After reading my last blog, "The Midnight Library", my wife had a few questions, as I'm sure other readers had, too. She didn't quite like the idea as premised, particularly about the two connected stories at the end.
Well, much of these musings of an "Idle Mind" are to provoke the mind occasionally and at other times to tickle the imagination, while some are only to be taken with a grain of salt. But to ponder the "what life could have been" or "what it could be" against that of "life lived once", and only once, opens up more questions than answers.
So, I venture to examine the idea of "life lived once", sort of from the opposite side of "The Midnight Library". As always, my intention with some of what I write about is akin to examining the side streets and byways and less trundled meadows beyond the boundaries of the familiar landscapes of the mind. More to flex the mental muscles, if there is such a thing, calisthenics for the brain, another way to look at it.
But there are profound questions too with "lives lived once". What of the lives once lived that were cut short, as the lives of very young children? What of those lives that ended abruptly; unrealized potential never to be achieved, dreams lost, destinies never to be known? One broken link that ended it all for what could have been an endless chain, never to re-connect again, forever. What of lives of accomplishments never recognized for the value of their contribution to history?
During the war that begun in 1914, (WWI), and because he was German, he lost the ability to earn money from concerts, teaching jobs and commissions for compositions in much of Europe.
In 1915, just a year after the war had started, he was visited by two sister-musicians from America. America was not yet involved in the war then and Bruch welcomed them because the two concert pianists had actually played one of his compositions for piano duet. In 1920, after the war, the two sisters visited him again near Berlin. Bruch, at that time long retired, had fallen into financial hardships. The sisters offered to buy the original signed manuscript for the Violin Concerto no. 1. Without a written agreement and no down payment, the sisters took the manuscript back to America. Bruch who had high hopes that he will be paid in American dollars never heard from the sisters again. A few months later Bruch passed away. Mysteriously, cash of unknown origin arrived. It was in German marks - practically of little value due to Germany's post war runaway inflation. It was known that the sisters sold the manuscript in 1949 for an undisclosed amount. It is now at the Morgan Library.
Max Bruch died destitute. It was life lived once. It was also life full of promise because in the beginning, like Mozart, he started composing at a very young age and went on to be on the right track to fame and fortune. Only to die penniless in the end. Ironically, Mozart's life, despite the fame, also ended similarly. He too died a pauper with nothing but mounting debts and was buried in a potter's grave. Both, like most composers of that era, did not benefit from any royalties.
Two similar lives lived once. One, almost forgotten, another celebrated as the epitome of pure musical genius.
Speaking of genius, there was Albert Einstein, of course. But have you heard of Elise Meitner? How about Mileva Marić?
In 1896, Mileva was the only female in a group of five students, that included Albert Einstein, who were admitted to Zurich's Polytechnic Institute, physics and math department. Four years later, at the end of their education, Mileva finished with a grade point average of 4.7, Albert got 4.6. But in applied physics, Mileva finished with the highest possible grade of 5.0, while Albert, 1.0. Mileva also aced it in experimental work, Albert did not. At the oral exam, a prerequisite for graduation, their professor gave 11 out of the perfect twelve to Albert and the other three male students, but only 5 to Mileva. Mileva did not get her degree, Albert did.
Albert and Mileva became romantically involved during and after their studies at the Institute. Mileva became pregnant, went back to Serbia, and had a daughter named Liserl. Other than the name and the speculation that the daughter may have been put up for adoption, there is no birth or death certificate on record.
Eventually, Albert and Mileva got married after Einstein got a job at the Swiss Patent Office. Two sons were born. Mileva took care of the household and the children. 1905 is well known as Einstein's "miracle year" - when he published several theories. What is not well known is that Mileva, a brilliant mathematician, helped Albert a lot in getting the math right behind the theories and that she actually reviewed and edited Albert's articles before they were sent out for publication. Some historians suggested that Mileva should have been given a lot more credit for Albert's accomplishments. Einstein won the Nobel Prize (But not on the famous Theory of Relativity!, but his work on the photoelectric effect).
Albert may or may not have said, “I need my wife. She solves for me all my mathematical problems”.
However, in a letter to a friend he did say, on March 27,1901: “How happy and proud I will be when the two of us together will have brought our work on relative motion to a victorious conclusion.” He was referring to Mileva and The Theory of Relativity.
Less than two decades later, Albert divorced Mileva and married his first cousin, Elsa Einstein, in 1919, with whom he already had an affair while still married to Mileva. Elsa's maiden surname was indeed Einstein. That's right, because Elsa's father was Rudolph Einstein, cousin of Albert's father. They were first cousins because Albert's mother and Elsa's were sisters. They emigrated to the U.S. where Einstein became professor of physics at Princeton University. They did not have any children. As a footnote, none of Einstein's two sons inherited the brilliance from either or both parents. Hans did become a professor in hydraulics engineering at UC Berkeley. Eduard was institutionalized for mental illness throughout much of his adult life. Einstein had three grand children, only one survived to adulthood, one died at six years old, another barely lived for a month.
Einstein, through both marriages had affairs with several women, mostly young women.
Albert Einstein recognized his unfaithfulness and emotional ineptitude with a letter to the son of his friend when he wrote, “What I admire in your father is that, for his whole life, he stayed with only one woman. That is a project in which I grossly failed, twice.” Of course, this is not to diminish his genius or his uncanny ability to see how the physical universe worked that no one then figured out the way he did.
Elise or Lise Meitner, born on Nov. 7, 1878 in Vienna, was an Austrian physicist who worked in what was then a male dominated field in research and theory development in Berlin just before the second world war started. Below is a photo of her and Otto Hahn at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Chemistry, Berlin (1913). She and Otto together with another German scientist, Fritz Strassman, collaborated on what became the foundation for splitting the atom.
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