DOCS. 238-240 JULY
1916 235
I leave all others
to
form
their
opinion
of
me
at
their
own
discretion. In
the
end,
I cannot
make
you
two
change your
minds
either,
but
must take
what
comes.
I
sincerely regret having apparently annoyed you
so
much in
your selfless
kind-
ness
that
you
address
me
formally
in
the
postscript
to
your
letter[5]
and herewith
take back
everything
that
may
have
provoked your
anger.
I
have avoided
the
way
you
had
indicated,
out
of
the
frying pan
into
the
fire,[6]
without substantial
hardship.
The latter
is
even
alleviated
considerably by
the
recent events. I
would
like
Mileva to know
this,
as
she
may
be able
to
be calmed
by
it.
But
I
can’t tell
her
this
myself.
Affectionate
greetings, yours,
Albert.
Dear
Michele, we
have
understood
each
other
well for 20
years.[7]
And
now
I
see
you developing
a
bitterness
toward
me
for
the
sake
of
a woman
who has
nothing
to do
with
you.
Resist
it! She
would not
be worth
it,
even
if
she
were a
hundred
thousand
times
more
in the
right!
239. To
Michele Besso
[Berlin,
21
July
1916]
Dear
Michele,
Now I
see
that
I
made
a very grave
mistake in
that the
letter’s
postscript
is
not
by you
but
by
Anna.[1] So I
wrongly experienced seeing you punish
me
with
the
formal address
“Sie.”
It
is
only
thus
that
you
can
understand the
tone
of
my
letter.[2]
And
this
should
happen
to
a
scientist!
Affectionate
greetings
to
you
both,
yours,
Albert.
240. To
Théophile
de
Donder
[Berlin,]
23 July 1916
Dear
Colleague,
I
must
admit
to
you
that,
unlike most of
our
colleagues,
I
am
not at all of
the
opinion
that
every
theory
must be put
into
the
form of
a
variation
principle.
I
attribute this
common urge
simply
to
the
fact
that
everyone
is
used to scalars
but
not to tensors.[1] If
the
Hamiltonian form
is
desired
nonetheless,
the
following
device is
best used.