Kepler to Müller, 13/23 November 1629
Johannes Kepler, “Kepler to Müller, 13/23 November 1629,” Nova Kepleriana 4, November 23, 1629, 67–70, transcribed in Plain Old Text, https://sources.vjbe.net/stable/j9ged.
Nova Kepleriana 4 23 Nov, 1629, p. 67–70 Summary
Part of Die Keplerbriefe auf der Nationalbibliothek und auf der Sternwarte in Paris
Kepler thanks Müller for arranging his type and paper, and pours out his distress over a rival suitor, a secretary of the Margrave of Baden, who is pressing for his daughter Susanna's hand while her betrothed Jacob Bartsch is away.
Source: Johannes Kepler's letter to Philipp Müller written at Sagan on 13/23 November 1629, about type and paper for his press, and about the courtship of his daughter Susanna by Jacob Bartsch and a rival suitor. The original is lost; the copy is in the Bibliothèque de l'Observatoire, Paris (B, 1, 9 (89); 89, 8. L). First printed in Nova Kepleriana 4, ed. Walther von Dyck and Max Caspar, Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Math.-naturw. Abteilung 31, no. 1 (Munich, 1927), 67–70.
English translation of the letter as printed in Nova Kepleriana 4 (1927), made for Plain Old Text. Each paragraph translates the corresponding paragraph of the original, including Kepler’s German postscript and the directions on the cover; his marginal notes are translated as footnotes.
Many greetings.
Most famous and most excellent Sir, my precious friend.
My workmen came back to me on 8/18 November, having left the press at Dresden for want of carters, a want I hope our mint-master will make good within a few days. Since the Sagan messenger, bound for Halberstadt by way of Torgau, offered himself this very evening, I have handed him these few lines to save time, so that he can send them on from Torgau to Leipzig. I thank you for the trouble you have taken; I am entirely satisfied, and so I send a receipt for the sum spent, which Bartsch or I am bound to honour in place of ready money. For the rest: the founder has his instructions for casting the type, and the paper-maker has the form of the paper, but each is waiting for me first to confirm what my workmen agreed in my name. I must also beg Your Excellency to tell them both to go ahead without delay, so that they can send the type called Cicero,A size of type, about 12 point, named after early editions of Cicero printed in it.1 even if it comes to 150 pounds, and three bales of paper with the first carters going to Breslau by way of Sagan. Meanwhile I shall keep asking whether any of the Sagan carters is going to Leipzig, so as to strike a bargain with him in person and send him to you, and so spare you this trouble, if I can and if you have not already seen to it. Since my own money will not be enough, Bartsch’s will have to be drawn on; and as soon as that is done I should like Bartsch to be told.
If either of you writes to him, please add this from me: that I too have written to him three times now, by roundabout ways and through slow agents; that I am tormented by his fortunes and by my daughter’s cares; for another suitor is pressing her, who has already sent me letters of intercession from his master, the Margrave of Baden, and who has hired BerneggerMatthias Bernegger, professor at Strasbourg and Kepler's friend, in whose care Susanna was living there. Kepler writes Pernegger. to dissuade Bartsch, which Bernegger, strange to say, even undertakes to do.2 Yet I know from my daughter’s last letter, of 7/17 October, that she wishes to be in my power alone; and I, for my part, am bound and wish to keep faith with our agreement, as long as I enjoy the sight of the stars.
This is cunning and force of the highest order. My daughter is besieged: since the suitor is the Prince’s secretary, no letters can reach her except through his hands; nor would her letters, in which she affirmed her constancy, have reached Bernegger, or perhaps me either, had she not given them to be enclosed with the Margrave’s letters of intercession, which she herself wished to see stopped. Bernegger in turn has been made anxious by the suitor’s art, as though my daughter leaned more towards the man she sees before her, who flourishes in the favour of the court. So the sum of my anxiety is this: that Bartsch should not feel himself held back by Bernegger. Both of them are far away. You perhaps know better where Bartsch is, or have surer and readier chances of writing straight to the one or the other, or to both. My daughter is distressed at the humiliation that must fall on one of the two.3 This is the most exquisite torment of a mind anxious both for its own good faith and for both persons; yet in it I am relieved by this thought, that a good angel’s providence, I believe, keeps watch: for at its prompting I would not let Bartsch, as he intended, undertake this journey to sound out my daughter’s mind at his own sole risk, unless it had first been irrevocably agreed between us. For truly, if either I or Bartsch were now free of this bond, the Prince’s letters of intercession would already be acting as a wedge to split our minds: mine, from fear of offending the Prince; his, from despair of the match he sought. Indeed my daughter, presuming her father’s mind from the intercessor’s authority, and released from the scruple of upholding her father’s earlier agreement, would long since have inclined to the man before her.
Having received the Prince’s letters of intercession, and not yet unsealed them, I have written out the whole affair to Bartsch’s kinsmen, offering myself to any terms by which they think he can be helped in his danger and they themselves satisfied. While I wait for their answer, I send off these lines, the first on this business to leave my hands. I think that, since they do not answer by their own messenger, they will send my letter on to Bernegger, for so I lightly suggested on a slip put in with it.
I write this to you, best of men, because I regard you as a father to Bartsch, and believe he regards you so, as I am led to think by the proofs your recent meeting gave. Take it in good part, or rather take good counsel for one in distress, and farewell. Given at Sagan, 13/23 November 1629.
Your Excellency’s
most devoted
Jo. Kepler,
Mathematician.
I beg you to tell me: did Bartsch receive none of my letters at Leipzig before he last left? And if any, on what subject? For in the first I reproached him for his delays and told him of the rival; in the second I wrote more calmly, since Bernegger had relieved me of my worry by telling my daughter that Bartsch was coming.
Make my apologies to the famous Mr Avianus for not answering his letter, being taken up now with greater cares.
My workmen reported that you have it in mind to buy metal for casting type more cheaply from a certain steward. I shall count it a kindness if you take this in hand, at any price you agree below 33 imperials,Imperial thalers (imperiales). or even if your efforts come to nothing. And since Greek type is mixed in with it, which is for sale separately, I should like to know whether that is complete, and whether it can be cut down to the Sagan height. Let him write the price and send a specimen; for perhaps I shall buy that remainder too on another occasion.
The founder should not forget to cut the two characters ✳ and ✷, and to cast about 60 or 100 of each, on the low Garamond bodyA smaller size of type, about 10 point, named after the French punchcutter Claude Garamond. and for the type of the Ephemerides, not to the Sagan height, as the form of the body has been left with him.
To the most famous and most excellent Mr
Philipp Müller, Licentiate of Medicine,
Professor of Mathematics in the University of Leipzig, and Inspector of
the Elector’s Scholars,
my most honoured friend.
To be left at Torgau with a reliable messenger going to Leipzig, with a tip.
Leipzig.
There the Torgau messenger is to be given another tip.
[Margin:] The Cicero type by itself half a hundredweight; but the figures on the same body, in plenty, together with points, accents ) / v κ, long and short dashes — — — — — and quads, also half a hundredweight altogether.↩︎
[Margin:] Having sent into my daughter’s hands a letter dissuading Bartsch, for her to use if she wished and as she wished, he presses her in a second letter to her. He has also let it be known that he will advise Bartsch to pass Durlach by and go first to Strasbourg instead, unless he stops at Butzbach.↩︎
[Margin:] And think what torment for a girl, to be pulled between a present liking and an unknown duty. If only Bartsch had never gone off to Halberstadt, and had handed over without delay my letters in which I tell my daughter of our agreement! Bernegger has told her they are on their way, but she has not yet read them: she has read only the copies of my invitation to come to terms in person.↩︎