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 January 1876 (31 total)

Date	Word Count	Subject	Content
January 1, 1876	188	The year begins with church, visitors, and immediate irritation over false newspaper reports about Scaria and the Bayreuth committee. Wagner is deeply discouraged by the smear campaign around him and the house-sale rumors, while the evening closes gloomily with paperwork and the upkeep payment for a brother’s grave in Berlin.	Saturday, January 1: Went to church; afterward received visitors. R. discovers that the newspapers are saying that Herr Scaria demanded 2,000 florins for his entire stay in Bayreuth and had been turned down by the management committee. R. is requesting a correction through Standhartner. R. reads the history of the Arabs and says that the more he sees what difficulties the founding of a state brings, the more convinced he is of the recklessness of shaking the foundations, and he sees how fortunate all who possess dynasties can count themselves. The spirit which founded states knew instinctively what it was doing in providing those. R. is despondent: “The meanness one is confronted with,” he says, “gets worse and worse; I never before experienced what I am going through now.” Herr Gross told him that, when they tried here to counter the lies about the sale of our house, no newspaper would accept the item. R. is very depressed; we have a sad evening. I clear up letters and bills and, as my first expenditure in the New Year, pay for the upkeep of my brother’s grave in Berlin.
January 2, 1876	121	Bayreuth friends come to lunch, and Wagner publicly turns the moment into an expression of gratitude for the people who have sustained him through the past year. Later, more distorted newspaper attacks surface, but the day ends in relief and uplift as they read the first act of 'Romeo and Juliet' and feel momentarily transported.	Sunday, January 2: Today we have our Bayreuth friends to lunch: the Feustels, the Grosses, the mayor and his wife. R. drinks to them, says that his good experiences of the past year have been due to them alone, and that the fact that he has discovered such friends is for him a guarantee of success. Friend Feustel replies nicely. We learn that the newspapers which reported Scaria’s demands so incorrectly are now saying that, in view of the management committee’s ignoble negotiating methods, artists, Frau Materna for example, cannot afford to have anything to do with it. Read the first act of Romeo and Juliet in the evening, in order to rid ourselves of our burden of unpleasantness. Heavenly impression.
January 3, 1876	250	The day is haunted by memory, with Wagner dreaming of country walks and the old sounds of Tribschen still ringing in the ears. The diary returns again to hostile press lies, and the sense of injustice is sharpened by reports of caricatures and insults, though the evening reading of 'The Merchant of Venice' offers some respite.	Monday, January 3: For several days now R. has been dreaming of wandering through lovely country, this time with Rus, whose eyes, coated with white dust, gave him a ghostly appearance; I, lying awake, hear the cowbells of Tribschen, they literally ring in my ears and remind me of lovely times. Dear God, how will R. ever be able to return to the main thing, his composing? Yesterday we read a well-meaning piece that still contained untruths; when one considers that R. always stakes his own property on everything that he does, and then this slander! The report goes on to say that insulting caricatures have been made both of him and of me: “How nasty of these people!” What cause I have given people to behave like this toward me remains a mystery. R. says they only want to make sure that he never comes to Vienna again! We read a report of a visit to Beethoven by old Wieck, and a letter from Czerny about the first performance of the 9th Symphony; very affecting, as everything one hears about a genius always is, his language “nobly lamenting.” At supper R. says, “Only in times of storm and stress shall Wagner again put on his evening dress.” He goes out with Fidi, and as the bells begin to toll the little fellow says, “Now we can hear what we have just seen,” for they had passed by the bell tower. In the evening we read The Merchant of Venice.
