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CHAPTER X 



HELMHOLTZ AS PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS IN 

 BERLIN: 1871-1888 



HELMHOLTZ had hardly removed to Berlin when the engage- 

 ment in the same year, and subsequent marriage, of his daughter 

 brought considerable changes into his household. 



'Helmholtz's two children/ writes his sister-in-law Betty 

 Johannes, 'had been, since his second marriage, with their grand- 

 mother, who made them her special charge, and lived in the 

 same house with them, while they came to visit me every year in 

 the country. Kathe was a serious creature, almost morbid in 

 her striving after the highest aims, never satisfying herself, 

 never able quite to bring the world and its phenomena into 

 harmony with her ideas. She was greatly beloved and ad- 

 mired. As she grew up and developed a marked talent for 

 painting, she was, thanks to her second mother, encouraged in 

 every way that could further the development of her gifts, and 

 give her a wider outlook and new impressions. She went to 

 Munich, Vienna, the Tyrol, the Bavarian Highlands ; she painted 

 in the ateliers of Berlin and Paris ; she spent a year in France 

 and England in the house of the famous Orientalist, J. Mohl, 

 whose wife had great influence over her. At the age of 19, she 

 translated Tyndall with the help of her step-mother and Frau 

 Wiedemann, and she followed her father's work with untiring 

 eagerness. Her love and admiration of her father amounted to 

 worship. It was in my house at Dahlem that Kathe met her 

 husband Dr. Branco; they were engaged in 1871, married in 

 1872, and immediately afterwards spent a long time in Italy, the 

 country of Kathe's warmest aspirations. On their return, 

 Branco bought an estate at Genthin for the sake of his wife's 

 health, and there in 1873, a daughter, Edith, was born to them ; 

 but after this her health grew steadily worse. They again 

 spent a long time in Switzerland and at Baden-Baden : they 



