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The Stonehenge Letters
Harry Karlinsky


A remarkable new novel from the Wellcome Trust longlisted author.While digging through the Nobel Archives in Stockholm, trying to figure out why his hero, Sigmund Freud, never received a Nobel Prize, a psychiatrist makes an unusual discovery.Among the unsolicited self-nominations in the museum’s ‘Crackpot’ file there are six letters addressed to Mr Ragnar Sohlman, executor of Alfred Nobel’s will. Remarkably, all but one has been written by a Nobel laureate – including Rudyard Kipling, Ivan Pavlov, Teddy Roosevelt and Marie Curie. Each letter attempts to explain why and how Stonehenge was constructed. Diligent research eventually uncovers that Alfred Nobel, intrigued by a young woman's obsession with the mysterious landmark, added a secret codicil to his will:A prize – reserved exclusively for Nobel laureates – was to be awarded to the person who can solve the mystery of Stonehenge.Weaving together a wealth of primary documents – photos, letters, wills – The Stonehenge Letters is a wryly documented archive of a fascinating covert competition, complete with strange but illuminating submissions and a contentious prize-awarding process.But is this fact or is this fiction?


























Trilithons B and C from the south-west, Stonehenge, c. 1867.




Dedication (#ulink_b479edfa-906e-5588-8a3d-e81cc294eb0a)


For Minnie and Will


They look upon me as pretty much of a monomaniac, while I have the distinct feeling that I have touched upon one of the great secrets of nature.

Sigmund Freud, Letter to Wilhelm Fliess, 21 May 1894


CONTENTS

Cover (#u428345fd-0d73-517b-9271-e3c069b88dfb)

Title Page (#u43752a52-cdd4-536d-9ee5-f77e2e0760c3)

Dedication (#u211c8c76-acd3-5d9c-ac2c-515042683dca)

Epigraph (#u8e00b355-53c2-5c7f-8d42-167a0b986b92)

Introduction: The Knäppskalle File (#u1567de88-74c7-55ad-b690-7cbee3e106cb)

Part One: Alfred Nobel’s Last Will and Testament (#u56c2f418-b205-5e17-9b12-6b06993107f5)

Chapter 1. Alfred Nobel (#u1094052c-1a79-5fcb-859a-16dd05a35be9)

Chapter 2. Lilljeqvist and Sohlman (#u01368664-641c-54be-aa2e-b2b4f5b054bd)

Chapter 3. Nobel’s Last Will and Testament (#u1de7999f-4f60-59c0-b3f4-5922a2c44b7e)

Part Two: An Unexpected Prize (#u6aced2b8-e69b-5189-a6c3-e7b5659c309b)

Chapter 4. ‘Frau Sofie’ and Countess Bertha Kinsky (#u0ba6a855-22d2-53ef-905f-f23e64eb3c0c)

Chapter 5. Stonehenge for Sale (#ue933935a-3f84-5f3a-9553-3dbe83207180)

Chapter 6. Florence Antrobus (#u350c0270-070a-5214-8f4a-2f3fe33f785d)

Chapter 7. The Secret Codicil (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8. The Royal Swedish Academy of History, Letters, and Antiquities (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9. A Sentimental and Practical Guide to Stonehenge (#litres_trial_promo)

Part Three: The Mystery of Stonehenge (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10. Great Stones Undermined by Worms (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11. When Stonehenge was New (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12. Seaborne Stones (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13. The Curve of Knowns (#litres_trial_promo)

Part Four: Deliberations (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14. 10 December 1911 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15. The Grand Hôtel (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16. Trivial and Flawed (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17. Albert Einstein (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18. Dear Lady Antrobus (#litres_trial_promo)

Part Five: Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Postscripts (#litres_trial_promo)

Appendix I: A Psychological Autopsy – A Diagnostic Listing of Alfred Nobel’s Dominant Personality Traits, Defence Mechanisms, and Primary Mental Disorders (#litres_trial_promo)

Appendix II: Acute Radiation Poisoning – Psychosomatic Variant (#litres_trial_promo)

Footnotes (#litres_trial_promo)

Bibliography (#litres_trial_promo)

Author’s Notes and Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)

