Einstein, Albert

Typed letter in German signed ("A. Einstein"), 1 page (11 x 8 1/2 in.; 280 x 215 mm), on letterhead with the embossed Mercer Street address above, Princeton, New Jersey, 2 August 1954, to Frau Ehrmann, [in New York City]; formerly folded, a list of seven dates written in red grease pencil on verso. Half morocco drop-box, gilt-stamped black leather title label on spine, English translation laid in.

Smythe, 2 November 1999, lot 461 (unnamed consignor)

Einstein comments on God's motivation to create the universe.

The letter is written to Frau Ehrmann, possibly, to judge from the familiar and friendly style of the letter, Katerina Ehrmann, the wife of his long-time friend and physician, who emigrated from Germany to New York City in 1939. She has sent him a metaphysical poem about God to which he responds:

"I thank you for your enchanting poem. I can fairly well comprehend though, that the good God hesitated to put too much 'pep' into his gratitude. Then, if every good deed were to be compensated on the basis of grateful beliefs, where would the encouraging gains of humanity remain, which he enters wholly into his book of remembrance, and could enjoy?  And he really should have had such an expectation, because why else would he have found it necessary to ask for so much trouble, since the creation of this world must have been especially difficult, even for him."