Thursday, February 12:
Typhoid fever, which is a worry and calls for careful nursing. Diary laid aside until Eva’s birthday, on the 17th. Lusch still in bed, but all danger past.
During these days R.’s main preoccupation has been Renan’s book, from which it emerges that the church, even in the second century after its foundation, was already showing all the wretched characteristics of later times. “Si jamais on m’y prend [may I never be tempted] to found a religion!” he jokes.
And, speaking of Marcus Aurelius’s government and the fact that there was nothing he could do about emerging Christianity: “So I am not surprised that Emperor Wilhelm and Bismarck have no notion of my ideas; even if they had any feeling for them, they would have no time.”
“What bunglers we Germans are!” R. exclaimed as we were discussing plays. I ask whether we are not all bunglers in comparison with the Greeks; R. thinks no, the Italians, Spanish, French had certain distinct genres. But Schiller, for example, went looking for material, and one can understand why. In connection with his state of health, he is reminded at whist of old Tiefenbach, and he remarks what a splendid sense of humor Schiller had, and what a pity it was that he was led astray and did not give rein to it. Thinking of his life, and recalling the theater director Hübsch, he says, “If I had been afraid of blows, nothing could ever have come of me.”