Wednesday, June 18:
The pamphlet at last arrives, but to R.’s renewed vexation the plans are badly printed. This vexation ruins for us what is usually the nicest hour of the day, breakfast. I am with the children, R. at work; he complains of lack of concentration, something that never happens at other times. He says his head is too full. I am alarmed by the burdens on him and resolve not to increase them even by a hair’s breadth with my worries.
Herr Kietz to lunch. Severe thunderstorm, as every second day this summer. A student writes an enthusiastic letter and begs R., instead of “*Nie sollst du mich befragen, noch Wissen’s Sorge tragen*” in *Lohengrin*, to write “*Nie Wissen’s Sorge tragen*”.
In the evening *Ardinghello* (the great discussion on art). R. today expounds at length on the merit of the knights, who cannot be too highly praised, for they wrote German in an age when all edicts and everything else were in Latin. “They did it out of pride, and this pride is splendid.”
He also spoke of the Slavs and the service they have rendered to our music with their dance tunes; Haydn’s service was to be the first to adopt these tunes, which Beethoven then used in so ideal a manner. We Germans do not know much about our dance tunes, he says; our attention has always been restricted to song. That is why the Slavs are so important to us, and it is disgraceful the way this wretched Austrian government has alienated them. R. has acquired the *Xenienkampf*, is delighted with it and the joviality of its tone, and says spare nobody, from Empress Augusta even to Bismarck.