Friday, April 16:
Strong sirocco. “God has a grudge against me, although I hardly ever denounce him,” says R. “Friedrich von Schiller,” he exclaims, as he sees me leaning on my elbows, reflecting.
He writes several letters, including one to Seidl in Leipzig, who has annoyed him by reporting that the letter to the director has been mislaid. The Liechtensteins to lunch and with us all day; the Prince tells vividly about how Baron Hirsch engaged his stepbrother, Count Schönfeld, in Vienna. R. tells him one could make use of such material, with the reward from the banker who, it seems, feels disgust for anything to do with money or business, even Balzac had nothing better.
Walk; in the evening Prof. Schrön, friend Joukowsky, Rubinstein, etc. A party, about which I never find much to report, since R. says little of note. (Recently R. remarked in connection with Beethoven’s symphonies how manly they are, how utterly lacking in sentimentality, how strict in spite of all their imaginative ideas.)