Sunday, October 22:
My father’s birthday; I send the children to church. R. is unfortunately very unwell and cannot work. I write to Marie Schleinitz and Clemens. Family lunch. Letter from Frau Neumann, saying that Kathchen will be here in a week’s time. May God grant it! Great preparations in Bologna, but I fear a catastrophe.
Lulu unwell, put to bed early. In the evening R. reads me some pages from a book by Freytag about Frederick the Great, and he adds that the significant thing about him was that he revived German patriotism, which had completely vanished with the advent of the Habsburgs. Luther, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick, those were the men who had helped the Germans, and now Bismarck. The plague of this nation has always been the Habsburgs, whom I one day hope to see thrown out; for this reason Bismarck’s instinct to throw everything against Austria was the right one, and I hope the war with France was just an intermezzo on the way to the complete destruction of this shameful dynasty. Frederick also had the instinct: everything against Austria.