You ask me about plans for my future, good Eugene; you attach to it the thought of seeing your lonely sister in America and the dearest offers to accompany me to you and home again. But I have no plans. I have at the moment only a heart filled with gratitude for the good deed—since a filling of the position is not now intended—of being allowed to remain in possession of the beloved rooms for an indefinite time, rooms which on account of father are so inexpressibly dear to me, rooms in which he spent half of his life, rooms where everything bears traces of him, the room in which he died! Every spot in them bears holy memories for me, and memories and everything that nourishes them are now my only consolation! Father’s living room and bedroom are still unchanged, everything in them is in the same place as it was during his illness and his death. I go in so often, so often, and always believe that I feel closer there to the dear departed! In this sense it is a melancholy joy for me that father’s wish leaves me in possession of the household furniture and that the dear thought of my brothers finds in it no injustice against any of us. Certainly, dear Eugene, it is not on account of the financial value of the things, but partly because every article used by father is for me a holy relic for which I would gladly give away everything else and partly because the order of my home is not threatened by division and sale.
God has given me a great miraculous strength of endurance in nursing father, for my otherwise not strong health did not break down during weeks of night vigils and never ending struggle with grief and worry; but after father’s death the unnatural tension of my nerves relaxed, I felt completely exhausted and still can’t properly recover again. Therefore it Is also a benefit for me in this respect, namely, that I may remain in these quiet, peaceful rooms, without having to busy my thoughts now with plans for the future. In spite of their painful desolation I feel less lonesome in them than I would in any other place, for I still always have here the feeling of father’s spiritual nearness and of home. Joseph has visited me rather often, although always only for one day.
Actually one can never judge definitely for oneself concerning the future, but according to my present feeling I do not believe that I shall leave Göttingen in order to live in another place. At least years must first pass—and who knows whether I shall still be living after these— until my emotions again assume a less exclusive direction to the only thing that now fills me; I love father’s grave and all the places where he lived, too much, not to want to remain near them. Here in Göttingen I do not have very many, but several very intimate, friends who have always given me in difficult and sad times proofs of ardent and true sympathy and love. They moreover share with me so many reminiscences of father, and for me, momentarily at least, all that is one more tie to Göttingen.
Far-reaching plans so seldom lead to the goal, life always treats us differently from what we expected; but, dear Eugene, if the desire that we see each other once again on earth is fulfilled, if in the course of the next years you desire to visit your first homeland once more, in which very little is left for you except graves—than we shall probably see each other in Göttingen again. It would be so inexpressibly good and fine if I could embrace you and my beloved Wilhelm once more in life! Under your protection the long journey over the sea in itself would probably not be terrifying to me—but I have now too little vital energy to be able to answer for myself the question whether I would like to step out again from the narrow circle of my quiet life.
A week ago I also had a letter from Wilhelm, in which he with sincere love made me the same offers that you make: to come over in order to fetch the lonely sister; and like you he had the hopeful plan of soon coming to Germany in order to see our father once more in life. Today I am sending simultaneously with this letter my answer to him and hope that both of you will soon receive the letters. I shall rejoice so heartily too, dear Eugene, to hear from you more often than formerly, and shall gladly write to you again. From Joseph you yourself now probably get direct news rather often; four weeks ago he, his wife, and child visited me for one day. The latter two are very well, but unfortunately he complains rather often about his poor health due to overwork, for the improvement of which he will soon visit a spa.
And now farewell, my good brother, greet your wife and children for me and keep me dear.
Truly your sister
therese gauss
Heinrich Christian Schumacher
Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel
Alexander von Humboldt
Johann Franz Encke
Johann Benedikt Listing
The Philipp Petri daguerreotype of Gauss on his deathbed
The copper memorial tablet in Gauss’ death chamber, given by King George V of Hanover (1865)
The grave of Gauss in St. Albans Cemetery in Göttingen
The bust of Gauss by C. H. Hesemann (1855) in the University of Göttingen library
Joseph Gauss
Heinrich Ewald
Minna Gauss Ewald, a watercolor by L. Becker (1834)
Wilhelm Gauss
Eugene Gauss
Therese Gauss and her husband, Constantin Staufenau
Therese Gauss, a sketch by J. B. Listing
Schaper’s monument to Gauss in Brunswick (1880)
Bust of Gauss by W. Kindler (in the Dunnington Collection)
Bust of Gauss by Friedrich Küsthardt in Hildesheim
The Gauss-Weber monument in Göttingen, by Hartzer (1899)
The Gauss monument by Janensch, in Berlin
The Gauss Tower on Mount Hohenhagen, near Dransfeld, dedicated 1911
The Brehmer medal of Gauss (1877)
The Eberlein bust of Gauss in the Hohenhagen Tower
The bust of Gauss by F. Ratzenberger (1910), in the Dunnington Collection
Commemorative postage stamp issued for the Gauss Centennial, 1955
XXIV
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Epilogue
1. Apotheosis: Orations of Ewald and Sartorius
On the morning of February 26, 1855, Heinrich Ewald, son-in-law of Gauss and professor of theology and Oriental languages at the University of Göttingen, delivered the following funeral oration before a large audience on the terrace of the university observatory:
Dear departed one! How shall I eulogize you at the last moment when we, deeply mourning and standing even closer to you, surround your soulless remains? It has not been six years since we surrounded you on a rare festive day132 in the embellishment of all your power; at that time not only our city but also strangers hurrying in from near and far shared our general joy; and the happy glance of your eye, the fresh green laurel of your silvery hair promised us the possession of you for the longest span of human life. In two more years and a few months a long-desired and even loftier festive joy would have again united us with you, since then a full half century would have passed since you were called to the bosom of our university in a somewhat unusual manner. The Lord of Life and Death has decreed otherwise: these halls, once dedicated by you to their permanent purpose, long the scene of your Works and the rich as well as mature, noble fruits of the same, are now to be bereft of you; we are to renounce the sweet habit of not knowing them without you, indeed of scarcely being able to think of them without you; we are bowed down, we mourn.
