WRS to William Pirie Smith [1]
1869.05.08

Göttingen

Saturday May 8 /69.

bei Frau Heintze

3 Kurze Geismar Strasse

My Dear Father,

Professor Robertson’s introduction to Frau Heintze has proved very effective; for here we are settled down. We saw Mrs Heintze on Saturday Evening[2] & settled on Friday Morning. Our arrangements here are for the Semester. This is the common plan in German University towns & in the case of Frau H. is so far modified that we have the rooms for three months only. That however is practically the rest of the Semester all but a week or so.

    Our arrangements are these. Each of us has a Zimmer [3] consisting of a sitting room & small bedroom off it. My room is the larger (I having won the toss) but on the other hand Black’s is rather better furnished. Both however are nice rooms with two windows. My sitting room is roughly speaking about the same size as I had from Schaarschmidt (I mean the one I was in before you came) but not so handsomely got up. I do not so much mean that the furniture is inferior as that the room itself is of a less modern make.

    With Mrs Heintze we also have breakfast (Coffee & Bread with Eggs and cold meat) and supper which resembles breakfast save that very bad tea is substituted for Coffee. This is probably because Mrs H. is accustomed to English boarders — but we would prefer coffee & will probably move for a change. There are two Americans boarding in the house but it is a stipulation that German only is spoken & in fact the Americaner seem to be the most silent fellows in the world. Probably we speak better German — at all events we have the talk to ourselves.

    I fear this last expression is rather unguarded, for Frau H., who is an educated Lady but has had a good many misfortunes, is very loquacious & her daughter (a young lady who is already betrothed and hence more at her ease than most German girls) has also a pretty long tongue. One great inducement to us to come here in spite of the Americans was just the evident good education and ready talk of the two ladies.

    For all this accommodation we pay for the three months 60 thaler, i.e. £9 in English money. The prepayment of this sum has of course made a hole in the £29 with which I left Edinburgh.

    Next as to our dinner arrangements. There is an institution connected with the University called the Literary Museum — something like the Bonn Reading Room with the addition of a garden smoking room and above all of a Dining Room where one gets dinner for the sum of 30/6 per month. This does not include wine or beer which are supplied at a low rate if desired. A month means 30 dinners and one has only to give notice if on any day he does not mean to dine in the Museum. Of course a man may be in the Museum & read the papers without going in for dinner, the charge for the reading room &c. being 9/- per Semester. One gets English papers here as a convenience.

    On the whole we think we have got very comfortably settled. We pay perhaps a little more than if we had simply hired rooms but then the conversation of the Heintzes is worth something as it is most stimulating to one’s German. On the whole I think we are cheap enough for foreigners. The only bother is that so much has to be paid beforehand which pulls down one’s cash. Of course we must also prepay 30 dinners in the Museum. Then our tour during Pfingst[en][4] which will cost something falls also in the week after next so that all our expenses seem to be falling together.

    I find that old Weber is after all still quite vigorous & lectures regularly; so I have written to Tait asking him to get me a letter to him still so that I may get access to the laboratory.

Monday

The next thing I suppose is to say something about Göttingen. The town lies on the Leine which is not a very nice stream & in consequence is not allowed to show itself very much. In short the Leine is not at all a feature in the scenery. By far the most striking characteristic of the town is the old rampart which is of earth & has now been levelled on the top so as to give a fine broad road running all round the town. On each side of the road is a row of fine trees and also the sloping sides of the rampart are planted. The effect is very good and the promenade is very pleasant being so far elevated that one can always enjoy at each point a pleasant view. Our House lies just at one of the gates where the Rampart has been sloped down on each side of the gateway so as to join the road. The house is, like all the Göttingen houses that are not quite new, built of wood & clay but has a very good appearance in virtue of stucco & paint. It is enormously large, containing several families, & runs round two sides of a square thus:

sketch plan of house

you see that a long passage runs from f to f and off this the rooms open. The stair I have marked[5] & then S & B show my room & Blacks respectively. You perceive that we can talk across the court. The Garden behind is large & very pretty, the plantations on the rampart forming a perfect wall of green behind. Just outside the gate lies a barrack in which men are lodged & from Black’s window which looks over the part of the Rampart which is cut away we can see the Prussians getting their daily drill — and a very strict drill too.

    Yesterday we went to Service in the University Church, where Ehrenfeuchter[6] who is one of the professors and moreover an Abt (which is a very high dignity in fact the highest in Hannover) preached. His sermon was average only, on the whole rather dull to my mind. There are said however to be several very good preachers in Göttingen. In the afternoon we could discover no service in the churches though in one church there was Kinderdienst i.e. Sunday School. We however read together a sermon of Beck’s[7] which was very good indeed. Curiously this volume of sermons which belongs to Black contains a very superior sermon upon my text for Candlish. But on the whole I think Sabbath is much quieter here than in the Rhineland tho’ Church going I suspect is not very much the fashion.

