R., who did not sleep much, reflected during the night on his death: he wishes his final sickbed to be set up in the salon, his gaze directed toward my picture. —
Tropical heat, perhaps the hottest day of the whole year. — I tell R. about a saying by Princess Taxis: “First there must be a revolution, then the church will emerge victorious.” “Yes,” he says, “Rome has always flourished best after revolutions.” Continuing on the subject of Roman domination, he says, “It is beyond comprehension that the German language survived.” —
A perfume dealer (in Nuremberg) offers to do something for our undertaking if he is appointed a court purveyor to the King! —
In the evening we finish “The Birth of Merlin”, it trails off at the end and looks like a youthful work by Shakespeare—not unworthy of him, but not the equal of the rest.
After the reading wandered in the garden (earlier to Rollwenzel with the children), a melancholy waning moon, as over a “Scottish loch,” “over Macbeth’s heath.”
I myself very melancholy on account of Lusch’s bad behavior.—
R. spoke about Faust and said, “That and Beethoven’s symphonies—those are the only things of which Germany can be proud; for Faust is utterly German, German in a popular sense, yet it embraces the whole world: it is the greatest of masterpieces.” I: “But not above Shakespeare.” R.: “Shakespeare is the truest picture of the world. Faust is a commentary on that picture, a commentary on Shakespeare.”