Friday, August 23:
Letter from Councilor Düfflipp, saying that because of some unknown transgression he no longer has immediate access to the King, and that the King is spending his birthday with his mother in Hohenschwangau, so would not be able to receive R.
Our little bird is dead, which has plunged the whole nursery into sadness.
R. works; I with the children, write to M. Schleinitz. A wet day. R. reads me his splendid essay. After lunch his thoughts turn to Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 111; of one of the variations he says: “One feels as if one could translate this into innumerable leaves, millions of butterflies. Oh, to meet someone like B.! That was the dream of my early youth; not being able to do it, no longer seeing such men as Shakespeare and B. about, has made me melancholy throughout my life. And none of my contemporaries has ever given me the impression of being truly great, natura lo fa e poi rompe lo stampo. Schopenhauer? Him I missed meeting; when I settled in Biebrich and a contact between us might have been so rewarding, he died. Your father looked as though he would become great, but...!”
In the evening the tenor Diener, who pleases R. greatly with his diligence; he gets him to sing me something from Lohengrin. This young man could now be earning himself 600 thalers a month in Cologne, but prefers working with R.
In the evening amused ourselves with the novel Um Scepter und Kronen, whose political parts we find very good.