Saturday, January 10:
R. feels unwell; though the erysipelas is clearing up, his stomach seems to be upset. When will he be able to get out into the air? He is depressed, and I am beset by gloomy thoughts which I will not allow to come to the surface, and which I seek to disperse by forcing myself to be optimistic. I spend the whole day with him; the children go looking for shells on the beach and return home entranced with everything.
I talk with R. about Thalysia, and he agrees with me when I say there is something peculiarly French about this man Gleizès; there is a quality in him he shares with Saint Vincent de Paul which recalls Saint Francis of Assisi. He says: “It was finding something of that in Renan which attracted me to him.”
Nice letter from a woman in Züllichau, thanking R. for having given her inspiration through his works.
In the evening much discussion about the Italians, the French, and the Germans. I tell R. that what attracted me to Germany was a sense that it was the only country in which people prepared to devote themselves to idealism could be found. R. says, “Yes, in their youth Italians live for pleasure, and in consequence they turn in their old age into completely withered, mean, and dried-up fellows.”