PROFESSOR AT HEIDELBERG 203 



'Journeys to England/ writes his sister-in-law, Freifrau v. 

 Schmidt-Zabierow, the elder daughter of Robert v. Mohl, ' as 

 well as long and frequent visits to our relatives in Paris, where 

 the intellectual atmosphere of our aunt's salon at 120 Rue du 

 Bac, which was the focus of the best society, had developed 

 my sister's rich gifts to the utmost, and made it a necessity for 

 her to live in intercourse with distinguished people. She had 

 ample opportunities of forming such connexions, both in our 

 parents' house, and among the many intellectual foreigners of 

 good social standing who were at that time living in Heidelberg. 

 A widened outlook on life and greater demands upon it were 

 the natural result of these international relations. My sister 

 had as perfect command of French and English as of her 

 mother tongue, and all restriction to any particular set of 

 society was abhorrent to her from her earliest youth. Her 

 fresh and merry temperament, her sense of humour, her rapid 

 grasp of things and people, may have had a directly beneficial 

 influence upon Helmholtz.' 



In spite, however, of these extended social relations, Helm- 

 holtz's intellectual and thoroughly genial life expended itself 

 mostly in his own house, where his incomparable wife 

 succeeded in maintaining her environment at an unusually 

 high level, and in respecting the limits enforced by her 

 husband's ceaseless activity in work and thought. Order 

 now began to reign in his library and workroom, of which 

 she had written a few months before their marriage : 'How 

 I shall have to struggle with myself and subdue my natural 

 inclinations before I can become a really useful wife! Do 

 not lose patience with me, Hermann, I am easily discouraged ; 

 but I must tell you that your writing table is frightfully untidy. 

 If I were not far too well brought up in regard to learned 

 confusion, I should take the liberty of sorting out all the 

 written papers from the blank sheets, with energetic hand, 

 and putting away all the letters in a drawer N.B. unread and 

 then go over everything with a damp cloth, on Miss Nightingale's 

 principle. But as it is I must leave things as they are, and 

 am only thankful to have discovered one human failing in youJ' 



His correspondence with his scientific friends at this time 

 was even more extensive than before. If there was less 

 science in his letters to du Bois-Reymond, because Helmholtz 



