Thursday, August 3:
Walk with the guests and the children, to the hermitage on the hill opposite. Lunch as yesterday; at five o’clock Herr von Gersdorff and Prof. Nietzsche leave us. The latter is certainly the most gifted of our young friends, but a not quite natural reserve makes his behavior in many respects most displeasing. It is as if he were trying to resist the overwhelming effect of Wagner’s personality.
Very pleasant evening with Fritz Brockhaus; R. becomes heated about the custom of raising one’s hat and its origin, and this leads us to Schopenhauer’s rules for worldly wisdom, which R. reads to us.
Letter from Marie Schleinitz in Gmunden; she is not so shattered by Tausig’s death as I expected. Arrival of the piano scores of Siegfried.