V O L U M E 9 , D O C U M E N T 7 a 1 1 7
circle; his efforts mediating between the disciplines is something more suited to
mature people (and of those there are so few!) than for students and doesn’t draw
these aspiring examinees within the range of his spell. But I hope that gradually he
will feel more and more that he was made to be a teacher and expand his material
accordingly.
Don’t become too opulent in your plenty, but always keep the ancient Swiss vir-
tue in mind: “Each to his own, and for me a little bit more!” May you prosper, as a
jewel of your
fatherland.[4]
Pauli
Vol. 8, 661c. From Max Jakob
Charlottenburg, 27 Kastanien Avenue, 3 December 1918
[Not selected for translation.]
Vol. 8, 663a. To Max Jakob
[Berlin, 5 December 1918]
[Not selected for translation.]
Vol. 9, 7a. From Heinrich Zangger
[around the end of February
1919][1]
Dear friend Einstein,
So you had a nice time with your sons. Right? [Hans] Albert is developing well
and steadily.—The little boy is becoming healthy and
strong.[2]
I proved to be
somewhat right with my optimistic prognosis. The world needs 1% optimists.
Your wife’s sickness was surely partly the consequence of
overexcitement.[3]
Fame is a pernicious evil for the living. Once you are playing violin with Newton,
it’s no longer dangerous for one’s circle. Fame is like a lobster: whoever sees a lob-
ster feast through a big window cannot do otherwise but want it—even from one’s
dearest—but whoever knows the nauseous indigestions attendant on the object of
envy, envies the Einstein from the patent office. The small relativity indigestions of
1905 had all the creative joy of Einsteinian visionary certainty, even if no one be-
lieved it, for a full understanding of your powerful feat of logic. Perhaps Besso un-
derstood
you.[4]