But, my friends, let us far more thank Him, Who gave him to us, Who preserved him for so long in the finest and fullest vigor. Who allowed him to act among us just as he did act. How should I attempt to describe and to appraise his services to so many and such various sciences all closely connected by a closer bond. Others, more expert and more skillful, will do this now after the end of his earthly career even more than they have long since done at this university, as in all places of the earth, where a considerable number of the loftiest and most serious sciences blossom in fine league with their happy application and successful activity on an extended
area of lofty and necessary efforts of our time. When he measured the infinite space of the heavens and the distant surfaces of the earth as nobody before him, when he taught how to find and esteem correctly with aids of science and recognition of work and art that which is attainable by the human eye, aids most of which he handled most happily, in the boldness and sharpness of research, in the certainty of the most important results, and in the completed presentation involuntarily reminding many persons of the final and loftiest efforts of all antiquity and towering above the pinnacles of the equally lofty and even loftier efforts of our last three or four centuries in many places. Oh, how little did he forget the Infinite, which is even higher than those infinite spaces and which ever surrounds and presses us. Or, when he called Nature his goddess whom he served, whose gentle signals or even powerful words and commands he like a genuine priest considered it his life duty to note (but that is a poetic word, and in his eyes the genuine poet’s word possessed something holy): Oh, how little did he forget Him through whom this work miraculous to us has all its miracles as its limits and its eternal laws. And did he not love to show such thoughts as lift the enigmatic veil of all earthly existence; and herein belonged, as otherwise everywhere, wise reserve, caution, and thoughtfulness not to the least of his many virtues, especially in the face of the many types of supertensions and injurious errors of our times; is the total effect of a mind fathoming and explaining the deepest laws of all creation anything other than an ever stronger elevation to Him Who gave them and preserves them with His hand? May I be permitted to mention briefly here how unforgettable to me are the hours when our friend and teacher now removed from the earth, still in the full power and vigor of his years, at some accidental stimulus, talked in an intimate group about immortality and the whole relationship of the visible to the invisible, with a clarity and certainty, a brightness and assurance which astonished nobody more than those who had expressed their doubts and had introduced such conversations.
But, my friends, if all sciences, however difficult they may be to count in detail, finally fall into two quite different and not to be intermingled areas, with all mutual contact, into that of nature and that of human-divine things, and if one must always rightfully expect only of those who cultivate the latter area the most personal intervening sympathy in all changes and fates, all sufferings and injuries of all humanity, of peoples and societies, of the small and large realms of the earth, then we can also admire here how firm and loyally in his own area, under all changes of time, he always kept unmoved in his mind the highest task of his own life, apparently untouched by all such changes in the outer world. And again though—what soulful sympathy for all sorrows and joys of the changing world glowed through his heart, what inexhaustibly deep benevolence for all humanity always lived in him, what joyful recognition and esteem of every foreign merit, what pure, unshakable, fruitful friendship with so many intimates, lifelong with some of the greatest minds of his time, what warm zeal in service and what indefatigable readiness to serve, perhaps not according to the moods or the whims of the time, but everywhere that he could help through advice or deed, through the treasures of his knowledge or otherwise.
And what noble modesty and self-contained serenity dwelt beside such greatness loudly recognized by the world! On his jubilee when the signs of high honor and recognition poured in from all sides, from universities and Académies, from princes, from friends and colleagues, hardly anything pleased him as much as the honorary citizenship conferred on him by this city.
