Thursday, September 23:
R. had a good night, and today he is quite content that we are three at breakfast. To my father he says, "I shall still make a Lutheran out of you." To me he says he would like to see a catechism drawn up for Schopenhauer; he has seen the need for it in the work of a Prof. Volkelt, who wrote him a very nice letter but at the same time sent along such a confused paper on Hölderlin that one cannot help feeling strongly that a correct and disciplined knowledge of Schopenhauer is urgently required, for example, of the chapter "On Apparent Deliberateness in the Fate of an Individual."
Went for a drive with the children, R., and my father, first of all to the Palazzo Pubblico; it gives me very great delight that R. admires Sodoma's Christ (Resurrection); otherwise he is interested much more in the architectural aspects than in anything else. He is enchanted with the view from the new churchyard and delights in the pleasing architecture; we finish our drive with a visit to the cathedral, which as ever exerts its magic on us. And on our return home, the departing sun and the sky set the crown on these impressions, and R. speaks in praise of our stay here.
In the evening my father plays several pieces by Chopin to us, and a game of whist is appended to calm us down, though R. and I hardly participate in it. Unfortunately a glass of ale he drank in the afternoon at the hotel did not agree with him.