Albert Einstein's Remarkable Letter of Support to Marie Curie in the Midst of Trouble – The Marginalian
There are few things more disheartening to witness than the bile that small-minded people of inferior ability tend to direct at those who are gifted with wisdom. And there are few things more comforting to witness than the solidarity and support the spiritual forces of goodwill are imparting to those targeted in this heinous attack.
In 1903, Marie Curie (November 7, 1867–July 4, 1934) was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. She was awarded jointly with her husband, Pierre, for their pioneering research on radioactivity. On April 19, 1906, he died of an accident too big for its impossibility. While crossing a busy street in Paris on a rainy night, Pierre slipped, fell under a horse-drawn carriage, and died instantly. Curie was sad for years. In 1910, he found solace in Pierre's protégé – a young physics professor named Paul Langevin, who was married but separated from a woman who physically abused him. They became lovers. Furious, Langevin's wife hired someone to break into the apartment where the two met and steal their love letters, which she quickly leaked to the media. The newspaper outed Curie and portrayed him as “a Jewish foreigner who demolished a home.”
When he returned from an invitation-only scientific conference in Brussels, where he had met Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879–April 18 1955), Curie found an angry mob in front of his home in Paris. She and her daughters were forced to live with a family friend.
Einstein considered Curie to be “an honest and unassuming man” with a “brilliant intellect.” When he received the news of this scandal, he was outraged by the tastelessness and cruelty of the media – the tabloids had stripped the private nature of all humanity and nuance, and brought it into the public sphere with the deliberate intention of destroying Curie's scientific reputation.
A master of good comforting letters and a champion of kindness as the main motive of life, Einstein wrote to Curie of solidarity and wholehearted support, encouraging him not to trust the hateful newspapers. Book, found in Walter Isaacson's Bad History Einstein: His Life and the World (public library), is a testament to the generous spirit that accompanied Einstein's unparalleled wisdom—a masterpiece of what he himself called “spiritual genius.”
Einstein, who later said that “Marie Curie, of all famous beings, is the only one whose fame does not pollute her,” writes:
Dear Mrs. Curie,
Don't laugh at me for writing to you without anything meaningful to say. But I am so offended by the low level of public concern about you that I have to express this feeling. However, I am sure that you always despise this thug, whether he is disrespecting you or trying to satisfy his lust! I am compelled to tell you how much I have admired your intelligence, your drive, and your honesty, and that I consider myself fortunate to have met you in Brussels. Anyone who is not among these reptiles is certainly glad, now as before, that we have such people among us as you, and Langevin too, real people with whom one feels privileged to associate. If the rabble keeps messing with you, don't read that hogwash, but rather leave it to the reptile it was built for.
With great respect to you, Langevin, and Perrin, yours truly,
A. Einstein
Shortly after this scandal, Curie received his second Nobel Prize – this time in chemistry, for his discovery of the elements radium and polonium. To this day the only person to have been awarded the Nobel Prize in two different scientific disciplines, he endures as one of humanity's most visionary and beloved minds. The journalists who attacked him are not known by all and are depressed.
Study Kierkegaard on why haters hate and Anne Lamott's clear manifesto on how to deal with them, then revisit Mark Twain's witty and witty letter of support to Helen Keller when she was falsely accused of cheating and Frida Kahlo's letter of compassion to Georgia O'Keeffe after the American artist was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown.
