Saturday, May 28:
Sent the priest’s attestation to the law courts in Berlin, then wrote to Claire. R. works. A drive in the afternoon; when we remark on Kos’s intelligence, I ask, “Where does the soul of such an animal go?” “We must think of that as a really friendly place,” R. replies. “It is only Death itself of which we must think solemnly, as a test of life; what comes after, however, in as friendly a light as possible.”
In the evening conclusion of The Merry Wives with great enjoyment and admiration; R. says that particularly on the stage this work comes splendidly to life, entertaining, many-sided. During the fifth act he says, “Shakespeare’s head was full of these fairies, this elfin world—Old England lived inside him.” “And so we have read three great poets one after another (Schiller, Sophocles, Shakespeare), and each of their works has both moved and surprised us, since the work of such geniuses always has something inconceivable about it.”
An article by Berthold Auerbach (no such genius he!) about woods is printed in the newspaper; R. says he found it unreadable on account of its affected closeness to Nature: “These fellows are a real nuisance” (the Jews).