Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of April 11, 1881

Overview

After a better night, Richard reads the nihilists' manifesto aloud to Cosima, then turns cheerfully to Gobineau's newly arrived manuscript, which absorbs their conversation for much of the day. He riffs on Gobineau's hierarchy of human types, lamenting that musicians — potentially the greatest of beings — lack the wisdom to act on their stature. The day is otherwise quiet, with Richard composing at his score and the evening given over to a half-serious discussion about the prospect of Chinese labor flooding and reshaping Western civilization.

Content

Monday, April 11:

In the morning, after a better night, R. reads the nihilists’ manifesto to me! Then, around lunchtime, he brings me the manuscript from Count Gobineau, whose urgent need for the Bayreuther Blätter, as he gaily says, he will now prove. But the article interests him and provides material for conversation almost throughout the day. “If the farmer is greater than the hunter,” R. quotes, and continues, “if the musician is greater than the statesman - but they are too unwise,” he exclaims. Again we do not go out of doors; R. works on his score, and in the evening we discuss once more with friend Wolz., half in fun and half in earnest, the invasion from the east, the Chinese flooding everything with their work.