Tuesday, June 13:
In the morning R. comes to me: “So what is life? One sees, as Schopenhauer says, that it is all a kind of compromise, a whisker worse and it would not work at all. Yesterday we go for a drive, on the best highway, and put our lives in danger! It is gruesome, and it would be incomprehensible that people could consent to such an existence, if there did not exist in each one of us the illusion that things must go better for him. In the ancient world it was joy in overcoming misfortunes which inspired them; they acknowledged that life and the world were loathsome, ‘but I am stronger than they’; the strongest affirmation of the will.”
Yesterday evening our poor horse was bandaged; it was done as the wind was carrying across to us some very wretched music from a beer garden in Lucerne. The poor animal is suffering, but the doctor says he will soon be better. The sad sight of the animal brought us once again to thoughts of a surgeon: to help, to help; may this be our son’s mission in this awful world.
In the evening we talked about Brahmanism and Buddhism; not intelligence, but kindness, says the latter. Brahmanism is the arrogance of the intelligence, yet despite its present petrifaction still far in advance of our pitiful hierarchy.
Herr von Schack writes a very friendly letter, but he cannot participate in the establishment of our theater, since he is devoting all his means to the pictorial arts. Today saw the alpenglow for the first time.