Tuesday, January 17:
Very nice letter from Malwida Meysenbug to R. "She knows we are happy," says R. "Oh, we are living here in Paradise! How we shall look back on it, long for it again, when once we have left it!"
The subject of our conversation this morning: Homer, only possible before the invention of writing, and Fidi, who will lose his extremely lively facial expressions once he begins to talk! I have to kill time on account of my eyes.
The day passes as usual in friendly harmony. I play with the children, Fidi the librarian rummages among his papa's books, and R. orchestrates. I tell him that he has certainly never in his life worked amid so many interruptions. In the evening Gibbon, Diocletian.