Now Herr Schott has died in Milan. —
R. again read Freytag today and said, “How it does one good to concern oneself with these ancient relationships, which we can regard as secure, and to abandon for a while our world of Jesuits and Jews, our complete barbarism!” —
R. declares that the Germans have not yet got over the 30 Years’ War and have no self-respect and the assurance which comes from that. —
As we are looking at the Raphael Madonna in the children’s salon and I observe how naive it is, whereas Murillo and Correggio are sentimental, R. says, “This sort of art does for religion what Homer did for the heroic world—it gives eternal life to something which has vanished.” —
I have to spend most of the day in bed on account of my hoarseness. In the evening R. sends me to sleep with Freytag and remarks how very difficult he finds it, a real strain, to read bad German prose: “Surely one could handle our language more euphoniously without destroying its dignity?”