Cosima's Diaries

Recordings by Cosima Wagner between 1869 and 1883

Cosima Wagner’s diaries are one of the most extraordinary inner records of nineteenth-century artistic life: part household chronicle, part spiritual notebook, part Bayreuth archive, and part psychological portrait of Wagner’s final years. Across thousands of entries, we see the daily world behind the myth: children, servants, illness, money, visitors, letters, rehearsals, readings, quarrels, weather, politics, music, and moments of almost mystical illumination. The diaries follow Wagner from the intimate Tribschen years through the creation of Bayreuth, the triumph and crisis of the 1876 Ring Festival, the making of Parsifal, the rise and collapse of the Nietzsche relationship, and the darker ideological currents that increasingly gathered around Wahnfried, including Wagner and Cosima’s antisemitism. They are not a neutral record, nor always a comfortable one, but they are indispensable: a vast, intimate, often beautiful, often disturbing window into the household where Wagner’s final works, his self-mythology, and the Bayreuth idea took shape.

The diary entries gathered here cover the years from January 1869 to February 1883, carrying the reader from the last Tribschen years to Wagner’s final days in Venice. Their breadth is astonishing. They are at once a household record, an artistic logbook, a spiritual notebook, a political barometer, and the intimate chronicle of a private circle attempting to become a public institution. Cosima records children’s illnesses, lessons, servants, meals, letters, debts, travel, weather, music-making, rehearsals, guests, books, dreams, religious reflections, and Wagner’s daily moods. The sublime and the administrative are never far apart. A passage on Schopenhauer, Shakespeare, Calderón, Beethoven, or Christ may sit beside anxieties about singers, money, doctors, railway journeys, or household arrangements.

The early years, especially 1869 to 1871, still belong largely to the private world of Tribschen. They are filled with the pressures surrounding Cosima’s separation from Hans von Bülow, her union with Richard Wagner, the birth and childhood of Siegfried, and the intense domestic enclosure in which Wagner’s later work was nurtured. Yet the outside world continually enters: King Ludwig, Munich theatrical politics, the Franco-Prussian War, German nationalism, and the first sustained appearances of Friedrich Nietzsche. Wagner’s work on Siegfried and the wider Ring is recorded not as a distant masterpiece but as something happening in rooms, at the piano, amid children, letters, exhaustion, and sudden exaltation.

From 1871 onward, the diaries begin to turn toward Bayreuth. At first it appears as an idea, almost a visionary solution to the failures of ordinary theatres. Soon it becomes practical reality: sites, architects, patrons, Wagner societies, subscriptions, guarantees, construction, copyists, singers, scenery, and the immense labour of creating a theatre for one artistic purpose. The move to Bayreuth and the building of Wahnfried do not simplify life. They intensify it. The diaries show Bayreuth not merely as a shrine, but as a project beset by money, politics, vanity, devotion, incompetence, faith, and fatigue.

The approach to the 1876 Ring cycle dominates the middle years. The Festival is presented as the culmination of decades of artistic striving, but Cosima’s record makes clear how fragile the whole enterprise was. Every singer, rehearsal, costume, curtain, orchestral problem, and financial arrangement seems capable of threatening the ideal. After the Festival, the tone shifts sharply. The achievement has happened, but its aftermath is troubled by deficit, press hostility, uncertainty about future performances, the proposed Society of Patrons, the founding of the Bayreuther Blätter, and the London concerts undertaken to repair the damage. Bayreuth has succeeded as revelation, but it has also become a burden that must somehow survive in the world.

After 1876, Parsifal gradually becomes the spiritual centre of the diaries. The entries from 1877 to 1882 increasingly revolve around its poem, score, staging, rehearsals, religious atmosphere, and practical realization. The world of the Grail enters the daily life of Wahnfried: Gurnemanz, Kundry, Amfortas, Klingsor, the Flower Maidens, the Temple, the Communion imagery, the question of sacred drama, and the problem of presenting a work that seems to demand reverence from a public theatre. At the same time, Wagner’s health, his travels, his growing weariness, and the family’s movements through Italy and Venice give the later diaries a more autumnal character.

The diaries must also be read with full awareness of their antisemitism. This is not a marginal feature. In the early years, anti-Jewish remarks often cluster around the controversy of Wagner’s Judaism in Music, hostile critics, the press, Meyerbeer, musicians, theatre politics, and questions of assimilation. By the later 1870s and early 1880s, the tone changes. Antisemitism becomes more sweeping, more political, and more programmatic. The entries increasingly connect Jews with finance, journalism, liberalism, modernity, social decay, and Germany’s loss of spiritual identity. The diaries also record Wagner and Cosima reading or discussing figures such as Disraeli, Stoecker, Gobineau, and writings on the so-called Jewish question. By 1881, this hostility has hardened into open sympathy for anti-Jewish agitation and fantasies of expulsion, separation, or emigration. The development is ugly, historically important, and inseparable from the world these diaries disclose.

