Monday, February 14:
R. is still working, and complains of being unable to visualize anything to himself in this composition; it had been different with the Kaisermarsch, he says, even with Rule Britannia, where he had thought of a great ship, but here he can think of nothing but the 5,000 dollars he has demanded and perhaps will not get.
A conference in the evening; friend Feustel brings along and reads to us an article from the Frankfurter Zeitung entitled “R. Wagner and the Critics,” which is really excellent. The situation is tolerable on the whole, though Feustel informs us that Bismarck has declared to Jachmann that, since we had not followed his advice to go to the Reichstag, where he would have exerted all his power in behalf of our cause, he wished to hear nothing more about the matter! . . .