2 0 8 D O C U M E N T 1 9 2 F E B R U A R Y 1 9 2 6 content if it was actually possible somehow to make it through. It would really be good if you came to Switzerland in the summer, we could talk about this and that. Of course, I don’t know how Albert’s situation will resolve itself—when has a man ever listened to rational arguments when women are involved? For today, warm regards, M. 192. From Paul Ehrenfest Leyden, 10 February 1926 Dear, dear Einstein, I am begging for your advice in a real moral dilemma! However, please treat this letter truly absolutely confidentially, show it to NO ONE, and destroy it after read- ing it!!!! It’s with regard to a per se ridiculously trivial matter—about the goddamn Acad- emy elections, truly invented by none but the devil. Following Julius’s[1] death, it is now certainly possible to again select a physicist to the Academy, and possibly two.— If two are proposed at the same time, the likelihood is not small that due to grad- ual splitting of votes, neither of them succeeds.[2] — 3. Inactive members are currently: Lorentz, Onnes, Haga— Active: Zeeman, Ehrenfest, Keesom, De Haas, Van der Waals Jr. (selected last year).— As meteo- rologist also Van Everdingen.[3] 4. Outside the Academy, there are currently, e.g., Holst, Ornstein, Coster,[4] Kramers (who is a full member of the Danish Academy of Sciences and was just appointed professor in Utrecht)[5] Fokker, Zernike, Tetrode (whom no one knows personally, as he stays absolutely hidden as a total eccentric)[6] among others. 5.) I ask you: In what order would you bring 3 of these into discussion if you knew that ONE single proposed person will almost certainly succeed and that, based on relatively general experience, with the proposal of a second, it is likely that neither of the two will succeed. 6.) How would you bring 3 or two people into the discussion if one wanted to let Kramers and Coster simply wait a little longer, possibly for the benefit of their own “health”—[A notion to which I am personally inclined—precisely because of my love for both of them!][7] 7.) To what extent would you allow consideration of sharply aggressive, non- collegial behavior of one of the candidates toward excellent and valuable members of the Academy, given the fact that none of the aforementioned individuals has thus far demonstrated merits of the ABSOLUTELY BEST rank. (Much as I am inclined