That ugliness is made more complex, not less, by the fact that Jewish individuals remain present in Wagner’s life and work: friends, patrons, musicians, correspondents, and, most famously in the late Bayreuth circle, Hermann Levi. The diaries therefore reveal not a simple contradiction but a deeper moral failure: Wagner and Cosima could depend on, admire, or work intimately with individual Jews while still interpreting Jewishness itself through hostile and dehumanizing abstractions. Any serious encounter with these diaries must resist both sanitizing this material and reducing the whole archive to it.

The Nietzsche story forms another major arc. In 1869, Nietzsche enters as a brilliant young philologist and soon becomes a cherished visitor, correspondent, and intellectual ally. The early diaries record excitement over his writings, especially the work that would become central to the Wagnerian cause, The Birth of Tragedy. During the Bayreuth years he appears as part of the wider hope for a new German culture, one that might unite art, philosophy, and spiritual renewal. Yet the relationship gradually frays. His ill health, his independence, the influence of Paul Rée, his rejection of Schopenhauer, and the publication of Human, All Too Human transform him in the Wagners’ eyes from disciple into apostate. By the later entries, Nietzsche is remembered with bitterness, as a figure of disappointment, ingratitude, and betrayal.

What makes these diaries invaluable is precisely their mixture of greatness and blindness. They reveal the daily climate in which Wagner’s late works were conceived, defended, mythologized, and institutionalized. They show Bayreuth being born out of metaphysical ambition and practical desperation. They show Parsifal emerging from religious longing, theatrical calculation, bodily decline, and cultural polemic. They show friendship turning into estrangement, devotion turning into dogma, and spiritual aspiration entangled with prejudice. To read Cosima’s diaries is to enter the workshop, chapel, battlefield, and household of Wagner’s final years.

Year

Month

1869• 1870• 1871• 1872• 1873• 1874• 1875• 1876• 1877• 1878• 1879• 1880• 1881• 1882• 1883

Jan• Feb• Mar• Apr• May• Jun• Jul• Aug• Sep• Oct• Nov• Dec

Showing entries for November 1869 (30 total)

