718 
Wohler and Liebig. 
\ December, 
“ Munich, December 31, 1872. 
“ I cannot let the old year pass away without expressing 
the most heartfelt wishes for your welfare and that of your 
family. We shall not many times more be able to wish 
each other a happy new year ; but even when we shall have 
died the ties which bind us will unite us, in the remembrance 
of men, as an example of two savants who struggled without 
envy in the same sphere, ever united by the closest friend- 
ship.” 
Wohler to Liebig. 
“Gottingen, October 30, 1872. 
“ Many thanks for your last letter, from which I learned 
that you are pretty well. It is a great bore that in old age 
one is obliged to attach so much importance to the state of 
one’s health. Thirty, forty years ago nobody ever thought 
of asking the other whether he felt well. In youth we can- 
not imagine that life can ever come to an end, and it would 
be just the same in old age if the decrease of strength did 
not remind man of his approaching end.” 
On April 3rd, 1873, Wohler received the last letter from 
his friend, whom he outlived for ten years : — 
“ I meant to have written to you yesterday, but I had a 
wakeful night, and spent the day on the sofa thinking of 
you. Is it possible, I wonder, to die in old age from want 
of sleep, without any acute illness ? The lamp goes out 
gradually, when the body is no longer fortified by the vege- 
tative life it leads during the night.” 
On the 18th of April the news of Liebig’s death reached 
Wohler at Hanau. 
The correspondence between Wohler and Liebig, of which 
fragmentary letters have been produced here, embraces a 
period of more than fifty years, and fills us with sincere ad- 
miration for them. Not a word in these hundreds of letters 
that they might wish not to have written ; unselfish friend- 
ship, true love of mankind pervade these leaves ; and, 
besides, they give us a clearly defined picture of the two 
friends so widely different in character, and yet so closely 
united. 
Liebig a fiery, impetuous spirit, seizing with enthusiasm 
