Tuesday, January 13:
The thaw has begun, and I am constantly in the house, morning and afternoon. R. continues with his corrections in the biography. The sojourn in Paris seems to him ever more gruesome: “Oh, how fine it all was!” Regarding the absurd elections, he tells me that in Chemnitz they have elected a Socialist, or whatever these people are called, who is not even allowed to enter the city. And how did this come about? Because five or six thousand people abstained from voting. “Oh, this Parliament!” R. exclaims. “If only I could have a few words with Bismarck about it!” In Bavaria they seem to have voted mainly along Catholic lines.
In the evening I read some Hölderlin, but mainly Schiller and Goethe about him, for he himself does not much appeal to us; his letters to Schiller remind me of various letters to R. (Herrig, Stade, Fuchs, etc.), always occupied with themselves. R. continues reading Freytag and feels he has a good idea when he explains the fatal division between countryfolk and educated people as being due to the influence of Latin scholarship. Since Hölderlin does not grip us, we read Colebrooke's Essay on the Vedas and come upon the extracts from the Upanishads.