Date	Word Count	Subject	Content
November 1, 1869	291	All Saints' Day begins with Fidi's bad night, Richard's gloomy visions of convent music, and Cosima's memory of the heavy path from the previous year. Sunrise revives her, and Richard reflects on nations, Italy, Christianity, music, and a letter to the King saying he cannot write. Loulou and Boni's complaints about her strictness wound her deeply, but night suffering returns her to the conviction that she must bear everything.	Monday, November 1: Wretched night with Fidi. All Saints’ Day, or “the poor men,” as Loldi says after I have told her what All Saints’ Day means. R. comes to my bed in gloomy spirits and says that throughout the night he has been hearing songs for investiture and convent vows. I was also sad, treading once more the heavy path I trod last year at this time. Watched the sunrise with a crescent moon; such a sight always lifts my heart again. At breakfast R. says: “How curious it is with nations; one sees how long it takes to produce fine blossoms. The Italians were marked out for something of which nobody in the Italy of ancient times had any idea. One can of course say that there was much mixing of blood, but I hold this to be far less important than the local factors. Out of this nation, which earlier seemed somewhat unproductive, suddenly there emerge from all directions beings who appear, every one of them, to be great, characteristic, and endowed with genius.” Further: “The two things which have enriched the world since the disappearance of the ancient world are Christianity and music.” Then R. says he has decided to write to the King, saying he cannot write to him. He reads me his letter, which I should have liked to be severer still. During the day, great concern about Loulou and Boni, who have complained of my strictness. I feel shaken to my very soul: are my children really so estranged from me that they repay my love with resentment? Gloomy night; “who never through night’s heavy hours.” But then the heavenly powers came to my aid; I know that I must bear everything, for my life is a sin.
November 2, 1869	223	On All Souls' Day, Cosima has the children pray for the dead and speaks to them solemnly while Richard is disheartened by news that Walküre is being prepared in Munich. A town walk and fine mountains do not help, and Siegfried's illness raises fears of diphtheria before the doctor finds no danger. In the crisis, Cosima warns her children never to seize control of fate, and she ends by remembering Hans's suffering with grim fidelity.	Tuesday, November 2: All Souls’ Day; I make the children pray for the dead, then speak to them earnestly and solemnly. R. in sad mood, has no desire to write another note of his Nibelungen; the newspaper says Die Walküre is being prepared for production in Munich. Much melancholy; in addition, Siegfried unwell. To town with R.; Christmas preparations already. Fine evening, the mountains wonderful, but the walk does us no good. Siegfried ill, fears of diphtheria; the doctor summoned in the night, feelings of despair. Oh, children, do not lay bold hands on Fate, not even to help others! Once it is done, gods, spirits, and mortals will turn their backs on the poor individual; worry will eat his heart as the eagle ate Prometheus’s, and no Hercules can free him, but only Death. Accept, children, accept; do not seek to relieve anything, seek no happiness for yourselves, but also do not seek it for others, and bear what you are given to bear without boldly imploring still further burdens! Content yourselves with carrying out what the gods have imposed on you; do not demand to recognize and interpret Fate itself; otherwise, children, peace will flee forever! Siegfried somewhat better, no danger; the cries of desperation were premature. Thought of Hans, of our sad last days together; how content I am never to forget his suffering!
November 3, 1869	51	Siegfried improves slightly, and Cosima works with the children while tending him. A visit to Countess Bassenheim with Lusch and evening fatigue make the day quiet but weary. Richard finishes and sends off his essay on conducting.	Wednesday, November 3: Life is a dream in which we are expected to do evil to one another! Siegfried somewhat better; worked with the children and tended him. In the afternoon to Countess Bassenheim’s with Lusch. Very tired in the evening. R. has finished his essay on conducting and sent it off.
November 4, 1869	193	A dream of parting from Hans leaves Cosima melancholy, but Richard's joke about gifts for the first people to congratulate them on marriage makes her laugh. Claire reports that Cosima's mother has read the marriage announcement, forcing an unwelcome letter, while Richard theatrically threatens suicide with a shotgun if Cosima neglects her health. Don Quixote's departure from the ducal court and Richard's work complete the evening.	Thursday, November 4: Dreamed of taking leave of Hans; great melancholy. In the morning R. comes up to me; he is concerned about my health. Then he says, “What should we give the first people who congratulate us on our marriage?” I ask who they are. “The Chaillous,” my tailors in Milan! We laugh. After that a letter from Claire informs me that my mother read the announcement of our marriage in La Liberté. I have to write to her, which I find very uncongenial. “Oh, your parents,” says R. jokingly, “your dear papa; it soon turns out that sitting down to a piano is rather different from sitting down to life.” After lunch R. says he wants to write me a letter; he is too worried about my life. Then he lights two candles and shows me a colossal shotgun in the corner of his room. He will shoot himself with this, he says, if I do not take care of myself. Much amusement over it, questions as to where the shotgun came from. “Well, that is a secret.” In the evening D. Quixote, leaving the ducal court: “What a clever person he is!” Richard working.
