more proposals! And all sorts of rubbish.
R. works on his essay and reads me what he has added in the afternoon. I write the replies to the letters, which he signs.
In the evening to the Schweizerei with the children, R. comes to meet us, bringing with him J. Rubinstein, whom he had called for out of pity, though he finds his restless Jewish character very unsympathetic; during the recent reading he could not stay still for a moment, and R. says, “Though the rustling of a beloved woman’s dress might entrance one as a sign of the stirring of her intense concentration, this masculine deportment is not exactly encouraging.”
R. reads passages from Schlegel’s essay on Bürger, and thinks him in the right concerning Schiller. I find my mother’s history of the Netherlands very interesting, and it seems to me very good.
I had been half expecting a telegram from my father, but nothing came.
[In the margin: “Fidi’s new hat, ‘Mambrino’s helmet.’”]