Thursday, September 26:
Splendid to listen to R.’s summary of Schopenhauer’s philosophy! This morning he gave me another short account of it, while expressing disgust with people who profess to understand him and then accuse him of illogicalities. A letter from Hans determines that Lulu should not travel to Rome with Malwida, but remain here with us. R. works, and then amuses us, on the subject of writing French, by telling us that he writes to the parfumeur in Paris under the name of M. Bernard Schnappauf, Ochsengasse. He feels he would almost prefer to thank Herr Marsillach in French, rather than in German.
Over coffee, discussion of Fidi’s future: we resolve to have him trained as a surgeon, so that he may become a useful and beneficent person here in the place where his father brought a glorious ideal into being; he must of course provide aid without charging for it, thereby earning himself the right to live independently of the world and, if possible, to represent his father’s ideas. He will not attend any schools, so that nothing will disturb his image of his father, and he will be able to enjoy to the full the blessings of his youth. He must also get to know everything about his country and feel himself a part of it. R. returns to Goethe, saying he had not seen the point about the casket until he had experienced in Lucerne being beside himself with pity and behaving like a madman because he could not help; reluctance must be overcome by constantly keeping the ideal nature of one’s task in mind, for the whole will rebels against such study. He tells very movingly the story of a saint who at first refused to suck out a plague sore, but then, calling upon God, she had done so, and afterward she had maintained that nothing had ever tasted so good as this horrible substance swallowed in ecstasy.
In the afternoon friend W. with some news of the patrons: a student from Strasbourg is prepared to champion Wagner’s Germany against Bismarck’s Germany, and the little village of Pössneck is represented by all its top people, only the night watchman missing. R. works in the afternoon, and in the evening we read Herr Letamendi’s letter in the Bayr. Blätter with real delight; R. finds everything in it, the whole form, images, thoughts, outlook, language, exemplary, and he is so pleased with it that he writes a lengthy letter to Herr Marsillach about it. The little masterpiece reminds him of Cervantes’s prefaces, and he compares it with a deep sigh to our German products, devoid of both form and content. This brings him to the relationship between Germans and Spaniards, much more evident than that between Germans and Italians, in whom painting has swallowed everything — he does not believe an Italian could have written such a letter.