Wednesday, October 25:
Nice letter from Claire and from Alwine Frommann, the latter thanking us for sending the writings. These collected writings give R. great pleasure; he is so glad to have managed them, and so successfully, too. He is pleased that his writings should bring him some money: “Siegfried, what use is that? As soon as it appears, then the troubles will really begin, whereas the writings are quite complete in themselves, and there will be a second edition, you will see. I must just stay alive. But if I had died ten years ago I should not have had much from life, not enough to have made it worth the trouble of living.”
Alwine sends some poems, unpublished, by Prof. Werder. R. says of them: “All these lyric poets make glosses on things which are not there; the true poet is seen in the characters he creates, a Faust, an Egmont, etc.”
Today R. has completed the penciled sketch of his second act; may each and every god and benevolent spirit be blessed and thanked! Today the “altar stone” came to him, to the sound of which the bridal procession goes off, and to which they at the same time lead Bruennhilde. Bruennhilde’s expression!
Continually with the five children, in the garden and the nursery; but Lusch is causing me concern. “Oh, this mortal life!” But the happiness of belonging to R. outshines everything. Yesterday he said to me jokingly, “If you were now to hear that nothing was to come of Bayreuth, and that we could continue to live quietly for ourselves, how happy you would be, for you have a slight latent tendency toward philistinism!” I laugh and do not know whether to affirm or deny it; the fact is, I fear everything.
Kaulbach’s pictures are being exhibited. When I tell R. that I can see nothing in this man, no wit, talent, etc., he says, “There is also not a trace of truthfulness in such a character. Heine, for example, really had wit, and the difference between them is: Kaulbach makes something of his life, Heine made nothing.” In the evening Carlyle. R. is worn out, but still indescribably kind to me.