November 5, 1869	199	Cosima arranges the study, takes Lulu to her piano lesson, and hears from Doris that a Leipzig woman may be cheating her. Judith and Catulle beg Richard to come to Paris for concerts, while a dignified Paris marriage notice and Beckmann's protest against rumors amuse Richard. Playing with Siegfried leads him to imagine the boy's future education away from home under Nietzsche's watch, like Wotan observing Siegfried.	Friday, November 5: Arranged the study, or “thinking den.” After lunch, with Lulu to her piano lesson. In the evening D. Quixote. In the morning a letter from Doris, saying the woman in Leipzig is trying to cheat me. In the evening letters from Judith and Catulle Mendès; they beg R. to come to Paris to conduct concerts. Litolff offers him hospitality. A Paris newspaper announces our marriage in very dignified phrases; a Herr Beckmann protests against ugly rumors. R. laughs, embraces me, and says, “Oh, yes, you are being gossiped about with me.” Then he takes Siegfried in his arms and plays with him for a long time. To me he says: “We shall have to send Siegfried away; when he is approaching manhood he will have to meet other people, to get to know adversity, have fun, and misbehave himself; otherwise he will become a dreamer, maybe an idiot, the sort of thing we see in the King of Bavaria.” “But where?” “With Nietzsche, wherever Nietzsche is teaching, and we shall watch from afar, as Wotan watches the education of Siegfried. He will have free meals twice a week with Nietzsche, and every Saturday we shall expect a report.”
November 6, 1869	74	Cosima writes to her mother and Claire while Richard declines Catulle's Paris proposal. She spends time with the children, buys steamship-company shares on Richard's advice, and is anxious about risking the children's money. Room arranging, weariness, Richard's illness, and another bad night with Siegfried end the day heavily.	Saturday, November 6: Wrote to Mama and to Claire. R. to Catulle, telling him he is not in favor of taking on anything at all. With the children. After lunch with Colonel Am Rhyn; on R.’s advice I buy 20 shares in the new steamship company. Very perturbed by it, since frightened of losing the children’s money. After lunch arranged the rooms. Great weariness. R. unwell; on top of that, a very wretched night with Siegfried.
November 7, 1869	95	Cosima is weak and Richard very unwell, alarming her by speaking of securing Siegfried's future in case of sudden death before reassuring her. A lively family lunch and walk to painter Zund's house do them good. In the evening she writes Doris Brockhaus to request Uncle Adolph's picture.	Sunday, November 7: Feeling very weak, and R. unfortunately very unwell. He talks of assuring Siegfried’s future in the event of sudden death! Noticing my dismay, he says, “I do not believe it; things only happen to me when I believe in them, and most deeply, as for example with the King of Bavaria, when I really expected everything.” Family lunch, all well and lively. After lunch, walked as far as the painter Zünd’s house. It does much good. In the evening I write to Doris Brockhaus and ask her to send me the picture of Uncle Adolph.
November 8, 1869	62	A good night and cheerful mood allow Cosima and Richard to discuss the children's future, including setting aside her interests for the older children and someday building a house for Siegfried where the girls can also find refuge. She arranges the study, walks with Richard, and gives lessons. Nietzsche announces another visit.	Monday, November 8: A good night, cheerful spirits. Discussed with R. the children’s future, the need to put all my interests aside for the elder children. Hopes of building a house for Siegfried, stipulating, however, that the girls should always find a refuge in it. Afterward arranged the study. After lunch went out with R., then lessons with the children. Prof. Nietzsche announces a visit.
November 9, 1869	59	Richard works in lovely weather while the children are in the garden and Cosima feels unwell despite rest. Asked for a tribute to firemen, he drafts one immediately and offers a motto on blessedness through renouncing happiness. The day is brief but turns on work, weather, and a flash of Brahman-like wisdom.	Tuesday, November 9: R. working; lovely weather, the children in the garden, I unwell in spite of a good night. R. is asked for a tribute to the firemen, which he immediately drafts. “He who forswears happiness is blessed”—this motto, says R., is worthy of the young Goethe (the grandson!), and it came to him as a word of Brahman wisdom.
November 10, 1869	49	Cosima works with the children and takes Lusch to Countess Bassenheim, where the child's memory impresses. In the evening Richard, bundled in blankets, hears Cosima read the end of Don Quixote. Her own illness then sends her to bed.	Wednesday, November 10: Worked with the children. In the afternoon to Countess B. with Lusch, who makes an impression with her good memory. In the evening R. bundled up in blankets, I read him the conclusion of Don Quixote. Then I feel so unwell that I have to go to bed.
November 11, 1869	316	Richard is pleased by Cosima's good night after arranging for Siegfried to sleep under watch elsewhere, and the couple discover they both dreamed of embracing. Schiller's neglected birthday leads to reflections on his essence, Don Quixote, Plato's irony, Cervantes under Catholic pressure, Luther, and the misery of the millennium. Richard reads Schiller's Fight with the Dragon to the older girls, and Catulle reports another broken promise from Brussels.	