D O C . 3 7 1 A P R I L 1 9 2 0 3 0 7 steadily intent on encouraging reconciliation. Nevertheless, I thank you for the good intentions and for the effort [and] work. Very respectfully, A. Einstein. 371. To Paul Ehrenfest [Berlin,] 7 April 1920 Dear Ehrenfest, The inaugural lecture is finished but not pretty, rather roughly hewn. You would have done it much more nicely. It’s not printed yet. What’s the use of printing it without a cover and without the acknowledgments you wrote me about and which I have to discuss with you?[1] Surely it can’t hurt if the publication doesn’t appear until after the speech has been given? If printing beforehand is necessary, then I would have to know all the details.[2] For everything would have to be printed to- gether. What are your thoughts on this? So I’m coming to stay with you on the 1st of May, and specifically, with one of the violins. Mine is fabulous.[3] So look for- ward to it. If the nomination does not arrive in time, there’s no harm done if I am already there.[4] In any event, please do have a letter written to the Dutch Embassy here so that I don’t have any unnecessary difficulties here with the entry. I unfortu- nately can’t wait much longer, you see, because I have promised to be in Christiania at the beginning of June to give a few presentations there.[5] If you send me a few inaugural speeches, I’ll still try to have everything printed here on time. Should the title page be in Dutch? Must the acknowledgments to the curators, to Lorentz, Onnes, etc., also be printed?[6] Faced with all this, I feel like a child before his first day at school (creepy uncertainty, inability to picture it all for myself in advance). You must bear in mind that I am, God knows, the most unpractical and least adaptable person on the face of the Earth. My greatest trepidations are about how I should articulate “Ik heb gezegt” [This I have demonstrated].[7] But I am confident that you will know how to shift the rusty old engine (i.e., me) into gear somehow. I find it wonderful that you all are taking such trouble on Epstein’s behalf.[8] The Zurich people have no scientific conscience. I did everything I possibly could there, Meyer likewise. I don’t know yet whether it was of any use.[9] I wrote Grebe to send the paper to all of you.[10] I am very much looking forward to seeing Julius, leaving aside the spectral problem.[11] St. John recently found no shift with the magnesium lines either, as Eddington informs me.[12] Some time will
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