Tuesday, February 19:
Again R. did not have a very good night, and his foot is still very painful; there is nowhere here to buy good boots. Then he works, and tells me he has reached the Höllenrose ["rose of hell"]. I am not well, and we lunch together upstairs. "Who is Titurel?" he asks me. I reflect. "Wotan," he says. "After his renunciation of the world he is granted salvation, the greatest of possessions is entrusted to his care, and now he is guarding it like a mortal god" - a lovely thought!
I say that Wotan's name ought to be reflected in the name Titurel, and he replies, "Titurel, the little Titus, Titus the symbol of royal standing and power, Wotan the God-King." Nice letter from my father about the Idyll, "this flower of a thousand petals"; when he speaks of it as "the cult of the family," we are struck by the phrase, and R. says he ought to have called it "the blessings of a happy love"!
Bismarck's peaceful statement - it is a good thing that it is Germany which is now permitted to preach peace, and Germany will without a doubt always be just and straightforward - but we do not like the reference to "training in the right methods," it gives the impression of a bluff mockery of ideality. A telegram from Gothenburg. In the evening Lichtenberg's essay on Captain Cook.