Sunday, November 23:
Today is the day of the Mode illustrée! Regarding the picture of Goethe, I remark that I do not like the laurels around his head. R. says, 'No, it looks as if he is about to be served up.'
R. said recently, 'I always examine them closely, so that I can say to myself, “This is the world in which you live, for which you wrote Tristan and Der Ring des Nibelungen.”' R. constantly mentions the Gützlaff pamphlet in praise of Schopenhauer, and he again comments significantly on Aeschylus's first chorus.
Whist in the evening.