258
12 Coda
Friedrich Küstner and Robert Thorburn Ayton Innes.The painting was presented exactly forty years after his inaugural address, on February 20, 1918.
In the album we also find a postcard, with sender ‘Westersingel 19’ with the
text:
‘Ad Jacobum Cornelium Kapteyn
Qui specula caruit, servare unde astra liceret,
sideribus fluctus vidit inesse duos.
a.d. X Kal. Mart. MCMXVIII’
The abbreviated last line reads in full: ‘ante diem decimum Kalendas Martias
1918’. Experts on Latin texts and professors in Leiden Joan Booth and Herman
Frederik Johannes (Manfred) Horstmanshoff, whom I consulted, translate the
text as follows: ‘He who lacked a telescope with which to observe the heavens
saw that there were two streams of stars. 20 February 1918.’ The date is in
Roman notation ‘10 days before March 1, 1918’. According to the municipal
register of the city of Groningen, Jacobus van Wageningen (1864–1932), then
professor of Latin language and literature in Groningen, appears to be the
sender. According to my informants this ‘dactylic hexameter followed by a
dactylic pentameter’ is of very high quality Latin.
Ursul Boissevain, professor of ancient history and special friend of Kapteyn,
presented the painting with a speech. The original text has been conserved
in his neat handwriting in the Museum Boerhaave in Leiden. The closing
paragraphs read:
And now, Kapteyn, accept this as it is brought to you, as a token of our cordial
affection. May you be given many more years to come to explore in the unabated
power of your more powerful mind and to discover, to penetrate ever deeper into
the secrets of the immeasurable space of the infinite Universe, about which the
mere sight already fills simple souls with the deepest respect.
Then the wish will be fulfilled, that we cherish for your dearly beloved wife, for
your children and grandchildren, and for ourselves, for whom your friendship is
among the most precious things we possess.
The painting presented to Kapteyn (and his wife) is now in the Kapteyn
Room at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute. It came into the possession of
Kapteyn’s eldest daughter Jacoba Cornelia Noordenbos-Kapteyn, who took it
with her to England, where she lived close to her daughter Maria NewtonNoordenbos during the last few years as a widow. Now a coincidence was that
this Maria was a classmate of Adriaan Blaauw, third director of the Kapteyn
Astronomical Laboratory in the third grade at the gymnasium. After con-
12 Coda
Friedrich Küstner and Robert Thorburn Ayton Innes.The painting was presented exactly forty years after his inaugural address, on February 20, 1918.
In the album we also find a postcard, with sender ‘Westersingel 19’ with the
text:
‘Ad Jacobum Cornelium Kapteyn
Qui specula caruit, servare unde astra liceret,
sideribus fluctus vidit inesse duos.
a.d. X Kal. Mart. MCMXVIII’
The abbreviated last line reads in full: ‘ante diem decimum Kalendas Martias
1918’. Experts on Latin texts and professors in Leiden Joan Booth and Herman
Frederik Johannes (Manfred) Horstmanshoff, whom I consulted, translate the
text as follows: ‘He who lacked a telescope with which to observe the heavens
saw that there were two streams of stars. 20 February 1918.’ The date is in
Roman notation ‘10 days before March 1, 1918’. According to the municipal
register of the city of Groningen, Jacobus van Wageningen (1864–1932), then
professor of Latin language and literature in Groningen, appears to be the
sender. According to my informants this ‘dactylic hexameter followed by a
dactylic pentameter’ is of very high quality Latin.
Ursul Boissevain, professor of ancient history and special friend of Kapteyn,
presented the painting with a speech. The original text has been conserved
in his neat handwriting in the Museum Boerhaave in Leiden. The closing
paragraphs read:
And now, Kapteyn, accept this as it is brought to you, as a token of our cordial
affection. May you be given many more years to come to explore in the unabated
power of your more powerful mind and to discover, to penetrate ever deeper into
the secrets of the immeasurable space of the infinite Universe, about which the
mere sight already fills simple souls with the deepest respect.
Then the wish will be fulfilled, that we cherish for your dearly beloved wife, for
your children and grandchildren, and for ourselves, for whom your friendship is
among the most precious things we possess.
The painting presented to Kapteyn (and his wife) is now in the Kapteyn
Room at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute. It came into the possession of
Kapteyn’s eldest daughter Jacoba Cornelia Noordenbos-Kapteyn, who took it
with her to England, where she lived close to her daughter Maria NewtonNoordenbos during the last few years as a widow. Now a coincidence was that
this Maria was a classmate of Adriaan Blaauw, third director of the Kapteyn
Astronomical Laboratory in the third grade at the gymnasium. After con-