Saturday, September 18:
R. slept well, but the very cool weather makes him wish increasingly for Venice.
A letter from Malwida, in which she speaks of the extent to which the Reformation is to blame for the dullness of the German people, provokes him into an indignant denial: as it looks to us now, he says, the Reformation was deplorable, but it was not the idea which was at fault. Luther wanted to win the Pope over to the Reformation.
R. here shows all his greatness and the deep roots he shares with his people, to my utmost delight. He is reading Mérimée's Le Faux Démétrius with much enjoyment and says he, more than anyone else, was on Russia's side, but it behaved so stupidly during the war. (Whist with my father.)