Monday, August 22:
R. completes his poem and sends Siegfried to me with it around midday; in return I send him the box! As we go in to lunch, he says, "The last verse should have been quite different, but one can never know," and later, "Oh, nonsense, we shall not write poems to each other!" He has also written to Herr v. Bürkel about the construction of the royal box.
At lunch a dispute flares up about Latin beauty and German beauty; I come out too strongly in favor of the latter and somewhat offend Jouk., so that R. says I am wrong. However, peace is then restored in the summerhouse when we concern ourselves with the costumes. Some old pieces of jewelry have been sent to us to look at, and from them R. chooses some necklaces for me, saying I have none!
Since Herr Winkelmann is too run down to sing, R. takes out Loewe's ballads and sings them in his usual splendid fashion, pointing out that it is precisely these thoroughly amateurish works which reveal such German talents. As we part in the evening, he says, "We shall live as long as we love each other - that is bad, we shall never die!"
[Added at bottom of page: "Someone inquires whether Loewe did not write a Die Braut von Corinth; this leads us to Goethe's poem, which seems to us almost childish - at any rate not in the best of taste. On the other hand, a short conversation with Eckermann gives us much pleasure. (The book was lying on the table; R. picked it up.)"]