January 4, 1876	238	Worries dominate from morning to night as the year’s balance sheet is weighed against a long list of disappointments: critics, officials, Vienna, Scaria, and the threatening Frau K. König. Financial strain deepens when a promised advance fails to arrive, yet Shakespeare’s comedy is again used as a needed counterweight to the misery.	Tuesday, January 4: We go to bed and wake up with worries; R. recently drew up a balance sheet for the past year, how much bad, how little good: Fürstner, Voltz, Batz, the press after the rehearsals, Richter, the experiences in Vienna, Scaria, now Käthchen König! This malicious woman’s threats hang over my head like a sword of Damocles, a repetition of the Schnorr experience. Let her but come into contact with the most insignificant of scribblers, and he will take pleasure in stirring up mud to throw at us; it seems to be assumed that I am valuable and useful to R., and probably that is the reason why they drag me into everything. How easily I could accept it on my own account, if it were not for the feeling that it is all in fact directed against the Bayreuth undertaking! In the afternoon Herr Feustel comes to speak to me; he is in low spirits. The advance has not arrived from the treasury, and he has been unable to pay Herr Brandt. A letter from Frau v. Schl. shows me that R.’s letter to the Prince has had no effect at all. She and Bucher are thinking about approaching the Reichstag. Alas, the dominating spirit there is Herr Lasker. In the evening read As You Like It, after discussing all the bad news with R.; the lowest of spirits must yield to this divine humor.
January 5, 1876	241	Nothing reassuring arrives, and Wagner is visibly shaken by the silence. Feustel discusses finances, Brussels is considered as a possible concert destination, and money is even sent to Kinowsky despite all the family complications, while plans for the Bayreuth undertaking remain fragile and uncertain.	Wednesday, January 5: R. is very upset, no news from anywhere! I look through the books, itemized in marks. In the afternoon I go to see Herr Feustel in order to discuss various things again; R. makes up his mind to conduct concerts in Brussels if the sum mentioned to him by Herr Brassin, 40,000 francs, can be guaranteed. Herr Jauner writes quite unselfconsciously, unaware of the letter from the finance clerk; Tannhäuser is still being performed, so at least that final unpleasantness has not occurred. R. sends Kinowsky 100 thalers through nephew Jachmann; he had long ago set these aside for him, not intending to allow his sister-in-law’s disgraceful behavior to stop him from helping a poor man. Should she later make use of this to exert more pressure, the police will be called in. In the evening there is a visit from the district councillor Scherer, who tells us about the excavations in Steinach. Worrisome decisions with regard to the eldest children. I tried to persuade R. to return to the biography, but he asks me to wait until these bad times have been decided one way or another. He is thinking of the abandonment of his undertaking, and his account of the events leading to that. Our life afterward; today I suggested to Herr Feustel that my property be pledged and that he approach my father in this connection; he promises to do that “if all else fails.”
January 6, 1876	231	Wagner’s dream of conducting the Ninth Symphony becomes a nightmare of humiliation, hunger, and obstruction, mirroring the frustrations of waking life. The day brings more disappointments over money and support, and even the reading choices fail to lift the mood.	Thursday, January 6: R. dreamed that he had to conduct the 9th Symphony, in Dresden or Munich, and passed beforehand through a railroad-station restaurant which had frankfurters. Being very hungry, he ordered some; coming back to fetch them, he sees two men eating his portion, the assistant at the buffet maliciously insolent, also the manageress, who refuses him not only the sausages but beer as well. He is angry, then tries friendly words, all to no avail. In the end he leaves the restaurant cursing, arrives at the concert hall, walks through the orchestra, is greeted with applause, but has to climb, relies on his agility, but comes to a place which is too steep; when he cannot jump over it, he wakes up. He says, “All one needs is bad experiences to stop the brain from carrying out the task it is there to do, for demons of all kinds to take control and produce nothing but horrible images.” Decisions regarding my Daniella; I shall keep Blandine at home. We start Lope de Vega’s El peregrino, but find no enjoyment in it and read a story by Boccaccio instead. Baron Seydlitz reports that he visited Baroness von Schleinitz and found her, not depressed, but cheerfully hopeful. He says she has probably sent me a telegram; but no telegram arrives. Herr O. Wesendonck informs us that he cannot provide the advance.
January 7, 1876	44	Daniella leaves, and the departure feels like the hardest trial the diarist has yet faced. The day is uniformly gray, marked by longing for Wagner to return to work and by a general sense of heaviness.	Friday, January 7: Departure of Daniella. I clearly feel that in her the severest trial of my life has been inflicted on me. The day is dull, the evening too. R. and I long for him to be able to get down to work!