Thursday, November 11: R. very pleased, because I had a good night; he had taken Siegfried away and told the maid to watch over him in his own rooms. At breakfast I told him it was not right that we had ignored Schiller’s birthday, which was yesterday. “Well,” he said, “yesterday was the very day on which, while I was working, I felt inwardly pleased by Schiller’s picture opposite me, and I pictured to myself his whole essence.” I remembered then that I had also told Lulu about Sch. We had the same dream, R. and I—that we embraced each other. In the morning arranged books in the study. At lunch R. declares: “I have been thinking again about Don Quixote and, considering it from the angle of its ironic outlook on the world, I was reminded of a dialogue by Plato; it is in him, too, this irony, but there it appears free, confident, nothing is pressing on it. Whereas one senses the horrible pressure of Catholicism on Cervantes’s noble spirit; the way he finds it necessary to make the poor Morisco praise the Inquisition! In the Greek one sees the Olympic wreath, in the Spaniard the starving poet, treated by the nobility, just as D. Q. was treated, like a plaything, in a world hostile to things of the spirit. Oh, the misery of having been born in this millennium!” Then, concerning Luther: “How right my uncle was always to call him the godly man.” In the evening R. reads The Fight with the Dragon to the two eldest children in his wonderful way, then says to me: “In my youth I did not at all understand the beauty of this poem, its masculine perfection. One must read such things from time to time in order to understand what such human beings mean.” Letter from Catulle Mendès: the Brussels director has gone back on his word—just as we expected.
November 12, 1869	238	Richard and Cosima discuss Christianity's lofty teaching and its damaging effects when imposed on the world, contrasting Dante and Calderon with the freer Goethe and Schiller. Eva's illness, Lenbach's letter, and Cosima's weak eyes mark the practical day. A troubling remark before the children is transformed when Richard suddenly embraces her as the noblest woman, then reflects on Bach's improvisatory markings.	Friday, November 12: More conversation about the influence of Christianity. “This teaching is too lofty not to have had the most pernicious of influences; it could not be forced on the world, it could only become truth in the minds of those who took refuge in the Thebais. When one sees how such giant intellects as Dante and Calderon served this teaching, one must admit that their works, if not they themselves, have suffered. How free, in contrast, do such beings as Goethe and Schiller seem, though certainly as intellects they are no greater than the two former.” Eva ill, let us hope nothing serious. Letter from Lenbach, the painter. Yesterday, in front of the children, R. made a remark about the aristocracy and von which upset me, for there are certain matters I prefer not to be touched on in front of the children; I was sitting there in silent reflection when suddenly R. rose from the piano, embraced me, and said I was the best and noblest woman in the world! I was startled to the point of tears. Afterward he played a piece by Bach and said, “Certain features in Bach can only be explained by the fact that he was a great improviser and wanted to pin down what he was so lightly extemporizing; hence the many pedantic markings, the curious runs, etc.” Wrote to Franz Lenbach. The eye specialist came on my account; my eyes are so weak.
November 13, 1869	191	The study receives finishing touches while Richard works on his second conducting essay and considers writing the King a full account of their trials and a request to suspend performances. Cosima asks him to wait, and Nietzsche reports outrageous rumors about Wagner's vanity, luxury, harem, and influence over the King. Richard reads the essay in the evening, and Loulou receives a letter from Hans at Villa d'Este.	Saturday, November 13: The finishing touches to the study. R. did some work on the second essay on conducting. He wants to write to the King again, to describe to him all we have been through, then describe all he is to him, what he owes to him, how without him he would never have been able to get down to his work, and finally to ask him to have nothing performed for the time being, to ignore the theater completely for a while. I ask R. not to send it yet. In the afternoon visit from Professor Nietzsche, who tells me it is quite incredible what lies are circulating in the world, both written and spoken, about R. (how, for instance, he stands before a mirror in an effort to equate himself with Goethe and Schiller—then about his luxury, his harem, his intimacy with the King of Bavaria, whom he incites to all his follies, etc.). We wonder what picture of him will go down in posterity. In the evening R. reads me his essay. In the morning Lulu had a letter from her father, who is now living in the Villa d’Este.
November 14, 1869	200	Chaillou offers a favorable villa on Lake Como, tempting Richard and Cosima and leading him to jokingly treat the Chaillous as friendly powers of fate. Family lunch, a Rigi sunset walk, Nietzsche's discussion of primitive language, and talk of Villa Capuana fill the day. With Fidi no longer sleeping beside Cosima, Richard imagines a future philosophy of music that would supersede church and state by revealing music as Christianity made flesh.	Sunday, November 14: In the morning a letter from Chaillou, the tailor in Milan, offering us a villa on Lake Como on very favorable terms. We are very much tempted. “Superstition is now my whole philosophy; for me the Chaillous are eudaemonic beings, their intervention in our lives has always been friendly. True, Wallenstein was deceived in this way about Piccolomini, but Wallenstein was a bad fellow, and I am not.” Family lunch. Then a walk, lovely glow on the Rigi at sunset. In the evening R. and Prof. Nietzsche discuss the first conceptions of language, which R. describes jokingly as talking primitive philology. Talked a lot about the Villa Capuana. Fidi is no longer sleeping beside me; R. wished me to get my rest. R. says, half in fun and half in earnest: “Just wait—when I write my treatise on the philosophy of music, church and state will be abolished. Religion has assumed flesh and blood in a way quite different from these dogmatic forms—music, that is the direct product of Christianity, as is the saint, like Saint Francis of Assisi, who compensates for the whole church as well as for the whole world.” Yesterday evening R. played us the beginning of the Norns’ scene.
