Saturday, September 9:
Bad and dull weather suddenly. R. receives a warning letter from a printer in Munich; our fine Dr. Lang, whom R. paid long ago, has not yet paid this man for printing E. Devrient and His Style. He demanded sixty florins from R., and now it comes out that the printers are asking only forty. He that toucheth pitch, etc., besmirches himself.
The bat omen comes true: R. is very unwell and despondent. He says he takes no pleasure in his work; if only he could do things which would meet the needs of the world. What he does do is useless; nobody wants it. Marie M.’s letter has depressed him terribly: to submerge oneself on the one hand in the mightiest world of ideas, and on the other to be told nothing but platitudes!
Another gift from the bat is an impertinent letter from the publisher Meser-Mueller in Dresden, to whom R. had written. In the evening Carlyle.