January 8, 1876	128	Hans’s birthday becomes an inward, disciplined day of fasting, prayer, and a vow to accept hardship more serenely. Artistic work on the Gibichung hall curtain provides some consolation, and Wagner’s storytelling from Arab history brings a gentler atmosphere before sleep.	Saturday, January 8: Hans’s birthday; I turn it into a day of self-communion. Work with the children; fasting; a visit to my grave site; a solemn oath to accept everything that is difficult and bad as just. Walked to the theater, met Brandt and the Bruckners there, R. also turns up, we drive home; in the evening, selecting the curtain for the Gibichung’s hall. This work on artistic things is the only means of cheering myself up. R. continues reading the history of the Arabs and relates delightful anecdotes from it. He also speaks of the change when Christianity suddenly entered, how moving the death of St. Ferdinand! How familiar to us! It is the humility behind it which so moves us. Fell asleep thinking tenderly of Hans.
January 9, 1876	120	A troubled dream about spoiling a score reflects Wagner’s strained state of mind, and the day begins with children, ice, and anxious news about Unger and political maneuvering. Though the situation seems desperate, there is at least a promise to resume the biography, even if obstacles loom everywhere.	Sunday, January 9: R. dreamed of an ink blot which he made on a page of the score, to his great annoyance; then it turned out that the score was not one of his. Morning prayers with the children, then to the ice with them. R. has good news of Herr Unger; God grant that no disappointments will arise here! Mimi Schl. writes advising a petition from the management committee to the Reichstag; Bucher believes the mood to be favorable. In such a difficult situation, anyway, it is impossible to do more damage, since nothing helps. R. is in despondent mood. I try to persuade him to start again on the biography tomorrow, and he promises. God forbid any obstacles!
January 10, 1876	68	The household is busy from early lessons through afternoon ice skating and evening work with the children. Wagner meets resistance from the mayor over a petition to the Reichstag, prompting more correspondence about whether the matter would be taken badly, and the night ends with scenes from 'Hamlet'.	Monday, January 10: Lessons for the children very early in the morning, then dictation. In the afternoon to the ice with the children and worked with them in the evening before supper. R. was with the mayor, who is very much against a petition to the Reichstag. R. writes to Councilor Diiffiipp to inquire whether H. M. would take this ill. In the evening some scenes from Hamlet.
January 11, 1876	68	The day carried the same subdued rhythm as the one before, with memories of the past rising up in a melancholy but oddly pleasant way, as if the sister’s presence still lingered between them. A letter from nephew Jachmann brought news about the Fiirstner affair, and R. considered a trip to Berlin. In the evening Marke’s mournful howl startled everyone, leaving a strong impression.	Tuesday, January 11: The same routine as yesterday; pleasurably melancholy images from the past rise up, the spirit of my sister hovers between us! — Everything vanished! ... In the afternoon a letter from our nephew Jachmann about the Fürstner affair. R. is thinking about going to Berlin. In the evening Marke alarms us with a howl of lament — Brange was not there. Profound effect of this animal sound. —
January 12, 1876	113	There was no dictation today, and R. was absorbed by business troubles, especially his irritation at being sent to the Reichstag after appealing to the Emperor’s grace. Conversation after lunch turned to Tannhduser and the long chain of hardships attached to the work’s fate. The evening ended in a bleak mood, deepened by the note about Pusinelli’s unpaid debt and the duty to make amends to his heirs.	Wednesday, January 12: No dictation today! R. is thinking of business matters; he is deeply annoyed at being referred to the Reichstag, when he had appealed to the Emperor’s grace. After lunch we come to the subject of Tannhäuser — how the fate of this work is linked with an unbroken series of experiences of the most wretched kind. [In the margin: “I am very shocked to learn that Pusinelli was never paid (about 5,000 thalers), and here I solemnly say to my son Siegfried that it is his duty, should he ever be in possession of a fairly large amount of capital, to pay off this debt to Dr. Pusinelli’s heirs.”] Despondent mood in the evening.
