Friday, April 19:
Letter from the conductor Seifriz in Stuttgart. “He complains like a Hamlet of lack of progress,” R. says, and this joke causes us to take up Shakespeare’s play again; the impression and enjoyment we get is as if we had never even known it before.
“Whatever else, no history,” R. exclaims, “just communion with the few great spirits and the few great men in history who have forced it onto a different path through their personality, like Frederick the Great, the great German emperors, Luther.” I remark that it is only German history which has produced such characters, apart from Cromwell in England.
When yesterday R. went into his workroom to fetch a book and light a fire, he spoke about this great discovery, which at once places human beings on the level of the gods, which banishes the night; and how rightly and beautifully the Greeks had distilled it all in the legend of Prometheus, the bringing of fire. He goes into town. Telegram from the mayor of Bayreuth that the conference with Brandt has taken place and has led to substantial economies. R. fixes his departure for next Monday.
In the evening we read Hamlet. From his room R. calls to me, “You are the only person who is close to me, the only one with whom I can be completely truthful.”