Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of May 16, 1870

Overview

Cosima begins with a troubled meditation on passion as something that can feel like the death rather than the fulfillment of love. Daily life continues through Claire’s letter, garden lessons, Wagner’s sketching, town errands, and a public statement about Die Walkuere. Herrig’s obsessive tone, Fidi’s hoarseness, baptism certificates, and reflections on Socrates in Phaedo leave the day sad, thoughtful, and morally strained.

Content

Monday, May 16:

If only we could curb passion—if only it could be banished from our lives! Its approach now grieves me, as if it were the death of love.

Letter from Claire; worked with the children in the garden, R. meanwhile at his sketching. Drove to town with Lusch; R. writes Esser a statement, designed for publication, on his attitude toward the production of Die Walküre. Letter from Herr Hans Herrig; very curious—he seems really to be more obsessed than filled with R.’s ideas. Fidi still hoarse, I very sad about it.

Yesterday evening we read Phaedo; I thought of what R. said to me about Socrates: that his wise circumspection, his absolute contemplation, which nothing could destroy, had been encountered only once in the world, whereas even the saints had been present in numbers. (Wrote off concerning the certificates of baptism.)