And now you are torn away from us and we are to take one last look at your transfigured features, you our joy and our jewel, our model and our illumination! But thanks, imperishable thanks to you for all that you were to the university for almost a half century, for all that you were to your friends and pupils, the intimate and the casual, the near and the far ones, thanks, sincere thanks for all that you were to your own family, most intimately attached to you, what you were to me also! Oh, my friends, we are looking into a nearby grave, but nothing pulls up our thoughts more strongly to the certainty of immortality than the open consideration of human infirmity even of such ones whom we desired to keep eternally among us. Yea, you will remain eternally among us, honored and admired by those in the most distant future. And in addition there remain your hope and our hope. The never withering laurel, the never vanishing fragrance of eternal thanks and of eternally elevating memory, of eternal love and eternal hope we now lay on this your coffin adorned in another manner by loving hands. Thus farewell and may your earthly remains rest in peace, beloved friend, teacher, father!
At the conclusion of Ewald’s oration Baron Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen, professor of geology at the University of Göttingen and intimate friend of Gauss, delivered the second funeral oration:
With deeply moved hearts and mightily affected minds, my honored friends, we have just stepped up to this coffin, which contains the earthly remains of a man full of peace. Gauss’ sublime mind is no longer among us! His glittering famous career is completed, his clear, blue, investigating, intelligently sparkling eye is closed forever and the peace of death surrounds his lofty, noble forehead; the laurel wreath winds around it! If I dare to begin speaking in this serious ceremonial hour, it is not for the purpose of piling up words of praise on the great deceased one, above which he was highly sublime even in life, nor to present to you, honored listeners, a true, well-sketched picture of his life and his work in science; I feel it deeply, infinitely deeply, that I am not equal to this task. A proper solution of it belongs alone to the judge of our intellectual development, the history of science, which with the illuminating fiery strokes of truth has listed in her holy books her unpartisan judgment concerning the deceased and concerning his unexcelled accomplishments from the end of the past century up to the middle of the present one.
It is only my purpose in this ceremonial moment to collect our spirits and to elevate our thoughts to God; but also at the same time to fulfill a pious childlike duty in the name of several friends and pupils present, as well as in my own name, to express once again publicly the feelings of our sincerest gratitude, of our sincerest love, of our sincerest honor.
Carl Friedrich Gauss was born April 30, 1777, at Brunswick; his illustrious genius forged ahead in his first years. We must eternally thank the benevolence and insight of a noble prince, who unfortunately closed his unhappy life with his mortal wound and a lost battle, that he furnished his loyal fatherly assistance to a young, vigorously striving mind on its scarcely opened career; he thereby erected for himself a permanent monument to which future centuries will not deny their full recognition.
In the most difficult, most fateful years which have ever broken in upon our German fatherland. Gauss by a higher dispensation became ours as a compensation for so many sufferings and he remained ours for forty-eight years, for the fame of our land and for the glory of our university, until a few days ago the cold hand of death touched his temples.
In that time of humiliation, of wretchedness, in which Germany lay under a foreign yoke, I must emphasize it loudly and clearly. Gauss proved himself a solid German man, who, loyally adhering to the fatherland, with his giant mind protected the treasure of our science and language; even at that time he scored a series of the most illustrious intellectual victories which have filled even our arrogant enemies and proud conquerors with admiration.
After German soil was freed of the world conqueror, Gauss under the protection of five noble kings, under the care of a benevolent university board of curators completed a quiet, retired, absolutely unassuming life worthy of a great philosopher, which has been dedicated only to the highest intellectual purposes. He created under such external circumstances in the course of forty years a series of the grandest researches in the field of mathematics, astronomy, and physics, which without exception have opened up to us new paths in science. I do not want here to go into the details of these thoroughly reformatory investigations; I want only in a few words to
emphasize the spirit which like a golden thread, like a noble string of pearls winds its way through all his works from beginning to end—it is the spirit of a pure, a completed science; by that I understand the science which is not created for earthly purposes, but that one which, like a brilliant star, like a glittering meteor falls from heaven, in order to transfigure with its rays the twilight of earthly life, the science which grants us the consolation, the firm confidence that the soul of man is not born in dust, in order to perish again in dust. This spirit of true science is opened up to us through Gauss’ researches; he has bequeathed it as his great legacy, as his holy testament to our hard-pressed, severely tested Georgia Augusta, that he may accompany us through the most distant times, that he may precede us like a guardian angel on our pilgrimage, and with the torch of truth may illumine our paths, that he may grant us joy in the days of good fortune and consolation and calmness in times of need, so that he may protect and strengthen us, elevate our souls and ennoble our hearts. As long as this spirit is alive among us, that science, to which we have also dedicated our life, will be vigorously preserved among us, and our university will gloriously continue to exist even in the midst of winter storms; she will always bear new young buds, fresh fragrant blossoms, and ripe fruits. By the great man just deceased, from whom we part with tears, the path which we must tread in the future is mapped out and opened in the most splendid manner—it is our obligation to pursue it further. God! Almighty God! In this serious moment hear our sincere prayer and give us strength and manly courage, striving for such a goal, also to finish our course until that day when we die. Amen! Amen!
Carl Friedrich Gauss, Titan of Science_A Study of His Life and Work Page 38