Tuesday, October 29:
Worked with the children; R. writes to Herr Coerper; visit from Herr and Frau Kraussold. R. has some trouble in making his views on religion and on sermons clear to the worthy consistorial councilor.
Letter to Daniella from Hans, sending her the programs of his last concert tours. Went out with the children and did some household shopping. Letters from Marie Donhoff and Marie Muchanoff; the latter is in Munich, where Tristan is again being performed under Hans’s direction. Our copyists have also gone there.
R. returns home from a visit to Herr Feustel in some vexation: the people in Vienna are sending no money, the architect Brückwald does not reply, we cannot set out until the conference with Brückwald and Brandt has taken place.
In the evening we read Gozzi.
In the afternoon R. told me that he had been thinking about the bloody lance in Parzival and had been led by it to the Greek mysteries. “The Greeks were very right to leave the people all their superstitions, simply linking fine festivals to them, while wisely confining the mysteries to initiates. The Catholic church did much the same thing and cannot be reproached for leaving the people of southern Italy their blood of Saint Januarius and their festivals of the Virgin Mary, etc. The only bad thing was that the Roman Empire backed it and played politics with it. In Christianity the critical spirit has been productive, but the Romans used it only for purposes of power.”
Rector Grossmann visits me and praises Daniella.