January 13, 1876	33	The day was full of ordinary work and family activity: time with Boni, dictation, and then skating with the children. Later there was more work with Boni and the little ones before evening reading with R. from Gibbon on Mohammed. The tone is busy and domestic rather than strained.	Thursday, January 13: Worked with Boni 9–11, dictation 11–12:30, then with the children on the ice. From 5–7 worked with Boni and the little ones; in the evening with R. read about Mohammed in Gibbon.
January 14, 1876	122	Letters dominated the day, including a good report from Standhartner, a kind message from the King, and a gloomy one from Councilor Dufflipp about the royal treasury. R. sent a telegram after deciding not to press the matter further, having learned that the emergency was less severe than feared and that a rebuff from the Reichstag would damage the whole undertaking. The evening closed with Doughty’s history of the Arabs and R.’s remark that they felt less congenial to him than Christian heroes.	Friday, January 14: Letters: a very good one from Standhartner with an account of the royalties, then a nice one, as always, from the King, and a sad one from Councilor Dufflipp, complaining of the difficulties of the royal treasury. R. sends a telegram saying he has decided not to ... Yesterday, with Feustel and the mayor, it did in fact turn out that the emergency is not such a dire one, and that a rebuff from the Reichstag would discredit our whole undertaking — Bismarck probably only too anxious for this rebuff, in order to justify his own behavior. In the evening finished Dozy’s History of the Arabs: Motamit! — R. says they are less congenial to him than the Christian heroes of Castile.
January 15, 1876	98	R. discovered another contract swindle: in the Vienna agreement, the subscription income had been omitted, which could cut deeply into his royalties if the theater prospered. The injury stung all the more because he had trusted that the Berlin terms would be carried over correctly in writing. Work with the children continued, and R. wrote to Herr Jauner to complain.	Saturday, January 15: It turns out that R. has once again been swindled in connection with a contract; in the contract with Vienna they have omitted the subscription proceeds, so that if the theater has a rise in its fortunes, and indeed most probably because of R., and the number of regular subscribers increases, R. will suffer a significant drop in royalties, just because he relied on having his stipulations, based on the Berlin arrangement, taken into account in writing as well as in conversation! ... Work with the children and dictation. R. writes to Herr Jauner, complaining of this.
January 16, 1876	46	Jachmann reported that R.’s presence was not absolutely necessary, while the family celebrated Rubinstein’s return from Berlin. In the evening Rubinstein played several pieces, including Mihalovich’s Hero and Leander. The music showed talent, but it also left them uneasy.	Sunday, January 16: Nephew Jachmann reports that R.’s presence is not utterly necessary; we celebrate R[ubinstein]’s return from Berlin. In the evening he plays us several things, among others a composition by Mihalovich, Hero and Leander, which, while giving evidence of decided talent, arouses great misgivings in us.
January 17, 1876	149	R. had a musical insight in the evening, noting that a countertheme could be found by reversing a theme and comparing melodic relations to visual spectra. The day also brought dictation and visits, but the main practical concern was political: Feustel’s letter and Bismarck’s secretary both suggested approaching the Reichstag and the Prince directly. R. resisted firmly, insisting he would appeal to the Emperor and the Reich Chancellor, not to the Reichstag’s opinion.	Monday, January 17: R. wrote down a theme which came to him during the evening, and discovers that the countertheme can be found in a simple reversal of it; he says there are melody spectra for the ear just as there are light spectra for the eyes. Dictation; visits with R. Herr Gross brings us a note from Feustel; the latter has received a letter from Berlin which makes it seem advisable after all to approach the Reichstag and the Prince personally with a request. R. is very much against it. Bismarck’s secretary writes somewhat confusedly, but also seems of the opinion that the difficulties would be less if one were to approach the Reichstag! R. replies that he cannot approach the Reichstag for an advance, also that he is appealing to the Emperor’s grace and the understanding of the Reich Chancellor, not, however, to the views of the gentlemen in the Reichstag.