Sources for Quotations (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Harry Karlinsky (#litres_trial_promo)

Credits for Illustrations (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)




INTRODUCTION (#ulink_7dfd5666-9ad1-511b-902c-fffc55a658d6)

THE KNÄPPSKALLEFILE (#ulink_7dfd5666-9ad1-511b-902c-fffc55a658d6)


As a (now retired) psychiatrist and amateur historian, I had long been vexed that the clearly deserving Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) had never received the Nobel Prize. In my younger years I had attempted to uncover the reason for this remarkable omission by contacting the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, the overarching body responsible for the administration of the Nobel Prizes. I was politely but firmly informed that, according to the foundation’s statutory rules, ‘Proposals received for the award of a prize, and investigations and opinions concerning the award of a prize, may not be divulged’. This stipulation meant that neither the names of those nominated for a Nobel Prize nor the subsequent prize deliberations were made known to the public. As it was more patiently explained to me, the Nobel Foundation could not and would not confirm whether Freud had ever been under consideration for the prize, let alone release the adjudicative details of his evaluation had he ever been nominated.

I was disappointed but not deterred. Though the official channels were closed, the secrecy of the Nobel Prize selection process was not impenetrable. With time and the energy of youth, I was able to glean references to Freud and the Nobel Prize from a large number of unofficial sources. These included the personal diaries of his nominators as well as the private and public correspondence of those who lobbied on Freud’s behalf. By my count, Freud had been proposed for the Nobel Prize in Medicine thirty-three separate times between the years 1915 and 1938, once achieving fourteen nominations in the year 1937. It was outrageous that Freud had been overlooked for a Nobel Prize on so many occasions. Yet, despite assertively contacting the Nobel Foundation again and again, I could elicit no explanation for this shameful state of affairs.

In 1974, however, the Swedish government’s introduction of new freedom of information legislation had an unintended consequence, one that would dramatically affect the outcome, and direction, of my enquiries. Recipients of the Nobel Prizes in Literature, Physics, Chemistry and the Economic Sciences were then, as now, decided by the Swedish Academy and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, both private institutions.


In contrast, it was a publicly funded medical university – Sweden’s Karolinska Institute (Institutet, in Swedish) – that determined who received the Nobel Prize in Medicine. As the new legislation afforded access to documents retained in public institutions, the secrecy of the Karolinska Institute’s prize deliberations was now in jeopardy. The Karolinska Institute manoeuvred quickly. A new private body was created and tasked by the faculty of the Karolinska Institute to bestow its prize, thereby preserving the secrecy of its selection.

These crude shenanigans to circumvent freedom of information did not go unnoticed. The Swedish government immediately demanded that the secrecy surrounding the awarding of all the Nobel Prizes be lifted. After contentious negotiations, a key conciliatory revision within the statutes of the Nobel Foundation emerged as follows:

A prize-awarding body may, however, after due consideration in each individual case, permit access to material which formed the basis for the evaluation and decision concerning a prize, for purposes of research in intellectual history. Such permission may not, however, be granted until at least fifty years have elapsed after the date on which the decision in question was made.

I was delighted. With access to the Nobel Archives now available, I was determined to learn the real truth, sordid or otherwise, behind Freud’s lengthy series of disappointments.

After years of inadvertent delay for both professional and personal reasons,


I at last arrived in Stockholm in the spring of 2013 to conduct my research. The twenty-nine-letter Swedish alphabet was an immediate and unexpected challenge; fortunately, undergraduate students from Stockholm University were available to translate documents at a reasonable ten Swedish kronor per page. The greater obstacle, however, lay with the quality of available records, which fell into four groupings: letters of nomination, reports on candidates, minutes of the working committees and minutes of the larger voting assemblies. It was the nature of the material in the latter two categories that was most limiting. Instead of unearthing detailed and candid discussions of the relative merits of Freud’s work as I had envisioned, only tallies of votes and final decisions were recorded.

