AT THE PHYSICO-TECHNICAL INSTITUTE 387 



has no confidence in any one who does not follow out his 

 own scientific conclusions logically and faithfully to the utter- 

 most ; such persons are incomprehensible to him " ; and this 

 veracity translated into life was characteristic of Robert also. 

 The strikingly condensed and pregnant style of his papers 

 and letters was in his father's opinion due to the necessity 

 of economizing his forces. " It seemed/' Helmholtz once 

 said, " at last, as though he were sparing even of his words." 

 Robert's energy concentrated itself on the expenditure of 

 his extraordinary talents in indefatigable scientific work in 

 defiance of his bodily weakness. After his death his father 

 showed that he had doubtless anticipated that only a short 

 time was left to him, and had tried to complete as much as 

 possible. He always looked up with admiration to his father's 

 eminence, recognizing clearly and unreservedly that it was some- 

 thing quite unattainable. " We average beings cannot compare 

 ourselves with genius ; ours is quite another standard." 



' Perhaps nothing is more characteristic of Robert as a friend 

 than the fact that he never referred to his own ill health or 

 infirmity unless it were to encourage some friend who was 

 less used to pain, and less patient of it.' 



Even down to the spring of 1889 he was engaged in most 

 difficult experimental researches, his prize essay 'On the 

 Radiations of Light and Heat in Burning Gases' being 

 crowned by the Verein fur Gewerbfleiss in Berlin with the 

 prize of 5,000 marks and a medal ; and until the first months 

 of summer he was carrying on important experimental in- 

 vestigations in Bonn and Berlin in co-operation with Richarz, 

 when there came a sudden collapse of the frail body that 

 had been doomed from birth. He had just surprised and 

 delighted his father (who knew nothing of the matter) by 

 his appointment as Assistant at the Reichsanstalt, when 

 his strength forsook him. On his deathbed he prepared his 

 prize work for publication ; he died on August 5. The intro- 

 ductory words with which Helmholtz prefaced the posthumous 

 publication of the memoir ran as follows : 



' When the first proof-sheets of the following essay arrived, 

 its author was already lying on his death-bed. The sad duty 

 has devolved on me, his father, of preparing it for publication. 

 He had hoped to work through the second part of the essay 



c c 2 