January 18, 1876	79	The King sent a life-size photograph, and Dr. Strecker visited with the score of Siegfried, making a very good impression. Dictation and work with Boni filled the day, and in the evening they began reading Lagarde’s pamphlet On the Present State of the German Reich. It contained useful ideas, especially on Austria and education, though its theology struck them as muddled.	Tuesday, January 18: The King sends us a life-size photograph of himself; Dr. Strecker, successor of the “Sons” in the firm of B. Schott’s Sons, visits us, bringing the score of Siegfried. He pleases us with his very good manners. More dictation, and work with Boni. In the evening we begin the pamphlet On the Present State of the German Reich, which Prof. de Lagarde has sent me; it contains excellent things (Austria’s task, criticism of present-day schools), but much confused theology.
January 19, 1876	118	Dictation and work continued, but the atmosphere darkened as royalties arrived and the finances were tallied, confirming the theater’s disastrous condition. Baron Hofmann reported poor attendance, and R. said that only a man like Bismarck could help, which only proved how badly things stood. Jauner’s cable about Scaria’s demands angered R. so much that he nearly wanted to drop him at once, though he first sought Betz and Niemann’s opinion.	Wednesday, January 19: Dictation and work. Also, arrival of royalties and calculation of expenditure. Baron Hofmann writes of bad attendance in the theater; the disastrous financial situation is causing very great alarm everywhere. “The fact that only a man like Bismarck can help us,” says R., “shows that we are lost.” Herr Jauner cables that he will arrange matters according to R.’s wishes, and reports at the same time that, as a condition of his engagement, Herr Scaria is demanding 2,500 thalers from July 15 onward, to be paid now in advance. This makes R. so indignant that he feels like dispensing with Scaria right away, but he cables Betz first, inviting his and Niemann’s opinion. Continued Prof. Lagarde’s pamphlet in the evening.
January 20, 1876	50	More dictation and lessons were followed by Betz’s view that Scaria should indeed be dismissed, and R. wrote accordingly to Jauner. The question now turned to how Frau Materna would respond. The day was further unsettled by a changed lunch hour, friction between the governess and parlormaid, and trouble with the writer’s eyes.	Thursday, January 20: Further dictation and lessons; R. receives Herr Betz’s opinion that Scaria will have to be dispensed with. R. writes to Herr Jauner accordingly. How will Frau Materna now react? Change of daily routine (lunch at 3 o’clock), squabbles between governess and parlormaid, on top of that trouble with my eyes!
January 21, 1876	61	The day was spent in lessons and dictation, with a birthday greeting sent to Feustel. In the evening they kept reading Lagarde’s pamphlet and found it full of worthwhile ideas, which deepened their growing interest in education and the possibility of founding a model school with Nietzsche, Rohde, Overbeck, and Lagarde, perhaps under the King’s patronage.	Friday, January 21: Lessons and dictation; R. to Feustel with good wishes on his birthday. In the evening continued Prof. Lagarde’s pamphlet. Many excellent things in it. More and more we are considering, R. and I, the question of education; thoughts of establishing a model school, with Nietzsche, Rohde, Overbeck, Lagarde. Could the King be induced to sponsor it? . . .
January 22, 1876	58	The routine continued, while R. remained absorbed in the Arabs through Baron Schack’s work. The evening was devoted to Shakespeare’s Richard II, which struck them as endlessly revealing and provoked repeated admiration and discussion.	Saturday, January 22: Still the same activities; R. continues to occupy himself with the Arabs through the work of Baron Schack. In the evening Shakespeare’s Richard II, my favorite among the historical plays. Reading one act gives rise to endless amazement, admiration, rereading, discussion; it is as if one had never grasped it all before, a complete revelation! ...
January 23, 1876	20	After dictation and a walk, the evening brought visitors, a Haydn symphony, and Rubinstein’s newest piece from Der Ring des Nibelungen. The day closed in a social and musical mood.	Sunday, January 23: Dictation; walk; in the evening visitors, a Haydn symphony, and Rubinstein’s latest piece from Der Ring des Nibelungen.