    We have discovered a Bookseller’s shop which seems to be very good — the house namely in which Meyer’s Commentaries[8] are published. There is some prospect of my being able to get a copy of Herzog second hand thro’ this firm, which would be very satisfactory. Today Black and I were at three lectures. Firstly at Lotze’s[9] Metaphysics, next at Ritschl’s (Schaarschmidt’s friend) on Theological Ethik – the subject being Conversion & the necessity of Good works — & lastly at Bertheau’s[10] lecture on Old Testament Theology. These are the three courses which please me best of what I have heard here & I fancy I will attend them regularly. The only other Professor I should much like to hear is Lünemann[11] & his hours don’t suit. Moreover one can’t attend more than three courses with any approach to regularity.

Wednesday

Your letter reached me yesterday evening pretty late and I believe this answer will be by return of post. Of course yours was longer [in arriving] than usual having been in London over Sabbath. It did not leave London until Monday morning.

    I am very glad to find that you have settled for Lossiemouth.[12] I hope you may all be better for the Change mentioned. I trust you have got comfortably through the Communion. You will be able to compare notes with Mr Elmslie[13] of Insch as to our Hamburg adventures &c.

    It is a remarkable fact that your letter contained no allusion to health. I always am tempted to suspect in such cases that you are not all well. I hope you will always say something on this point therefore. For myself, omission on the subject of health is always to be assumed to mean so well that I never think of the subject. I am in this state of body and mind just now. In fact we are both enjoying Göttingen extremely. Yesterday I met an old Bonn acquaintance, Dr Klein.[14] He was then Plücker’s assistant[15] but is now studying pure mathematics. He is a nice fellow & I was very glad to encounter him.

    I went to Lotze yesterday with my Anmeldungs Book[16] and got a standing invitation to his house for Tuesday Evenings. This is very kind indeed but of course next Tuesday we shall spend in Rhineland. My other Anmeldungen are probably to take place today. We have been waiting in the hope that Schaarschmidt would send us a note to Ritschl. But probably he thinks that will all be in good time when he sees us. So this afternoon I hope to call on Ritschl & Bertheau & to write you some account of these important steps before closing this epistle.

    Ritschl is a strong Calvinist & has been giving a very interesting lecture against the Lutheran doctrine of the Law under the N.T. [17] He is a man of very great acuteness & his lectures are of a kind that will be directly useful even in Scotland.

    For our trip to Bonn the plans are now pretty complete. We leave Göttingen on Friday morning & return probably on Saturday Week. So you need not write any letter to me before Saturday the 22nd. I of course will try to write in the course of our trip but you need not count on that. If I can’t write I will indicate by a paper that all is well.

Afternoon

We have called on Ritschl and Bertheau. Both received us kindly & Bertheau especially is evidently gratified at having hearers from Scotland. There is however nothing particular to be said on the subject at present.

    This letter has I suspect been altogether fragmentary but I hope it will show you at least that we have as Black puts it fallen on our feet.

With Love to all,

I am

Your aff. Son

Wm R Smith

[1] CUL ADD. 7449 C115 MS. This letter, and its sequel C116, are occasionally difficult to read, being written on both sides of very thin paper in the interests of postal economy. Doubtful readings are indicated.

[2] Presumably a slip on WRS’s part, “Thursday evening” being intended.

[3] A room: in this case WRS’s apartment.

[4] Whitsun (Pentecost). In this case WRS means the Whitsuntide holiday.

[5] The particular symbol used by WRS here is indecipherable.

[6] Ehrenfeuchter, Friedrich (1814–1878): protestant theologian and professor extraordinary at Göttingen. He was titular abbot (Abt) of Bursfelde, a Benedictine foundation which remained in existence as a protestant monastery after the Reformation.

[7] Beck, Johann Tobias (1804–1878): a noted theologian and professor at Tübingen until 1878, several volumes of whose sermons were published.

[8] Heinrich Meyer’s Kritisch-Energetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament (8 vols.) 1852–1865, translated into English 1884.

[9] Lotze, Hermann (1817–1881): the highly influential philosopher and epistemologist whose emphasis on the ethical and psychological dimensions of religious belief would have been attractive to WRS.

[10] Bertheau, Ernst (1812–1888): professor of Oriental and Old Testament exegesis at Göttingen from 1843.

[11] Lünemann, Gottlieb: author, amongst other works, of Kritisch exegetisches Handbuch über den Hebräerbrief (1855).

[12] The Smith’s family holiday was spent at the Moray Firth resort of Lossiemouth that summer. See COTM, pp. 70ff. for a description of this holiday.

[13] Elmslie, William (1816–1890): was Free Church minister at Insch, Aberdeenshire until 1880. His son, William G. Elmslie, entered New College two years later than WRS, later becoming professor of Hebrew at the English Presbyterian College, London. Cf. Bruce (1929) p.56.

[14] Klein, Felix (1849–1925): the renowned mathematician became a close friend of WRS as the many subsequent references in his letters indicate.

[15] Plücker, Julius (1801–1868): had held the chair of mathematics and experimental physics at Bonn until his death.

[16] Registration/enrolment book.

[17] In his early teachings, Luther had stressed the antithetical nature of Law and Gospel, the former serving only to convict man of his sin, the latter being the true route to justification and salvation , Cf. Cameron (1991) p.116f.