Tuesday, May 4:
Our very first words in the morning concern the advantages to a poet of solid religious forms; how lovely it sounds when Isabella speaks of the strict God who chose nevertheless to intercede! And how seriously Shakespeare took the idea of majesty! Again and again we come back to talking of this most glorious of works.
I have again some things to do in town, and I find R. completely absorbed in preparing his lines, so that he cannot at first eat any lunch, having overexerted himself. He says, “I could be like the young men of today, not bother my head about the outward appearance of my score, but it leaves me no peace; I must set it out so that it is nice to look at.”
Three dukes approach R., wanting to make him an honorary member of the Philharmonic Society; R. says, half joking, half vexed, “One thinks one is strolling in an orange grove here, but it turns out to be a grove of misunderstandings.” More sittings. R. recently introduced our friend Joukowsky to someone with the words, “A genius who paints with his emotions.”