Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of February 25, 1877

Overview

The day moved between devotional seriousness and literary contrast: church, letters, and paired readings of Greek tragedy and French comedy. The entry closes on a sharp judgment about artistic descent from Sophocles to Moliere, as if inspiration were thinning out into something more diluted.

Content

Sunday, February 25:

Reminiscere! Remember! Oh, I remember. Went to church, prayed fervently. Back at home, wrote letters. Wretched weather, which leaves R. very exasperated.

Read Oedipus Rex with Ida Braun and in the evening read Le Misanthrope in French with R., who followed along with another copy. From Sophocles to Molière, like going from the mysterious original source of poetry to a little stream trickling away into sand. We then read Schlegel on Molière and think him very fair. R. finds him (M.) coarse and superficial; I find him abstract, lifeless.