STUDENT LIFE 17 



of physics, chemistry, and anatomy, and worked hard to acquire 

 the necessary knowledge of these subjects from books and 

 lectures, but in leisure moments his thoughts always turned 

 to his home, and notwithstanding his occasional Sunday visits 

 to Potsdam, he was wont in any passing fit of depression to 

 disburden himself of his thoughts and feelings by writing 

 to his anxious parents : 



'Since I was with you work has begun in earnest. The 

 revision classes, including two in osteology, have all started, 

 and we often have to sit through the evening learning one 

 muscle after another till our heads split. It is easier to me 

 than to the others, but even I have had an attack of chagrin 

 against God and the world, such as every one here is subject 

 to occasionally. But it generally goes off in a few hours, and 

 our youthful ardour reasserts itself. Any spare time I have 

 during the day is devoted to music, and so far, even on the 

 worst days, I have put in about an hour, and more on Friday, 

 Saturday, and Sunday. By myself I play sonatas of Mozart 

 and Beethoven, and often with my chum the new things he 

 gets hold of, which we run through at sight. In the evenings 

 I have been reading Goethe and Byron, which K. borrowed 

 for me, and sometimes for a change the integral calculus. 



'The day after I went to Potsdam I received an invitation 

 from Geheimrath Langner, to whom Mrs. Wilkens gave me 

 an introduction. I met several young people there, mostly 

 law students, but they made us play whist! Happily one of 

 the players in my rubber knew as little as I, and the others 

 hardly more. It was a fine game, and a fine mistake too, to 

 set us down to whist. It lost me the chance of making friends 

 with the young people, among whom was a sailor, just back 

 from North America. Aunt Bernuth was much amused at it ; 

 she has presented me with a pair of gloves, which come in very 

 handy this weather. Every morning we have an anatomical 

 revision class in an unwarmed room, and going across to the 

 dissecting-room is a treat without one's cloak! Our rooms 

 have been rather better during the last few days, as we have 

 twice had a fire ; before that it was so cold that one could not 

 write at all, and could hardly play/ 



After spending Christmas at home, and working industriously 

 through the second half of the first term, Helmholtz returned 