I abandoned the effort altogether when an obliging student, aware of my interest, drew my attention to an obscure article by a Swedish psychiatrist, Dr Carl-Magnus Stolt, titled ‘Why Did Freud Never Receive the Nobel Prize?’ Stolt had already reviewed the relevant archival material, leaving no doubt as to either the priority or the thoroughness of his findings. In brief, Freud’s candidacy was based on those accomplishments one would expect to be cited: his courageous new insights concerning the unconscious, the significance of dreams, and the stages of infantile sexuality; his development of such novel concepts as the id, the ego, and the superego; and perhaps, most importantly, his introduction of psychoanalysis. As a number of his nominators stressed, Freud’s so-called ‘talking cure’ was the first effective treatment for a range of psychological disorders, including hysteria and the sexual perversions.

Yet Freud’s repeated rejections were not for the reasons I had suspected. Stolt found no indication that either anti-Semitism or the personal animosity of members on the Nobel Committee had undermined Freud’s chances. There was also no evidence that political considerations had constituted a factor, such as the fear that Freud’s selection in the 1930s might incite Nazi Germany. Instead, Freud’s work – at least as judged in the official documents – was viewed as too subjective for traditional scientific evaluation. In a cruel twist, one of the most damaging observations used against Freud was that he was also aggressively promoted for the Nobel Prize in Literature, once earning an official nomination from the French author and Nobel Laureate Romain Rolland. The flattering appraisal that Freud’s case studies lent themselves well to the conventions of fiction undermined any perception of Freud as an objective physician–scientist.






Figure 1. Sigmund Freud.

Disheartened, I considered other lines of investigation. As Freud had never encountered or written about Alfred Nobel (the man whose fortune was used after his death to finance the Nobel Prizes), I first distracted myself by reconstructing Nobel’s emotional life by way of Freud’s psychological principles. Once this small exercise was completed (see Appendix I (#litres_trial_promo)), I then sought to clarify whether any psychiatrist had ever been awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine. There were two: the first was Julius Wagner-Jauregg who, in 1927, earned the prize for his discovery that malaria inoculation could be effective in the treatment of neurosyphilis, at that time an incurable disease.


The second psychiatrist-laureate was Eric R. Kandel, a co-winner in 2000 for delineating the physiological basis of neuronal memory. Neither of these individuals nor their respective areas of research were of particular interest. Nor were the brutal surgeries of António Egas Moniz, a Portuguese neurologist often incorrectly assumed to be a psychiatrist. Moniz won a 1949 Nobel Prize in Medicine for developing the now-discredited leucotomy (or ‘lobotomy’), a barbaric surgical procedure that he recklessly inflicted upon psychotic patients. Ironically, Moniz would have made a far more legitimate Nobel Laureate for his pioneering radiological investigations of the carotid arteries and other vasculature, work for which he also received Nobel nominations.




For a period of time, I attempted to compile a list of Nobel Laureates who had been analysed by Freud. Although I failed to uncover any such individuals within Freud’s relatively small circle of patients, I had more success identifying those Nobelists treated within the wider psychoanalytic community. Saul Bellow, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976, was especially indebted to Freud’s disciples. Analysed by at least four well-known therapists, Bellow once shared his apartment with an Orgone Accumulator, a large zinc-lined rectangular crate roughly the size of a small outhouse. The contraption, invented by the controversial psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, ostensibly ‘accumulated’ orgone, an allegedly ubiquitous life force supposed essential for sexual vitality. Bellow was reported to have retreated into his Orgone Accumulator for hours, most often to read, but periodically to gag himself with a handkerchief and then unabashedly scream out for sexual release.

I was also aware, of course, of the profoundly disturbed nightmares of Wolfgang Pauli, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1945. These so interested the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung that he published interpretations of four hundred of Pauli’s dreams and visions in what became the twelfth volume of Jung’s Collected Works.


Jung and an apparently healthier Pauli subsequently collaborated on the subject of ‘synchronicity’: unrelated events that occurred together as ‘meaningful coincidences’. The resulting work was a completely mad fusion of quantum mechanics and parapsychology.

