Saturday, May 17:
R. is still finding great pleasure in the Holtzmann book; “the Breton fraud, once uncovered, restores the bards to us,” and after Holtzmann has explained the bar in Barditus, R. explains the ditus, which means diut, the people, thus the verse people.
He also writes to the man in Berlin, advising him to dedicate his work to Prince Bismarck through the agency of Bucher. He notices from my involuntary start that this advice does not please me, and thinks it is because he has mentioned my name in connection with it without asking me first, whereas it was in fact only the feeling, which I always have regarding virtually all people, of wishing to make no demands of even the most trivial kind, that came over me. This misunderstanding causes me much sorrow!
In the afternoon I go to meet R. on the assumption that he had gone to the Riedelsberg (Feustel); meanwhile he has gone to the palace gardens, where he waits for me! Astonishment and reproaches.
We read the metaphysical discussion in Ardinghello and find this much-disparaged book very full of good sense. Renewed discussion of the morning contretemps, to which R. links angry remarks concerning the impending journey to Weimar. Grief! I ask myself what I must do to convince him that everything he considers right is agreeable to me, even if now and again my first reaction is one of surprise.