Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of January 13, 1872

Overview

I spent the day thinking about my dress for the foundation-stone ceremony, while R. prepared his speech and kept to his work. He returned from town with an absurd request from De Gubernatis to write music for a dramatic poem, which only added to the day’s odd mixture of seriousness and frivolity. In the evening, Euripides left me cold, though a scene from Iphigenia in Aulis briefly restored my sense of Greek beauty, and R. finished the plans for our house.

Content

Saturday, January 13:

Designed my dress for the foundation-stone laying; R. thinks of his speech and says he will conform to Luther’s rule: “Enter boldly, open your mouth, shut it soon.” He works, and in the afternoon goes into town, from where he brings back a childish letter from Herr De Gubernatis enclosing König Nala (a dramatic poem) and a request to compose the music to it!

In the evening The Bacchae of Euripides made a very distasteful impression; but one scene from Iphigenia in Aulis - the parting of Achilles and Clytemnestra - brings back to me all the beauty of Greek literature.

R. completes the plans for our house.