Göttingen, Aug 13th [1869]
My Dear Professor Schaarschmidt
I have been very careless in not writing to you during the season to inform you how we have been getting on at Göttingen.
The Session is now closed and we leave for our return journey viâ Holland tomorrow morning so I take the last remaining opportunity of dropping you a line from Göttingen.
I have enjoyed my session here very much especially the lectures and conversation of Ritschl whose theological thought has a clearness & independence of tone which is very refreshing. He has given us an introduction to Scholten[2] in Leyden which will make our journey thro’ Holland especially interesting.
Lotze’s lectures I have also enjoyed tho’ not in the same measure as Ritschl’s. I have also found a very pleasant circle of senior mathematical Students drawn hither by Clebsch[3], with whom I have had a good deal of friendly intercourse. I took a run to Heidelberg in the end of last month to see Helmholtz and Kirchoff. I found Helmholtz very interesting. I was very much struck with his resemblance to Bismarck, especially about the forehead. He showed me a great deal that was interesting in his laboratory.
I have also taken advantage of various opportunities to see part of the Harz and a little of Thüringen — Eisenach and the Wartburg. So I have considerably increased my knowledge of Germany this summer and to some extent I hope also my knowledge of German.
I hope you have had a successful semester. I presume your work is by this time finished; indeed I am a little afraid that this note may find you already out of Bonn.
I hope you will not forget your promise to send me the Latin preface of your work on Spinoza. I should like very much to see it. On my part I hope to send you before long a small paper on Hegel and Newton of which perhaps I may already have spoken to you and which I should like to submit to your judgment [sic].
I fancy you will hear of me next from Edinburgh. I mean indeed to go home to Keig for a couple of months or perhaps only for six weeks, and then I must be back to my work in Edinburgh.
I hope Mrs Schaarschmidt, Fritz and Hetta are all quite well. Please remember me kindly to all of them
and believe me
Yours very sincerely
Wm Robertson Smith
[1] ULB Bonn Autographensammlung
[2] Scholten, Jan Hendrik (1811–1885): Dutch Protestant theologian who became professor at Leiden from 1843. It was through him that Abraham Kuenen became attracted to the study of theology. Amongst otther works, Scholten published A Critical Study of the Gospel of John (1864).
[3] Clebsch, Rudolf Friedrich Alfred (1833–1872): professor of mathematics. Studied in Königsberg, taught at Berlin and Karlsruhe. After a spell in Giessen, Clebsch was appointed to Göttingen in 1868 where he pursued his study of algebraic geometry, of which he is justly regarded as the founder.