Tuesday, September 23:
R. did not have a good night, and I find it hard to understand how he can nevertheless still manage to talk so tenderly with me in the morning, with all his usual love and kindness, and indeed cheerfulness.
He works on his letter. At lunch with Herr Schon, friends Feustel and Gross, reminiscences of the beginnings of our venture. Unfortunately politics are also discussed, and R. has to make an effort to put up with the eulogy of the Berlin peace treaty.
In the afternoon I drive with friends Schon and Wolzogen to the theater; to the former I impart my views on bringing up a boy, not with a view toward a career, but to turn him into an independent, capable human being. R. comes to join us, delight in the building, in Faf, who guards it, memories of our poor municipal gardener. Had some beer at the new railroad station, which pleases R. very much; impressive entrance to the town, due to the view of the theater.
In the evening Herr Schon works out almost all the details regarding a public campaign, a petition to the Reichstag! R. is glad that this excellent man is still young. And yesterday, when he was speaking of his workers, R. recommended to him Carlyle’s essay on conditions in England.
During the evening R. played to us the Prelude to Parsifal, which he called a preamble, like the preamble to a sermon, since the themes are merely laid out side by side.
Late in the evening we talked about the motives swarming around him, and I tell him I consider it my triumph that they fly around him like the seeds of flowers and flutter around him like butterflies. In Munich, he observed, he had not had any music at all inside him.