November 15, 1869	139	Villa Capuana remains the central topic, with Richard writing Frau Lucca and Cosima writing Chaillou. A box from Milan delights Richard because he loves seeing Cosima in new clothes, and he greets her appearance as childlike joy. Pecht's misunderstanding of her earlier letter disappoints her, but Richard tells her simply to forget it before Plato in the evening.	Monday, November 15: The main topic of conversation is still the Villa Capuana; R. writes to Frau Lucca and I to Chaillou. In the morning work with the children. Much joy about a box arriving from Milan; R. loves it best of all when I am wearing new clothes. When I come down to him toward evening: “The joy,” he says, “when you come in like that; you look like a child.” With him to town; back home, I find the student and a letter from Pecht; then I have cause to regret ever having written to him. He has misunderstood me entirely and thinks I am assuming he would intervene on our behalf! R. tells me not to reply to him and also not even to regret having written to him, but just to “forget it.” Read Plato in the evening.
November 16, 1869	164	News about reduced steamship shares begins a day in the study with the children while Richard works under the burden of music where every note must suggest the end of the world. Lessing, Schiller, and Plato's Meno deepen the evening's thought. Alone, Cosima revisits the Via Crucis of the previous year and hopes Loulou may one day bring Hans joy, while Richard describes her inner life as a convulsion that mirrors the world's state.	Tuesday, November 16: News that I am to receive only 10 shares in the steamship company. With the children in the study. R. works, but complains about his health and about his task (“when every note is supposed to convey the end of the world”). After lunch read parts of Lessing’s Emilia Galotti and Schiller’s Fiesco in consequence of a conversation with R. about them. In the evening R. reads me Plato’s Meno; it arouses wonderful feelings in us. In my solitary hours I think back on this time last year; with a heavy heart I tread this Via Crucis, may Hans forget those days! I cherish a fair hope in the thought that Loulou will one day bring him joy and share his life happily. R. tells me today that I have recognized the entire state of the world in myself; it is a state of convulsion. Every thought, every joy, every sorrow, is a convulsion, and if it is not that, it is not worth much.
November 17, 1869	57	A sleepless night gives way to work with the children, concern over Richard's continuing illness, and an afternoon visit to Countess Bassenheim. Plato's Meno is completed in the evening. Melancholy letters from Cosima's mother and Claire lead Richard to speak about Aristophanes and comedy as the clash between will and idea.	Wednesday, November 17: Sleepless night of musing. Worked with the children. R. unfortunately still not well. In the afternoon to Countess Bassenheim. In the evening completed Meno. Letter from Mama, very melancholy, and from Claire; the latter tells me she is reading Aristophanes, which causes R. to talk about him. The conflict between will and idea produces the tremendous comedy.
November 18, 1869	54	Cosima remains anxious over Richard's wretched appearance while he writes to the King and accepts her request to soften potentially offensive passages. She is summoned to the parsonage, marking the first formal step toward divorce. Plato's Euthyphro fills the evening.	Thursday, November 18: Still concerned about R., who is looking wretched. In the morning he writes to the King; I beg him to alter some passages which might perhaps give offense, and he intends to do so. In the afternoon I am summoned to appear at the parsonage. First step toward divorce! In the evening Plato's Euthyphro.
November 19, 1869	109	A bad night and worry over Lulu's health are offset by Cosima's willingness to suffer and by memories of Richard playing Tristan with soul-melting force. Richard postpones sending the King's letter because it is Friday, works further on his conducting essay, and reads it to Cosima. She orders Christmas gifts, refuses the parsonage summons in writing, and finds Socrates' Apology wonderful.	Friday, November 19: Wretched night; worries about Lulu's health, R. also still not well. I suffer gladly. Yesterday evening R. played to me from Tristan, melting my whole soul. He became sad as we considered how musicians fail to take heed of such a work. He does not want to send off his letter to the King, since it is Friday. I, on the other hand, make my mail orders for Christmas. In the evening a letter to the parsonage refusing to obey their summons. In the evening the Apology of Socrates, quite wonderful. This morning R. did some further work on his essay on conducting and read it to me after lunch.
November 20, 1869	374	Richard begins the morning with a long reflection on Socrates as a negative, uncategorizable wisdom figure who prepared Plato by undermining accepted values. Cosima worries over Lulu's ugly resentment, remembers Papin's rejected greatness, and studies Greek history with Lusch. A sore throat brings Richard's anxious tenderness, Crito at her bedside, and the dispatch of his letter to the King.	