CHARACTER AND WORK OF LIE BIG. 



55 



all others in Germany. For the institutions of a university the largest sums 

 may be expended, for this increases the respect and affection for them ; but the 

 suitable employment of these sums must be strictly controlled. The sums are 

 there, but they are used in an intolerably ridiculous manner. I must be certain 

 of what I may have to expect at Giessen. If driven to extremities I shall not 

 return there this winter, whether I obtain leave or not. I shall know how to 

 justify this step, for no one has been maltreated in the university in a more 

 conspicuous manner. One cannot live at Giessen upon a salary of 800 florins. 

 Four years ago I, in conjunction with four colleagues, asked for an increase 

 of salary; it has been refused. You (the Chancellor von Linde) have as- 

 sured me with smiles that the state treasury had no funds; from this I saw 

 that you have never known grief and torturing care for the daily bread. From 

 the moment of that refusal I have endeavored to acquire an independent posi- 

 tion by ceaseless work ; my exertions have not been without success, but they 

 have surpassed my strength, and I have become an invalid ; and if now, when 

 I do not require the state any longer, I consider that with a few miserable hun- 

 dred florins more my health need not have suffered in former years, because my 

 life would have been more free from care, the hardest thought for me is that my 

 situation was known to you. The means which the laboratory possesses have 

 been too small from the beginning. I had four walls given to me instead of a 

 furnished laboratory. Notwithstanding my requests, no sum for furnishing the 

 same, or for buying apparatus, has been provided. I required instruments and 

 specimens, and have been obliged to spend on these items annually from 300 to 

 400 florins from my own means ; besides the famulus paid by the state I re- 

 quired an assistant, who costs me 320 florins deduct both expenses from my 

 salary, and there remains not enough to clothe my children. From this original 

 treatment of the laboratory the consequence has arisen that it possesses no 

 property, for I can show that the arrangements, fittings, instruments, specimens, 

 which have made the Giessen laboratory I can say it without blushing the 

 first in Germany, are my property. I will say nothing more about myself my 

 account with Giessen is closed. My path is not the one of reptiles, the easiest 

 though the dirtiest. What I have said will suffice to justify with the ministry 

 and the prince my resolution not to lecture at Giessen during this winter (1834- 

 '35). If I am in health I may not lack the power to establish a kind of univer- 

 sity for my branches of science at my own risk. If I am not permitted, and if 

 I receive my conge, this will free me from the charge of ingratitude toward the 

 country from the means of which my scientific training has been possible. I have 

 learned to bear much injustice, many a false judgment, but this reproach of in- 

 gratitude would be too heavy for me to bear." 



This letter pictures to you the conditions which prevailed at Darm- 

 stadt, but it is still more important, because it shows that such strong 

 language was required to bring down the ministry, and that which no 

 kind of friendly representation had been able to effect, this threat did. 

 In 1835 he had to take compulsory repose. I find in the list of his 

 publications only three small papers dating from this period, of which 

 one only was a research ; but in almost every other year there were 

 from ten to twenty researches and publications. 



In 1836 another active period begins. In that year there were 

 nine researches by himself alone, thirteen by himself and Pelouze. In 

 1837 there were nine researches by himself and five with Wohler, in- 



