Saxony was a center of "völkisch" activity in the late 19th century, and in the elections to the Saxon "Landtag" in 1893, "völkisch" candidates won 6 out of the 16 seats. Chamberlain's status as an immigrant to Germany always meant he was to a certain extent an outsider in his adopted country – a man who spoke fluent German, but always with an English accent. In a classic case of being "plus royaliste que le roi" (more royalist than the kings), Chamberlain tried very hard to be more German than the Germans, and it was his efforts to fit in that led him to "völkisch" politics. Likewise, his anti-Semitism allowed him to define himself as a German in opposition to a group that allegedly threatened all Germans, thereby allowing him to integrate better into the Wagnerian circles with whom he socialized most of the time. Chamberlain's friend Hermann Keyserling later recalled that Chamberlain was an eccentric English "individualist" who "never saw Germany as it really is", instead having an idealized, almost mythic view of Germany and the Germans. This was especially the case as initially the German Wagnerites had rejected Chamberlain, telling him that only Germans could really understand Wagner, statements that very much hurt Chamberlain. To compensate, Chamberlain became "überdeutsch", the man who wanted to be more German than the Germans.