Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of February 11, 1870

Overview

Wagner’s lost urge to work darkens Cosima’s day, making his creative state feel inseparable from her own vitality. Their conversations turn to the Vatican Council, Bavarian politics, and aphoristic reversals about God, evil, life, and philosophy. A sleigh ride with Lusch gives some outward motion, but the evening’s Euripides reading leaves both Wagner and Cosima cold.

Content

Friday, February 11:

R.’s urge to work gone, concern about this; the light of my life goes out at such times. Discussions about the Council and the situation in Bavaria make up most of our conversation, during which R. says jokingly, “God is the spirit who always desires good and always creates evil,” in contrast to Mephisto. Then: “Life is made for philosophy, not philosophy for life.”

Sleigh ride with Lusch. In the evening Ion by Euripides; great antipathy toward it, both in form and content.