Robert Gauss

“ If the object of all human investigation were but to produce in cognition a reflection of the world as it exists, of what value would be all its labour and pains, which could result only in vain repetition, in an imitation within the soul of that which exists without it? ”

“ Whatever fondness for the gay life of a Göttingen student he may have had in his young days, his life in America was almost ascetic in its freedom from anything like dissipation. When he first made his home in St. Charles, Missouri, he was about thirty years of age, and it was only a few years later that he became interested in the subject of religion. So it could not have been said of him: "Junge sündet und Alte Betschwestern". He was still a young man when he turned his attention to religion. ”

“ The individual, ensnared by that division of intellectual labour that inevitably results from the widening compass of knowledge, may at times forget the connection of his narrow sphere of work with the great ends of human life ”

“ But all his endeavors have in the last resort but this one meaning, that they, in connection with those of countless others, should combine to trace an image of the world from which we may learn what we have to reverence as the true significance of existence, what we have to do and what to hope. ”

“ When they read the lives of men like Goethe, Schiller, Humboldt, Bismarck and even Kant, people of ordinary intelligence may form some idea of what existence meant for those great men, and what lessons their lives convey to humanity. ”

“ Little is known in Germany about the two sons of Carl Friedrich Gauss who emigrated to this country and the German speaking world knows nothing of my father except that when he was about nineteen years old he quarreled with his father and left Göttingen to make his home in the United States. ”

“ I am a grandson of Carl Friedrich Gauss. My father was Eugene Gauss who was the eldest son of the mathematician by his second wife. Upon several occasions I corresponded with Professor Brendell, at that time in Göttingen, in regard to the preparation of the biography of my grandfather. Since he left Göttingen - which I believe he did about five years ago - I have heard but little concerning the progress of work on the biography ”

“ This, you will understand, is not the article referred to above and which appeared in "Science", but in case you have not, I shall try to procure one for you.
With the greatest respect, Yours most sincerely, Robert Gauss
P. S. The names and the present places of residence of the grandchildren of Carl Friedrich Gauss, who were born in the United States and are now living, are as follows:
The children of Eugene Gauss: Charles Henry Gauss, St. Charles, Missouri; Robert Gauss, Denver, Colorado; Albert F. Gauss, Los Angeles, California.
The children of William Gauss: Charles Friedrich Gauss, St. ”