Saturday, November 20: At seven in the morning R. wishes me a good morning and says he has already been thinking a lot about Socrates. It is very remarkable, he says, that his whole approach is negative; this means he is wise, but no philosopher. He is always trying to fathom where wisdom can be found, in Heaven and beneath the ground in Hades, everywhere. In this sense he can be compared with Kant, who in his Critique of Pure Reason declares that this problem cannot be solved, and he stands in relation to Plato more or less as Schopenhauer's first book stands to his second. To this extent he is also the clearest example of a step forward in the development of the human spirit. He could only be mild and benevolent, since all around him he saw error. But he must have been terribly irritating, since he could not be put into any category, not even among the philosophers, and yet he attracted everyone to him; if he had only accepted money, all would have been well. Plato was the first philosopher; Socrates was simply his forerunner, of the greatest importance to him, since he threw doubt on all recognized values. Such earlier men as Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, etc., were practicians; they sought to explain the objective world. Plato was the first to recognize the world's ideality, that the species was everything, the individual nothing. Much concern about Lulu; after I have scolded her about something, she waits until I have gone away and then gives vent to the ugliest resentment. Today she is not being allowed to work with me. Yesterday in the A.A.Z. I read a short biography of Papin, the scholar, whose experiences and death affected me terribly. Whether absolute wisdom, like that of Socrates, or remarkable significance like Papin's, all greatness must be rejected by this world. And all here, because of lunch, I no longer know what I wanted to say. In the evening Greek history with Lusch. Since I am coming down with a sore throat, R. tells me he does not know which is greater, his love or his concern for me. I go to bed, and R. reads Crito to me. R. reads me his letter to the King and sends it off.
November 21, 1869	106	Socrates remains the morning's subject as Richard compares his moral height with Christianity's ecstatic world-renunciation and the saint's symbolic vision. Countess Bassenheim visits, her daughter stays for lunch, and Richard completes and sends off his essay. Gorgias is read in the evening.	Sunday, November 21: In the morning we again talk about Socrates. "Beyond this moral code Christianity could not go. Christianity generated ecstasy, the complete destruction of the world, but as regards what the world itself can bring about, no one can ever go higher than Socrates. "In the greatness of his heart the saint sees, but he can only speak in symbols, the symbols of religion, and those who do not see the picture in the same way as he cannot understand the symbols." Visit from Countess Bassenheim; her little girl stays to lunch with us. R. works on his essay and sends it off. In the evening read Gorgias.
November 22, 1869	145	The Socratic maxim that it is better to suffer injustice than commit it turns Cosima's thoughts sorrowfully to Hans and produces a dream of him as exile or invalid. Richard wants his essaying to make him a Socratic gadfly against contemptible treatment of art, while Loulou's illness alarms Cosima. A renewed request from the clergyman about divorce leads her to consider going so as not to delay matters, before she sets up the children's theater.	Monday, November 22: That "better to suffer injustice than to commit it" makes me think a lot of Hans, with great melancholy; I dream that I received a letter from him with the following inscription: "To the delectable, adored one, from the poor exile or invalid." I am still worried about Lulu. With regard to his essay, R. tells me he will write down everything he can remember. "I want, like Socrates, to be the gadfly which always spurs on. The manner in which all our art is treated is too contemptible." Worked with the children in the study. Loulou unwell, however, which makes me very anxious. In the afternoon a letter from the clergyman asking me to visit his office with regard to my divorce. I decide to go, in order not to cause any delay in this matter; in the evening setting up the theater for the children.
November 23, 1869	53	Cosima and Richard take the clergyman's letter to the lawyer, who dissuades her from visiting the parsonage, to her relief. They look at children's toys and spend the rest of the day in domestic work. Richard and Lulu are somewhat better, the weather is cold and bright, and Gorgias continues in the evening.	Tuesday, November 23: In the morning with R. to the lawyer with the clergyman's letter; I am dissuaded from going to see him and give up the intention with pleasure. Afterward looked at children's toys with R. Otherwise children's day. R. and Lulu both somewhat better; fine, cold weather, sun and snow. In the evening Gorgias.
November 24, 1869	159	Richard works in Cosima's room while she tends the children and answers Nietzsche's friendly letter. The lawyer says she must appear before the clergyman after all, and she worries over Richard's inability to restrain his inclinations. Richter's melancholy Brussels letter, French musical conditions, and signs of the Bavarian King's better conduct round out the day.	Wednesday, November 24: R. works in my room, I with the children. Friendly letter from Professor Nietzsche, replied to him. Letter from the lawyer, saying I shall have to appear before the clergyman after all. In the afternoon some concern that R. cannot be persuaded to curb his inclinations. Recently he said apropos of births or procreations, "The time must be right, the position of the stars right, that's how it was with me; that it didn't all turn out brilliantly you can see in my restlessness and the fact that nothing much came of my brother Albert." In the evening a melancholy letter from Hans Richter; he is conducting Lohengrin in Brussels, but is thoroughly despondent about French musical conditions, would like to be back in Germany, poor man. Some pleasure in seeing the King of Bavaria behaving well; for instance, Döllinger, the cathedral provost, was not invited to the Vatican Council, now he is going after all as an embassy attaché.
November 25, 1869	46	Richard does not work in Cosima's room, causing concern that he cannot reach the right mood. Family lunch is disturbed by household matters, and R. Pohl does not arrive as expected. Cosima and Richard read Mone's Heroic Saga, and Claire's letter is answered the next morning.	Thursday, November 25: R. does not work in my room, great concern that he cannot bring himself into the right mood. Family lunch, some disturbance in the house. R. Pohl does not come as expected; read Mone's Heroic Saga with R. Letter from Claire, answered her the following morning.
