AT THE PHYSICO-TECHNICAL INSTITUTE 439 



selected a site in front of the University Building, took place on 

 June 6, 1899, in the presence of the Empress, the Crown Prince, 

 and Prince Henry as the Emperor's representative, as well as 

 the members of Helmholtz's family, and the most prominent 

 personages of the artistic and scientific circles of Berlin. On 

 the evening of the same day Frau von Helmholtz invited the 

 promoters of this act of friendship and devotion to assemble round 

 her table. It was a moment never to be forgotten when in 

 large-hearted simple words, broken by emotion, she thanked 

 them for procuring her this last happy hour out of their great 

 love for the departed. 



The next day she accompanied her invalid son Fritz to his 

 stanch friends, Kussmaul and Fleiner in Heidelberg, while 

 she herself went to Baden to make arrangements for the modest 

 house in which she established him. 



After a brief sojourn with her daughter, grandchildren, and 

 friends, she went at the end of November, 1899, to Abbazia to 

 her sister, to comfort her at her husband's deathbed. A fort- 

 night later, on the day of her projected journey homeward, she 

 was taken very ill in her sister's house, and died at Volosca, 

 December i, 1899. Her last words were, ' Forgive me for dying 

 here.' 



' In recalling the years,' writes Frau von Schmidt-Zabierow, 

 ' in which the social life of my sister in Berlin and myself in 

 Austria was steadily widening in consequence of the positions 

 of our husbands and our improving circumstances, my sister's 

 image stands out as a guiding light, to which I looked con- 

 fidently in all complications and difficulties. Her sure judge- 

 ment, her rich intellectual life, her cheerful temperament over- 

 flowed in the energy which her influence, often unbeknown to 

 her, infused into those surrounding her, both high and low, . . . 

 into all who ever came into contact with her. The homely 

 working-woman found understanding for the trials of her life, 

 and help and comfort, from my sister, while Princesses, remote 

 from the sorrows and cares of everyday existence, learned 

 the possibilities of fundamental social reform from her rich 

 experiences. In a word, nothing human was strange to her.' 



On December 4, 1899, Eduard Zeller wrote to Frau von 

 Siemens : 



1 Many hundreds, and those of the highest intellectual and 



