D O C U M E N T S 1 7 , 1 8 M A Y 1 9 2 0 1 6 3
17. To Elsa Einstein
[En route to Leyden,] Monday. [17 May 1920]
Dear Else,
I motored around magnificently with
Ehrenfest.[1]
Saturday & Sunday on the
country estate of van Aardenne’s friend de
Ridder,[2]
today at Prof. Julius’s with so-
lar physics, nice daughters and much
music.[3]
Now trip homewards with choco-
late. It’s late already. The day after tomorrow I’m giving a children’s lecture on
relativity = appearance of the newspaper
lions.[4]
I’m considering traveling directly
from here to Christiania, dropping Halle and only giving a talk on my return trip in
Hamburg.[5]
The boat connections are supposedly good and I feel like making the
sea voyage.
Best regards to all of you from your
Albert.
The bad handwriting comes from the wobbly ride.
Today I was given a finely painted picture by the artist [from] there in Ede.
18. From Lucien Fabre
Paris, 55 Amsterdam St., 17 May 1920
Professor,
By way of the kind intermediary Mr.
Oppenheim[1]
I took the liberty to send you
the paper by Varcollier on displacements in vector fields and their relation to the
theory of
relativity.–[2]
I consider this paper, like the one by
Guillaume,[3]
with which you are already
familiar, as one of the most serious and original attempts to afford extremely solid
new foundations to your ingenious theories and capable of harmonizing with them,
augmenting their intellectual attraction with a new element of certitude.–
I likewise permit myself to send you today, also by the obliging solicitude of Mr.
Oppenheim, a study I conducted of your theories entitled “Une nouvelle figure du
monde” [“A New Personality of the
World”].[4]
This study is destined for one of the major magazines of fine intellectual culture
in Paris and consequently had to give as philosophical, general, and synthetic a sur-
vey of your work as possible, while avoiding the use of mathematical formulas.–
It was, of course, impossible to employ in this study the usual comparisons one
finds in the popular brochures published on your theories. I believe, Professor, that
the subject was extremely difficult and if it does not ring true to you, I hope you
will excuse the failure by reason of the difficulty that it posed.–