Monday, July 5:
R. slept tolerably well and is cheerful at breakfast and also during dictation, less so at lunch, but his spirits revive over coffee, and when, among other things, I talk about the Princess of Meiningen and her great lack of kindness and amiability and wonder in what guise such a character would be reborn, R. says quickly, "As a spittoon."
In the morning, when we are talking of people who are not our kind, R. coins the phrase, "Your coming be borne, your going blessed!" And when I talk of my diaries and the trouble Fidi will perhaps have with them, R. says, "Yes, perhaps it is not such a good thing to drag such a father around with one" - whereupon I explain to him my desire to allow my children as much freedom of outlook as possible.
Before dictating he tells me that wherever he turns he hears Nietzsche speaking; his judgment on Beethoven is a disgrace, he says, and also on the Jews. In the evening R. reads Stein's piece on G. Bruno and says it is excellent, and indeed, because of its excellence, quite unsuitable for the B. Blatter. Later he reads the scene from As You Like It in which Jaques appears, and when we are alone, he points out to me how good it is that Jaques's attachment to deer is mentioned previously: "He cannot weep on stage, where too much is going on, but one knows his feelings, and that gives significance to each one of his words."