Tuesday, July 2:
R. still having to get up once! But he takes his morning walks. He misses Fidi and Loldi. For me still no “morning philosophy” - a new governess to settle in, lessons, visit from Herr Levi (who touches R. by saying that, as a Jew, he is a walking anachronism). R. tells him that, if the Catholics consider themselves superior to the Protestants, the Jews are the most superior of all, being the eldest. Conversation about the 4th dimension of space, Mr. Slade, expelled by the police, not a fraud. R. says he can understand the ecstasy of martyrs, and he believes in their visions. “Farewell, you strange man,” he says to L. as the latter leaves us.
R. decides on A. Thierry’s Récits mérovingiens for his morning reading and reads it with enjoyment; for the afternoon Voltaire’s Pucelle, which, however, he gives up in disgust. A visit from the Glasenapps. Concern about W., whose family circumstances in his run-down state of health alarm us (his mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law have arrived here).