Friday, June 13:
Melusina still! At the same time, worry that my children may be led astray by our style of living into imagining themselves to be rich and taking insufficient care of their belongings.
The King of Bavaria has again appalled everyone with a cabinet order commanding the military to line the route for the Corpus Christi procession, thus countermanding General von der Tann’s order forbidding it! Hopeless!
Letter from Frau von Meyendorff, saying that Hans is now in Weimar with my father.
Nice afternoon in the garden; Fidi, gardening, reminds R. of a book, Christ the Essene, which he once read in Thun and which, in spite of its rationalistic tone, he found very moving, the meeting of Christ the gardener with Magdalena.
R. wants a life-size picture of Fidi as he now is.
In the morning R. talked to me about his poem dedicating Tannhäuser to the Grand Duke of Weimar. It runs something like this: in medieval times priests and monks despised life, and knights rescued it through their poetry; the outward symbol of this was the Wartburg. Now the Wartburg, once again under a magnanimous prince, will rescue art from being refused.
In the evening went through Rheingold.
The letter on actors has at last appeared in Herr Guttke’s almanac.