Vienna, June 24, 1939. I met one of the greatest doctors here at a dance, and he danced so badly that I sat out with him and talked hard to prevent him wanting to go back to the ball-room. He said I ought to go and see the patients at the great Hospital of Rest, where there was a new treatment being tried; you had to sit in a series of draughts, which were carefully graduated so as to get stronger and stronger. It was a wonderful thing, especially for rheumatism. There was another cure which meant that you had to be coated with tar all over. I asked whether they made any charge for admission to see these patients, and he said yes, unless I had got one of the new “Go-everywhere” coupons. I asked whether the psycho-analysts were still strong among the medical faculty, and he said he thought their influence was declining. They had declared that all music was demoralizing, and that had made trouble with the Senators at Bayreuth. They had also wanted to kill all pet dogs. Bayreuth, August 3, 1939. Almost the first thing we did when we got here was to go to the much-advertised “continuous performance” of the “Ring.” So far as the music was concerned, I simply proved once more the mendacity of the friends who always tell you you don’t have to be musical to appreciate Wagner—not a note of it meant anything to me. And, though the scenery was certainly gorgeous, the whole thing seemed to me over-acted, especially in the amount of facial expression the actors found it necessary to put in. But what enthralled me was the merely _mechanical_ triumph of the whole thing; never for one moment did the cinema-operator get out of time with the gramophone; of course if he had the effect would have lowered the dignity of the whole performance. It was wonderful to watch how the devotees sat there silent, hour after hour; I had one old gentleman pointed out to me who attends every day from nine to one, and again from half-past two to half-past six. It was impossible not to be impressed. With my “Go-everywhere” coupon I was allowed to look behind the scenes, and the gramophone was certainly marvellous. It is said to be the largest in the world, and I could easily have stood up in the mouth of the funnel. There is a story of a cinema-operator who was so worried at having got the pictures _one bar out_ that he went home and shot himself—they are a marvellous people. We also went to the Wagner Mausoleum, where they have continuous lectures on the operas. An old professor, whose name I did not catch, brought forward various reasons, which I did not understand, for believing that Parsifal was written with some special political object, whose nature I cannot remember.