Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of March 26, 1881

Overview

Gobineau's chapter on civilization draws Wagner's enthusiastic praise, and the afternoon walk prompts a characteristically wide-ranging conversation between the couple on Hamlet, a subject they return to endlessly. The evening is spent in Schopenhauer, reading the preface to Will in Nature, while Wagner's recurring gout troubles his toe. He remarks archly that Jewish financiers are now the true patrons sustaining European monarchies.

Content

Saturday, March 26:

R. had a good night. Around lunchtime he comes to me to express his pleasure in Gobineau’s chapter on civilization.

The costume design for Kundry is discussed and settled. We then go for a walk in the palace gardens and start talking, R. and I, about Hamlet - an inexhaustible topic between us!

In the evening we read the preface and introduction to Schopenhauer’s The Will in Nature.

Today R. again complained of pains in his big toe. “Kings nowadays are the pensioners of civilization,” R. says, adding that it is the Jews who are keeping them.