November 26, 1869	60	A cheerful atmosphere returns as Richard works again and jokes that the Norns' rope is finally tangled. Letters from Judith and Konigsberg, news of Meistersinger there, an unpleasing Berlin portrait, and R. Pohl's arrival fill the day. A visit to Countess Bassenheim and a powerful new collection of Durer pictures leave a strong artistic impression.	Friday, November 26: Cheerful atmosphere, R. again in working vein: "At least the Norns' rope has now got into a tangle." Letter from Judith, another from Königsberg; Die Meistersinger is to be presented there. A new picture from Berlin very unpleasing, makes him look like Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer! Arrival of R. Pohl. Visited Countess Bassenheim. Incomparable impression from a new collection of Dürer pictures.
November 27, 1869	110	Catholic political victory in Bavaria and talk of guardianship for the King set a dark public backdrop while Richard works on the Norns' song and Cosima tends the children. An anonymous abusive letter with a Schopenhauer photograph shocks her, then becomes a strangely welcome penance and even a cause for laughter. Richard reads his conducting essay aloud.	Saturday, November 27: The Catholic party has won in Bavaria; they are talking of arraigning the ministry and appointing a guardian for the King. R. works on his Norns’ Song, I with the children. Boni unfortunately very unwell. Around noon Jakob brings me an anonymous letter; amid abuse of the vulgarest sort, someone sends me a photograph of Schopenhauer, saying he resembles Richard! When I have got over the first shock, I almost welcome this penance; the whole day long I am in very good spirits, conversing a lot with Pohl and then speaking of this curious letter. In the end it makes us laugh. R. reads us his essay on conducting.
November 28, 1869	202	Cosima and Richard mark the sixth anniversary of falling in love during his Berlin passage, remembering that they once imagined dying together. Countess Bassenheim takes Lulu to lunch, Pohl and Cosima read Turgenev, and the temporarily misplaced biography becomes a comic episode. Evening reflections compare love to a volcanic eruption that transforms and obeys deep law, while Richard says Cosima stands before him as he writes Brunnhilde.	Sunday, November 28: Six years ago today R. came through Berlin, and then it happened that we fell in love; at that time I thought I should never see him again, we wanted to die together. R. remembers it, and we drink to this day. Countess Bassenheim visits me and takes Lulu off to lunch. In the afternoon R. continues writing his essay, I read some stories by Turgenev with Pohl, very mediocre. In the evening R. reads from his biography; we had a great shock at first, thinking it was lost. R. could not find it anywhere, until he remembered that he had put the folder behind his books to hide a piece of the wallpaper. I laughed and observed that this was just like him, to forget his whole biography and use the folder as if he were a paperhanger. In the evening I reflected on how love works on us like a Plutonian eruption: it bursts through everything, throws all strata into confusion, raises mountains, and there it is, utmost transformation and utmost law. In the morning R. told me he had always wanted to come to me; now, when he is working on his Brünnhilde, I am constantly before his eyes.
November 29, 1869	234	Boni's illness, the foehn, and Richard's indisposition darken the day, though he continues working. Cosima speaks with Pohl about Hans and becomes melancholy, praying that Lulu may one day console her father. Richard plays the first scene of Act III, news about Dohm relieves Cosima that he was not behind Kladderadatsch's attacks, and the evening ends with slight vexation over too much talk.	Monday, November 29: Boni ill, not dangerously, but weak. The foehn has returned and is making us feel wretched. R. indisposed, but works all the same. After lunch talked much with Pohl, brought the conversation around to Hans, of whom he knew nothing definite; I saw he was vexed with him, so I did a lot of talking and made myself very melancholy thereby! God grant him the noble ability to recognize the felicity of suffering, and grant me the consolation of seeing his child, my Lulu, one day become a joy and consolation to him! If things go right with you, my child, a fine, heavenly task will perhaps be assigned to you one day: fulfill it! R. then played Pohl and me the first scene of his third act. This always affects me terribly. The student does geography with Lulu. I heard something which made me truly glad. Pohl told me that Dohm had fled to Weimar nine months ago because of his debts, so he is no longer editing Kladderadatsch. This proves that it was not he who permitted those nasty things to be printed about me; that was a relief. Abuse matters little, but what meant much to me was that someone whom I had always known and acknowledged to be a decent person had suddenly become vile. In the evening slight vexation because of too much talk, and R. always prefers doing something.
November 30, 1869	63	A telegram reports enthusiastic reception of Die Meistersinger in Weimar, but Richard is unwell and writes letters instead of working. A mistaken engagement notice linking Doris Brockhaus and Richard Wagner amuses them, as does an anonymous request to compose a Faust. Cosima reads Pohl the Parzival sketch, and the biography fills the evening.	Tuesday, November 30: Telegram from Weimar. Die Meistersinger has been received in Weimar with great enthusiasm. Richard not well, does no work, but writes letters instead. In the afternoon announcement of an engagement between Doris Brockhaus and Richard Wagner, which made us laugh a lot; then an anonymous letter: Master, compose a Faust. I read Pohl the Parsifal sketch; in the evening read the biography.
No diary entries found.