Thursday, February 23:
R. slept well, and in the morning his conversation in bed takes the form of meditations on the world, on Gobineau’s theories; he believes in a catastrophe which will open the door to migrations and the establishment of communities in Southern countries. Yesterday he talked about the English, saying that the expression “a nation of shopkeepers,” however curious it may sound when one considers all the elegant lords, is nevertheless quite correct, since they rule other peoples only in order to safeguard their property in England.
The air is splendid, R. enjoys it. We go to Camastra for a walk; the purity of the air, the sharp outlines of the mountains, the blue sea in the distance enchant us.
His reading is now to be Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons (since he is saving Die Kam-Sprache for serious study, along with the Gobineau book, for when he starts to work out his Male and Female). But he is approaching it with trepidation, having seen Schopenhauer described in Mérimée’s preface as the father of the nihilistic movement; R. observes that no other nation is as stupid as the French, he finds them more and more repellent. All the same quotations in the Bayr. Blätter from [Diderot’s] Le Neveu de Rameau please him greatly, and the statement of Herder with which this article ends he also finds very striking.
In connection with the Blätter we talk about partisanship, and agree that it is not a good thing when insignificant people attempt to meditate about something a man of genius has said. We drive to S. Maria di Gesù, R. pleasantly affected by the beauty of the day and the “magical forms” of the mountains. However, we do not get out, but doze in the carriage outside the churchyard while the children are strolling about. On the drive home R. remarks on the gnarled appearance of the olive tree, how curious it is, as if the tree begrudged growing!
In the evening, talking about our presence here, R. says quite openly, and in contrast to my own feelings, that he has no sense of obligation or gratitude; there are some people he likes, he finds them endearing, and then he takes pleasure in being agreeable to them; but not out of a sense of obligation. Yet only recently he said to me one morning that, by accepting favors from people who did not belong to him, such as Wesendonck, he had laid himself open to embarrassing familiarities.
Much jesting about Schemann’s cypress branches for Cherubini, in whom R. recognizes tremendous talent combined with much dryness. He talks about the beginning of the Fidelio Overture (the first work by Beeth. he ever heard, and it made an overwhelming impression on him!), its courageous honesty, something which nobody could imitate without making it sound at once like an imitation; whereas Rossini could quite easily have used the theme from the Water Carrier Overture in slow tempo in his Fell. For all its guileless prettiness it is just an arabesque, he says. The most striking example of the Beethoven manner, he continues, is the opening of the C Minor Symphony: who could ever imitate that? — He then talks about Jommelli, Durante, and opera arias by these composers which he had heard and which gave him the impression of a grand style.