Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of June 10, 1875

Overview

A dropped barometer kept us from setting out, and the weather soon justified the caution, which gave the household much satisfaction and a little scientific triumph. Between a poem from Frau Wesendonck, talk of Mephisto and Faust, letters to the children, and a reading of Vischer, the day settled into reflections that ended with Schopenhauer and Parsifal as the highest conclusion.

Content

Thursday, June 10:

Since the barometer has fallen, we do not set out, despite a fine sunrise and the urgings of the household. A triumph for science: the weather turns awful, causing great amusement, memories of Eckermann and Goethe.

Frau Wesendonck sends us a poem on cremation, that brings us on to Mephisto’s “Past, a silly word,” and then to several other things from Faust, whose splendors one never exhausts. Wrote to the children.

Schopenhauerian philosophy and Parsifal as the crowning achievement! This is what we resolve after having read with some enjoyment in Vischer’s Kritische Gänge an essay on old and new faith, in which, though he sets out the problems in an amateurish way, he does at least set them out, and in flowing language.