4 io HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ 



the daughter of his brother Otto, and was so fresh and vigorous 

 in mind and body that eyewitnesses could not say enough 

 of his conversational powers and fresh spirits. He went 

 through the spring, after passing a few weeks at Baden-Baden, 

 in full vigour. As usual, many evenings at his house were 

 devoted to music, and the best artists exerted themselves for his 

 approval. After Stein way sent him a new piano from America, 

 he often sat down to it himself to study his Wagner Scores : 

 he was not, he said, a good performer on any instrument, but 

 knew something of all, having paid so much attention to them, 

 while his ear had become very acute from his constant pre- 

 occupation with tones. 



His old friend Knapp sent him a pressing invitation from 

 New York, to visit the World's Fair at Chicago, and entrust 

 himself to his guidance. Helmholtz, however, replied : ' If 

 Werner von Siemens were still alive I might perhaps have done 

 it, in which case I should of course have accepted your kind 

 invitation, and become acquainted with you in your new father- 

 land, and the circle of activities you have made for yourself 

 there. For me, also, that would have been the best and most 

 interesting introduction to American life. I have always felt a 

 strong wish to make acquaintance with America and her doings 

 under ordinary normal conditions. Great Exhibitions, on the 

 contrary, have never attracted me, nor have I found that they 

 taught one anything of importance that one did not know before, 

 or that was worth the disturbance and excitement that it cost one. 

 So I have decided not to go to Chicago. I have been persuaded, 

 by the advice of Dr. A. Koenig, to give up my lectures on mathe- 

 matical physics, a course that lasts six semesters. You will see 

 that I am clearing the decks. But when one sees how the friends 

 round one are departing, one feels it is time to begin doing so.' 

 The pressure from all sides, however, was so great (on the plea 

 that he, as the greatest authority and most influential representa- 

 tive of German Science, should not be missing in the splendidly 

 planned concourse of delegates from all the theoretical and 

 technical sciences), that after much hesitation Helmholtz took 

 the momentous decision to go to America. 



' It has gone so far/ he writes to Knapp on June 30, 'that I 

 have been approached by the Government and invited to go as 

 the German Delegate to the Electrical Congress, which opens 



