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daughter Ilse that you are traveling from Kiel to Bonn and from Bonn to
Leyden[3]
and are only going to be back at the beginning of October. So I hardly dare voice
the proposal, whether you wouldn’t take into consideration undertaking the trip at
the beginning of October, after all?
In the Kossel matter, we have not yet reached a
decision[4]
but are going to bring
one about shortly under any circumstances.
With best regards and the humble request to kindly send me, or the Russian rep-
resentative, word of a decision about your intentions, I remain ever yours very truly,
115. From Hendrik A. Lorentz
Haarlem, 15 September 1923
Dear Colleague,
Alas, I still have not managed, as I would have liked to have done, to tell you
about my seventieth birthday. Well, it was a very fine day among a small circle.
Some friends visited us, and at noon we hosted Haga, Zeeman, Ehrenfest, and de
Sitter[1]
(a pity that you were not here), also daughters, sons-in-law, and future
daughter-in-law, as well as four grandchildren, among whom Albert de Haas
announced[2]
how happy he was to be so voraciously hungry.
The physicist friends had prepared a surprise for me. As you know,—you hap-
pened to have been there—I had already taken leave of my auditors at Leyden in
May. They would have none of that, however, and had arranged that the university
council, the same body upon which your professorship depends, invite me to hold
scientific lectures in the coming university year, i.e., to continue my lecture
courses.[3]
I had already reconciled myself to “retirement”; but I am not allowed to
resist such friendly prodding. And thus we do remain, in a certain sense, col-
leagues.
Now I must tell you what great joy your letter was for
me;[4]
it was the first, I
think. Throughout all those long years, I have had so much good fortune as a person
can only wish for. This is partly due to the fact that back then, when we were still
living in childish innocence (oblivious of the quantum), physics was so splendid.
But it is also due to a high degree to the many fellow professionals who gave me
their friendship. That you entered into this circle from the very first day on, when
you visited us in Leyden, is among the best things I ever experienced. And I value
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