January 24, 1876	39	It was another day of lessons and dictation, though I also had many business matters to settle. In the evening they finished Richard II, and its effect was so strong that sleep was lost over it.	Monday, January 24: The same life, lessons, dictation, but besides these many business matters for me to settle; in the evening conclusion of Richard II, which moves me so much that I lose my night’s sleep on account of it.
January 25, 1876	47	The day felt tiring, and I had already written to Bucher to explain why we had not approached the Reichstag and to ask that no official notice reach us before the Berlin visit in March. In the evening they turned to Henry IV.	Tuesday, January 25: Tired day. Yesterday I wrote to friend Bucher, to tell him the reasons why we have not approached the Reichstag, and to ask him not to allow any official notification to reach us before our visit to Berlin in March. In the evening Henry IV.
January 26, 1876	40	R. was not fully well and was annoyed by Betz’s letter, while Fricke was being recommended for Hagen. The evening ended more pleasantly with a ball at the district president’s house and a private, affectionate hour together on the way home.	Wednesday, January 26: R. not entirely well; displeased with a letter from Betz; Fricke is recommended for Hagen. In the evening a ball at the district president’s house. Following which an intimate hour for R. and me on the homeward journey!
January 27, 1876	21	R. spent the day writing to the King while I handled lessons and other business. They relaxed in the evening with Don Quixote.	Thursday, January 27: R. spends the day writing to the King, I with lessons and business matters; in the evening Don Quixote.
January 28, 1876	84	Dictation continued, though my eyes were troubling me. Letters and newspaper talk brought warnings about the risks of openly attacking the press for R.’s sake, while a reported satire by Bauernfeld and its favorable notice in Leipzig added to the sense of hostility.	Friday, January 28: Dictation; my eyes are causing me trouble. Fine Indian saying: He who produces fine works throughout his life has overcome sensuality. Letter from the editor of the Weser-Zeitung, Herr Hofmann; he says if anyone were to attack the press openly in R.’s behalf, he would have the whole pack after him. Herr Bauernfeld has published a play in which, so it is said, R. is ridiculed, and the editor of a large newspaper in Leipzig recommends the book as useful, desirable, etc.
January 29, 1876	49	Lessons and dictation filled the day, and we visited the unfortunate but dear Schenk. R. was in a bad mood, and Bucher’s letter urged complete caution, noting that only the Prince could be trusted and that he was ill; the evening again ended with Don Quixote.	Saturday, January 29: Dictation and lessons; visit to our poor good friend Schenk; R. in bad humor. Lothar Bucher writes, telling us on no account to undertake anything just now, the Prince is the only person on whom one can rely, and he is ill. In the evening Don Quixote.
January 30, 1876	25	It was a day for correspondence, with the children enjoying a holiday, and I also wrote to R. Liechtenstein. The evening brought the Bayreuth circle together, now enlivened by Frau von Staff.	Sunday, January 30: Correspondence day, the children have a holiday! Wrote to R. Liechtenstein, also dictation. In the evening Bayreuth company, enriched by Frau v. Staff.
January 31, 1876	123	The day was taken up with the children and dictation, while R. came back from a conference deeply discouraged by the state of the enterprise. Attendance was far too low, expenses kept rising, and the press remained hostile even to simple announcements. News from Paris and America only widened the sense that public slander was spreading against him everywhere.	Monday, January 31: Work with the children and dictation. R. has a conference in the afternoon, from which he returns very depressed. To contemplate going on with the performances looks like foolhardiness! Only 488 patrons so far! And the expenditure is mounting, the press is closed to us even for announcements. In Paris, it appears, Le Figaro has published a libelous article about R. A Herr Ullmann begs R. to reply to it, if only for the sake of Lohengrin, which is to be performed in Paris. R. answers that he reads no newspapers, and the task of replying belongs to those who honor the press with their attention. In America Hans also seems to be exposed to this vile blot on our public life.
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