LETTERS OF FRIEDRICH WOHLER 



GOTTINGEN, 3 January 1858. 

 DEAR DOCTOR, 



Your kind and interesting letter of December 3 re- 

 minds me that I have not yet answered your first one 

 of June 26. Therefore, I must not delay any longer, 

 though I must admit that I have nothing to say that is 

 worth sending across the ocean. I thank you heartily 

 for all your communications, which I have read with 

 great interest, and which fully confirm the impressions 

 I have received of life and conditions in the new world. 

 I need not tell you that the news of your pleasant voy- 

 age and safe arrival has pleased us more than anything 

 else. For a journey of that kind, compared with a 

 journey from here to Fritzlar, must always be con- 

 sidered a venture. It pleased me also to hear that your 

 new sphere of activity meets your expectations. Still, 

 owing to Eastwick's promises and considering your 

 own trustworthiness and sense of honour, I never had 

 any doubts about the result. At all events you are to 

 be congratulated on having made and carried out this 

 resolution, for there is no doubt that a sojourn in 

 America is going to have the greatest influence upon 

 your whole future life, even though you do nothing 

 more than endeavour to acquire the good qualities for 

 which the Americans are noted, their perseverance, 

 self-reliance, their spirit of enterprise all qualities 

 that so often fail in us Germans. And then, the oppor- 



