Saturday, February 25:
Yesterday I woke up singing the trio from the Minuet of Haydn's D major Symphony, which amused R. greatly; today, Beckmesser's serenade. "You are my buskin, my crutch, my little stilt," R. says to me in fine spirits.
It seems to me as if I am always writing the same things here. Oh, could I but conjure up for you for all time the nature of our love, my children, so that in later times you might derive refreshment from it in this loveless world!
Discussion of our journey; we lack money. Hanover, Vienna, Dresden are making difficulties for us with their royalty payments. When R. yesterday observed Fidi's indisposition, he said, "It causes you such difficulty to bite, and when at last you are able to bite, you may have nothing to bite." "Are things so bad?" I ask. "God knows they are," he answers with a sigh. God alone knows; maybe we shall need much courage and patience, good children.
Fidi not well, sorrow. Also heavy thoughts in connection with the children's change of religion one day; I wish to assume the responsibility for this myself. Lusch tells me that she met the little Cambrinis and they did not greet her. "They are so proud." Whether this is due to hatred of the Germans or to a veto by the priest, who knows? Any disparagement of myself I find easy to bear, but I question myself when it falls on the children. May they just find strength in themselves and seek salvation always in themselves!
After lunch R. plays us his march, to our delight. From town the children bring back several letters; one really startles us with its gigantic handwriting. R. guesses Bismarck, and truly it is Bismarck, thanking him for the poem. I believe R. would have been happier if he had not written, for he had not been expecting it, but the autograph gives me a childish joy. "Another treasure for Fidi." The children gaze with curiosity on the colossal sweep of the writing, and R. says his own Leubald und Adelaide was written in a hand something like that.
A letter from a publisher in Dusseldorf, who introduces himself as a non-Jew and wants to print the score of the Huldigungsmarsch. I say to R. that it really is a very good thing that the "bankers" are mentioned by name.
Third letter from the exhibition committee in London; they have decided to perform the March from Tannhäuser and ask R. to conduct it, for which they offer him 20 pounds! R., indignant, says: "For this, too, we have the Jews to thank, the fact that everything is so badly paid for. They have to make a noise in the world, and so they take on something like this conducting job for nothing, just because of their mania for pushing themselves forward and drawing attention to themselves. So people could always have Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, not to speak of Hiller, who would give their names for nothing. Haydn, Jommelli, on the other hand, made them pay well."
While we are talking about the insolence of the Parisians, R. says, "The Germans never recognize the devil, even when he has them by the collar, Bismarck could say along with Mephisto." The French people in town are so brazen that R. has literally to push them aside to let me through. We hear one of them say aptly, "Pas etonnant nos defaites, [one word unreadable] ils avaient des lunettes de marine, nos officiers des jumelles d'opera."
In the evening, Carlyle, whom we find very interesting, but with whose style we cannot become reconciled. R. says Gibbon would inquire with some justice, "Are we now writing for coachmen?" It is written without doubt for uneducated people, but his judgment is excellent; he sees his people and is capable of indignation.