Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of February 10, 1873

Overview

This is a quiet domestic day marked by weariness, house matters, and schoolwork. Wagner inspects the house and approves its design, while the narrator handles the children and helps with a ridiculous assignment about music. The evening turns toward intellectual reading, with Darwin prompting a comparison between major philosophical and scientific lineages.

Content

Monday, February 10:

Today there is nothing in particular to note down, except that R. is very worn out and tired; but he goes to visit our house and is pleased with the fine proportions of the whole and the good use of the available space.

I go for a walk with the children and in the evening help Lusch with the absurd homework she has been given in school: “In Praise of Music.” In the evening we begin Darwin’s Origin of Species, and R. observes that between Schopenhauer and Darwin the same thing has happened as between Kant and Laplace: the idea came from Schopenhauer and Darwin developed it, perhaps even without having known Schopenhauer, just as Laplace certainly did not know Kant. (Letter from Frau v. Meyend.)