46 



led amongst others to the publication of an interview with Beije- 

 RiNCK by the well-known writer Mrs, W. van Itallie-van Embden, 

 which appeared in the weekly "De Groene Amsterdammer". 



This interview — which is reproduced in Appendix J — gives such 

 a vivid impression of Beijerinck's personahty that it is tempting to 

 make some comment on it. The whole is a typical specimen of Beije- 

 rinck's conversations as soon as he left the scientific field. Character- 

 istic of Beijerinck's statements is the mixture of dissatisfaction, 

 modesty, and self-glorification. For instance, Beijerinck emphasizes 

 that neither as student, nor as teacher, nor as professor did he attain 

 what he should have attained according to his own opinion. The 

 remark: 'Tf I had been ambitious, I might have gained some glory," is 

 illustrative of Beijerinck's judgement — or better misjudgement — 

 of his own character and achievement. As soon as his interviewer 

 charged him with being too modest, he answered: "Modest? I was a 

 professor born .... I had rediscovered the Mendelian laws, five years 

 bef ore HuGO de Vries . . . . " But on the other hand again he criticizes 

 severely his own way of teaching: "Only three years bef ore my retire- 

 ment did I understand how I had to teach. I had invented the practic- 

 al course for microbiology . You may call this mere pedantry ; I f eel it 

 to be the truth." 



To all homage Beijerinck was almost completely indifferent. He 

 was averse to any ostentation, and one would never have thought that 

 the gloomy solitary man who regularly wandered through the woods 

 of Gorssel with his cape and slouch-hat was such an eminent scholar. 

 In Gorssel he had hardly any acquaintances at all. Yet he founded 

 there a society for scientific lectures, where he spoke on subjects like 

 "Life and Death", "Imagination and Science", but he was as lonely as 

 he had been before. However, when a visitor came, he revived com- 

 pletely, talked incessantly, spoke of old memories and told jokes and 

 anecdotes, so that one might have thought that he was a cheerful 

 man; but hardly had the visitor left, when Beijerinck again became 

 reserved and self-contained. 



Nobody wished more ardently that he might have a good friend 

 near than his ohly remaining sister, with whom, owing to her deaf- 

 ness, he could scarcely exchange thoughts. 



Plate IX shows Beijerinck and his sister, together with their 

 household companion, as they were in this last period of their life. 



In April 1929 the first symptoms presented themselves of the 

 disease — intestinal haemorrhage — which was to cause his death. 

 An adenocarcinoma appeared to be present in the rectum. Investiga- 

 tion in the Netherlands Cancer Institute, the van Leeuwenhoekhuis at 

 Amsterdam, showed that the growth was inoperable. Beijerinck 

 heard his death sentence with resignation; he was afraid not of 

 death, but of the way in which it would come, and he longed for 

 coinplete rest. At first the disease gave him great trouble but no pain. 



