A succession of visits keeps me from writing in my diary. Friend Klindworth completed the piano arrangement and left on Friday[i] the 14th, on the following day Prof. N. departed, having caused R. many difficult hours.
Among other things, he maintains that the German language gives him no pleasure, and he would rather talk Latin, etc. R. mentions his own rules for treating the German language, says one should first look to see whether a foreign term is completely necessary to express the sense; if it is, then use it boldly, and untranslated. —
A speech by Professor Du Bois-Reymond in Berlin about an academy to be founded to regulate language amazes me; he criticizes Goethe’s language in favor of Lessing’s! – –
During this Klindworth-Nietzsche week, Frl. Lilli Lehmann arrived with her mother and took over the organization of the Rhinemaidens.
One evening she sang my father’s Mignon, which moved me deeply.
“’Tis there”—but not “where silent myrtles, stately laurels rise” that I wish to go, rather, to the place where our home is! . . .
[i] Cosima incorrectly stated “Thursday” at this point.