2 2 2 D O C U M E N T 2 2 5 M A R C H 1 9 2 4
her soul which the matchstick seller on the street feels when addressing passers-by.
The passer-by attaches no importance to the address. He is not friendly and not un-
friendly, rather merely uninterested. But the other fabricates incidents from word
and manner, perceives kindness or severity where both are lacking, and if he is of
such a nature, will torment himself. She asked me, if she does not manage to put
something forward to you herself and if it becomes too intolerable for her, for per-
mission to avail herself of my involvement. I hope I squared with your opinion by
cautiously saying yes. It does, after all, only involve matchsticks, and my inclina-
tion to be a nuisance to you, as you know me, is small.
Then I may remind you that Dr. Haas requested your contribution for the South
American magazine Phoenix by a certain time that has just elapsed, to which upon
verbal inquiry you had vaguely replied that you would send him something but did
not say anything more at the
time.[4]
Perhaps you might send him a contribution or
a refusal now.
Finally, I beg you to convey my sincere apologies to your dear
wife.[5]
Last
month she invited me once after many years and I had to decline. My condition in
the last 2 months has been such that I may accept an invitation once in a while, but
I must avoid the great majority of them and I spend much effort and time making
sure that I not be considered a bad friend, nor a poor
cripple.[6]
On that day it was
particularly difficult to avoid the one and the other.
I was in Copenhagen and spoke with Mr. Bohr, who entertained me for 1 ½ hours
with a mixture of admiration and rejection of your light quantum
theory.[7]
Even if
my mind were less wasted by the flu, I could only reproduce his expositions badly.
But how strange it is that in the field in which all the weaker imaginations and pow-
ers of reasoning have run dry, the two of you now remain alone and in the deepest
opposition. For, he is striving with every fiber back to the classical world and sees
quanta as an attendant effect of the atom’s conversion of energy; he no longer be-
lieves that the radiation accompanies the jump in orbit but rather that the orbital
jump only concludes the radiation period that begins with the excitation, and much
more
besides.[8]
Cordial regards, your friend
Haber.