Thursday, June 23:
Sleepless night worrying about R. and thinking of the Prince. In the morning R. talks about Protestantism, “which can only be understood as a protest against every confession in favor of the true core of religion, which lies in its nature. This is what one must make clear to a child, while teaching him only the life of Christ, in all its simplicity and nobility. Besides that, tolerance toward other religions, familiarity with Greek myths, which as a diagnosis of life are very profound, even if they bring no salvation.”
Then R. says he has long felt like writing a novel; a young man—somewhat like Lessing, but with a different name—is cursed by his parents for consorting with play actors, he flees, is captured by Prussian recruiting officers, has to take part in a big battle in the Seven Years’ War, comes to know and admire Frederick, whom he previously hated, becomes his secretary. Their conversations, etc.
Letter—from Barcelona! To Countess B.’s, R. shocked by my mourning clothes. He works eagerly and hard and is in somewhat better health. Family lunch; late in the evening a walk, afterward W. Meister, in which the way Mignon’s death is passed over annoys us very much. I feel that after recognizing Mariane’s innocence Wilhelm, a broken man, should devote himself entirely to the children; Mignon’s death, which could not be averted, brings him heartbroken to Lothario and his family, with the sole ambition of bringing up Felix well; only then the meeting with Natalie. But the mixing up of the Mignon catastrophe with the educational plan is offensive.