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"Thursday mg." "Wittgenstein is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, not far removed from suicide, feeling himself a miserable creature, full of sin. Whatever he says he apologizes for having said. He has fits of dizziness and can't work—the Dr. says it is all nerves. He wanted to be treated morally, but I persisted in treating him physically—I told him to ride, to have biscuits by his bedside to eat when he lies awake, to have better meals and so on. I suppose genius always goes with excitable nerves—it is a very uncomfortable possession. He makes me terribly anxious, and I hate seeing his misery—it is so real, and I know it all so well. I can see it is almost beyond what any human being can be expected to bear. I don't know whether any outside misfortune has contributed to it or not. I had him to meet Keynes yesterday, but it was [a] failure.

Wittgenstein was too ill to argue properly. It is funny how one person's presence will throw a new light on another person's; Keynes seemed to me soft and woolly, not nearly as able as I have always thought him. This was not from anything Wittgenstein said, for he hardly talked—it was the mere effect of his being there. Keynes, like most people, will accept a view without accepting its consequences, which is what makes me call him soft.—I also took Wittgenstein to see McTaggart, and that was more successful, though Wittgenstein found it hard to understand how McTaggart could believe such fantastic things."