Sunday, April 4:
R. had a good night. At breakfast we mention a slight discord which Boni caused yesterday through inattention, and I have to admit to R. that I lose my composure when he is disturbed by the children.
Biography around noon; the Goethe-like flavor of certain descriptions, for example of the relations with Mathilde Maier and Friederike Meyer, gives me great delight.
Gladstone’s campaign against Disraeli, which will probably be successful, delights us. R. says: “If only they would keep pointing out that he is a Jew. And he does not know his country, either, or he would not have dissolved Parliament and called for a general election.” Pleasure in the Fliegende Blätter, “the last remnants of the innocuous German character”; one anecdotal story in particular amuses R. very much.
A walk in the garden with R.; fine day; thoughts of home: “When we return, we shall lock ourselves in and get down to work.” Thoughts of staging Parsifal, following which the theater going up in flames, emigrating to America, and settling down there with our family. The shoemaker Forte, who comes to take measurements, pleases R. greatly with his amiable, artistic character.
In the evening a discussion about Alexander, since Herr v. Stein has woven the Clitus episode into it. R. approves of this and says it is a good thing to select an occurrence like that in order to reveal a person’s whole character. But he advises him strongly against the idea of bringing in the burning down of Persepolis and the figure of Thais, as he has done.
He talks of Shakespeare, the urge he felt in the discussions between Glendower, Percy, etc., to reveal character, the whole person, how he expanded this scene, then dealt with other matters very briefly. “It is not political plots he is showing us, but people, as he also does in the farewell scene between Percy and his wife and Mortimer and his.” This leads us to the courtship scene in Henry V, as providing a similar example, and R. reads it to us, including the preceding dialogue in French. “He seems to have been a great favorite of Shakespeare’s, and here he is shown in all his charm.” “Extraordinary that we know nothing about Shakespeare, nothing at all!” he exclaims.
Then he reads to us the sentence, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on,” mentioned in Heroes and Hero-Worship, and, after reading the second line, “and our little life is rounded with a sleep,” he reflects a while, then says: “What a magical effect that has on one! Life surrounded by sleep, and consequently a dream.”
Very disagreeable pictures in the Illustrirte from Norse mythology provoke from him the exclamation: “Oh, were I but rid in my halls of Kvasir and Odhroerir, too!” And the unveiling of the monument to Queen Luise reminds us once more of the drab uniforms, the scanty costumes for women, and the students in their “togs” (thus printed in all earnest!). (Last night R. dreamed in French.)