Thursday, March 13:
R. had a good night, and when I tell him about my reading with the children (Alexander the Great) he says, “Yes, there is something so clear, so pure, about such figures; our great men seem so unclean, so blurred - Heaven knows why.” I feel the great German emperors should be excepted, and he agrees with me. He tells me what Plutarch says about the absent-mindedness of Archimedes, who would draw figures on his leg with the oil with which he was being anointed; this reminds R. of his own absent-mindedness and preoccupation.
A lunch party, the infantry in our house; R. says gaily at table that we ought now to hold a Piccolomini banquet and oblige the officers to pledge themselves to the art of the future! In the evening to the Wolzogen house, a game of whist. But he was dissatisfied with his work today.