Wednesday, June 7:
Cold and frosty weather, in which I do not feel at all well. Letter from Richter, reporting that many supporters will be found in Vienna for our venture. R. says one is becoming blunted by the newspapers these days; one reads the most appalling things as if they were nothing.
Great alarm over Lulu, who in falling down almost gouged out an eye. With the children morning and afternoon; R. plays folk songs to them. After he has finished, Loldi points to him and cries out, “This is the friend who plays for us,” which makes all of us laugh a lot. The rocking horse the joy of the household.
In the evening R. reads me his Nibelungen and says of it, “I am glad to see that I did not drivel on as much as I had feared.”
Yesterday R. again thought actively about his story concerning Frederick the Great! The time after the Battle of Leuthen. Meeting in Breslau with Lessing, the latter is not named; discussion on poetry, F. extolling the French, the young man pointing on the other hand to the Greeks, to Frederick’s great annoyance.
The poet is then recruited, makes an error, and is set at liberty by Frederick, who, though without expressing it, feels immense respect for him, while the poet, who has seen and observed Frederick in action, breaks out in expressions of great enthusiasm for him.