Friday, December 14:
R. says he has now “put right” yesterday’s errors. One must be careful, he observes, not to let oneself be led astray by the melodies; that happened to him yesterday, and it had put him quite out of the mood. The weather is still dull; but here in our Parsifal’s replies to Gurnemanz! In the evening he gives Herr v. W. a theme to study and work out: “the contrast between rhetoric and German style.” He says it can be traced right through the development of the arts, particularly that of music, this rhetoric which is still a principal ingredient of French teaching and the educational methods of the Jesuits. The principle derived from a false understanding of the Greeks, and it dominates our whole culture, its antithesis being the German style. We talk a lot about this, finding many examples. Then R. plays passages from Die Meistersinger, to our great bliss.
The Idyll is now being reeled off everywhere; to bear this trial cheerfully takes all my efforts! We are now beginning a new Tribschen life, and only R.’s indisposition can cloud it. All that seemed hard in my life has been transformed into blessings, and Fate has graciously guided me by force wherever I resisted; and so, unworthy in every way, thoroughly undeserving, here I stand, loved and protected by God, in grateful astonishment, full of an unshakeable faith, moved to the depths of my soul by this mission which has been vouchsafed me, the privilege of serving the highest - I, unworthy as I am! Thus I know only devotion and work and deep humility in my sacred happiness!