Wednesday, January 4:
Work with the children; R. is unfortunately not well, his nights are not good. Severe cold. We sit near the fire after lunch, and R. praises the stillness, saying: "It will seem strange when we come into contact with the outside world again. All we need ask of God is health, for we already have happiness."
Speaking in general about the harshness of life, he says: "Everybody who is not an artist or a saint is a poor creature, indeed, a mere seven-day wonder. What life offers is always the same old thing over and over, a boring, monotonous affair, in which one can only discern differences of form."
When I then quote Mephistopheles, "It drives one mad," he says: "Yes, that's what I call Goethe's Dionysian streak. Faust is one of the most wonderful things ever created by mankind; Faust and Mephisto are characters like Don Quixote and Sancho, except that they are brighter, which brings them much nearer in spirit to the Greeks, to whom the Germans alone are allied. Conceived in his flourishing youth, completed at the end of a long life, what a proof of vitality!"
R. calls Fidi the blond Beethoven; he thinks he looks like him. Letter to Prof. N. R. writes to Peter Cornelius, urging him to hold out at the school. Compared to Goethe, R. calls Schiller Apollonian. In the evening I read Gibbon to R.