264
DOC.
361
FEBRUARY
1912
361.
From Robert Heller
Zurich,
19
February
1912
Esteemed Professor Einstein:
Forgive
me
for
being
so
long
in
answering your
letter,
but
I
was
swamped
with
work,[1]
and,
besides, I
found
it
hard
to
answer
your
question
as
to how
you
could
cheer
up
Prof.
Z.,[2]
since
I
have
not
been
too
cheerful
myself
of
late.
As
regards
Prof.
Zangger's
emotional
state,
you guessed
quite correctly
that he
is
depressed.
Toward the end of
January
several
very
depressing
family
and
personal
affairs
came
to
a
head
simultanously,
at
a
time when he also did not feel
entirely
well
physically;
add
to
this the
time
pressure
in his
job
and
the
chronic
overwork,[3]
which
are
known
to
you
all too well from
before,
and it
is
no
wonder that
he
was feeling
quite
dejected!
He has
now
recovered
to
some
extent,
and
you
contributed
substantially
to this
by way
of
your
friendship....
You would not
understand
this,
so
I'll
explain
it
right
away.
I
saw
how
badly
Prof. Z.
needed
a
pleasant surprise
and knew
that
your friendship
is
one
of
his
greatest
psychological
assets,
and
so,
under
the effect
of
your
wish,
I
yielded
to
a
momentary
impulse
and showed him
the letter
I had
just
received
from
you.
For
I
was
convinced
that
his
mood
would
change
for the better
if
suddenly
he
clearly
saw
that
the
friendship
that
binds him to
you
is
anything
but one-sided.
I
later
reproached
myself
for
my
indiscreet
anticipation
of
your
wish,
but
I hope
that
you
will
overlook
my
highhandedness
if
I
assure you
that the
feeling
that he
can
count
on your
friendship sent
him into
a
state
of
most
happy
excitement,
and
you can judge by
yourself
how
deeply impressed
he
was
if I tell
you
that
he asked
me
to
make
him
a
present
of the letter.
I did
this, since,
under
the
circumstances, I
would
only
have
withheld his
property
had
I
done
otherwise.
So
now
I have confessed
everything,
and
my only
wish
is
that the mutual
knowledge
about the value
that
you
both
place
on
the
friendship
will make it
even
stronger.
I
hope
therefore that
you
will
not
disapprove
of
the
way
I acted.
Looking
at
it
soberly,
what
I
did
was basically
no worse
than what
a
novelist does
when
in his
story
people
who
are
made
for
each other
get
each other. But
I thought
I owed
you
this
information,
and
now
I
won't take
up
any
more
of
your
time.
But
if
you
want
to
make
Prof. Z.
especially
happy,
invite him for
a
visit
or
arrange
for
some
other
get-together during
Easter
vacation.
You
can
believe
me
that
no
other
pleasure
would
measure
up to
this
one.
With
best
regards,
also to
your
wife-yours
truly,
Robert Heller
It
might
interest
you
to know
that
Mr.
Ratnovsky
has derived from
the
light
quanta
an
equation
of
state
for
solids
that
was
published
by
Grüneisen
some
time
ago.[4]
Tomorrow
he
is
sending
the
paper
to
the
Annalen.[5]
As
of
the
beginning
of the
summer
semester,
Mr.
Rouge
will
no
longer
be Assistent
at
the
physical
institute.[6]
On account
of
frugality,