Monday, September 11:
The Illustrierte Zeitung has published a report about the Students’ Association Jubilee at Jena, together with drawings. Amongst the three Nestors of the still-surviving founders is a Pastor Riemann: his head appeals to me very, very deeply. I should like to get to know this man. The banquet, the Old German costume, many things — strangely! — touched, indeed — moved me in a most inspiring way! I gave way to gentle tears. — Heavens! I was overcome by something akin to hope! I wonder, is it possible? — Can something still come of this German nation? Are the seeds really present, I wonder? My heart told me what noble, quite incomparably beautiful things must come of it, if it became the uniquely right thing. See this head of Riemann’s. That is the German ideal. Quite indescribable! Little emotion, no Hungarian, Polish or French flexibility, somewhat ponderous, ungraceful: but that thoughtful disposition! The naive gaze, the strange faith it contains, the fanaticism! This Student Association! Is there anything more peculiar? Whatever is there in the world to compare it with? Thoroughly unique. Everything borders so close on the ridiculous: and now — here there are placid, almost philistine men, — they believe in it! And, we mustn’t mock them. Behind the enthusiasm of the French when, in 1793, they let themselves be recruited into army camps and to the frontiers, the family hearth was hedged with horror, the scaffold and misery. The Frenchman is bloodthirsty: having served his Fatherland he has remained, de gaite de coeur, a soldier, made himself a soldier emperor and swaggered about the world. Anno 1813 in Germany it was different: there 14-year-old boys, and 60-year-old men, went running to camp! It was a fervent, sacred cause: to which were sung songs that sounded almost pious. That was hope! A Germany was to come into being. What that was supposed to be was shown after victory and betrayal. Then came the Students’ Association. The League of Virtue was founded. All so fantastic that no human being could grasp it. But I did. Now it is me no one grasps: Iam the most German being, I am the German spirit. Question the incomparable magic of my works, compare them with the rest: and you can, for the present, say no differently than that — it is German. But what is this German? It must be something wonderful, mustn’t it, for it is humanly finer than all else? — Oh heavens! It should have a soil, this German! I should be able to find my people! What a glorious people it ought to become. But to this people only could I belong. —
Take a look at ‘Riemann’, and the Students’ Association members there in Jena! — That’s where I ought to be living, in a German university town like that! —
Away with your Rome — and Hungary! — All that’s gibberish! —