Sunday, June 24:
To church with the children. Before that, letters from London; little hope for the subscription. Visits from Herr Niemann, who also reports that Herr von Hülsen is hostile to the Ring. The curious man wants to read Parsifal; R. gives it to him, and it makes a great impression on him.
Made the acquaintance of the former minister Windthorst, a very unhandsome but, we feel, a decidedly gifted man. R. gives him Art and Politics to read. Belief that war may break out, owing to present French confusions. Visits to the pump room increasingly difficult for us on account of the bad music. The theatrical performances also fill us with melancholy, and a most pitiful regatta! ... R. is very annoyed at all this, but the cure seems to be doing him good.
Councilor Dufflipp writes that he is expecting us in Munich and hopes with all his heart that a satisfactory solution can be found. In the meantime Herr Rosa, a theater director, with proposals for America, operatic performances, etc. Herr Ullmann also making proposals... Otherwise nothing much is doing. But the “inventive mind” is hatching out plans for a school. He says he is so incorrigibly rash that he can imagine going to America and then returning home after all to “commit some foolish act,” by which he means putting on a performance.