I was soon able to accumulate the names of more than forty other laureates who, like Bellow and Pauli, had benefited substantially from psychoanalysis. Again, however, I discontinued my enquiries, this time on re-examining my motives and recognising my real agenda: a childish means of highlighting Freud’s disgraceful oversight by the various Nobel Prize selection committees. In truth, it was more personal than that. Fifty-five years ago, I was inspired by Freud’s writings to choose psychiatry as my profession. For forty-five years, I practised psychotherapy utilising Freud’s principles. As I approached retirement, I was uncomfortably aware that Freud was no longer venerated in the psychiatric community and that the prestige of psychoanalysis as a discipline was in rapid decline. Indeed, there were ‘biological’ psychiatrists who dismissed Freud’s theories as the unverifiable beliefs of a man bordering on madness. More than once I had to defend the nature of my work to the (much younger) Chair of my Department. In now numerating and restating Freud’s accomplishments, and re-examining his Nobel defeats, it was obvious I was also attempting to legitimise my own career in the process.

I was in the midst of these private musings, when – browsing aimlessly in the Nobel Archives – I stumbled upon the ‘Crackpot’ file, the source of the remarkable story that follows. Nominations for each Nobel Prize are intended to be elicited only by invitation. Each year, the various Nobel Prize Committees invite, in confidence, thousands of qualified individuals, including all previous Nobel Laureates, to nominate deserving candidates other than themselves. Those names proposed by invited nominators – the ‘official’ nominees – are then considered for the coming year’s Nobel Prizes. Despite well-publicised admonitions that only official nominations are adjudicated, the Nobel Prize Committees still receive a substantial number of unsolicited applications, many from individuals who nominate themselves on the basis of questionable achievements. These unsought applications are immediately consigned to the B file, or the Knäppskalle (‘Crackpot’) file as the committee members more affectionately know it, and are rife with such claims as well-intentioned but ill-conceived cures for cancer and flawed designs for perpetual motion machines. The file made for sad but compelling reading and I began to spend more time perusing its contents.

It soon became evident, to a psychiatrist at least, that a significant proportion of those who nominated themselves were in the throes of serious psychiatric illness. Untreated mania, with its pathognomonic features of inflated self-esteem and irrepressible self-confidence, was pervasive. Euphoric applicants, without any prior training or demonstrated expertise, were pronouncing definitively on such matters as pandemics and elementary particle physics or declaring lengthy and incoherent memoirs as great works of literature. Of more concern were those applications fuelled by the bizarre delusions of individuals with psychotic disorders. The frequency of such submissions suggested that there might be merit in conducting a formal review of all unsolicited applications in an attempt to establish the underlying prevalence of psychopathology. Perhaps the resulting data might also identify a unique cluster of symptoms precipitated by the siren song of a Nobel Prize.

As the Knäppskalle file was organised by year of application, I began in 1901, the first year in which the Nobel Prizes were awarded. The number of entries on file increased substantially each year and it was difficult not to be impressed by the range and power of the human imagination, diseased or otherwise. One submission in particular caught my attention. Handwritten in Russian, it contained three unusual figures, two of which related to earthworms. The third, torn from a text written in English, was a sketch depicting ‘one of the fallen Druidical stones at Stonehenge’. Intrigued, I requested the assistance of a translator. In brief, the submission’s central thesis was that a causal relationship existed between the digestive habits of earthworms and why the enormous stone pillars at Stonehenge were gradually sinking into the ground. Despite its unusual supposition, it was a serious account and appeared to have been written as a focused response to an enquiry from a Mr Sohlman.

By this stage in my research, I was able to recognise Sohlman’s name as that of the principal executor of Alfred Nobel’s will and, for many years, the executive director of the Nobel Foundation. To my surprise, I also recognised the applicant’s name: Ivan Pavlov, winner of the 1904 Nobel Prize in Medicine. Although I had not been exposed to Pavlov’s work on classical conditioning since the early years of my psychiatric training, the submission’s arguments and style of writing seemed consistent with Pavlov’s well-known reputation for meticulous observation and measurement. Perplexed, I continued my review of the Knäppskalle file, utilising translators as required, until it was complete.

In the end, five other letters related to Stonehenge were addressed to Mr Ragnar Sohlman. Remarkably, early Nobel Laureates had written all but one. Even more remarkably, all alluded to solving the ‘mystery’ of Stonehenge.

And so began my journey of discovery, from Ivan Pavlov to Theodore Roosevelt to Rudyard Kipling to Marie Curie to Albert Einstein to a gentleman by the name of Norman Lockyer.

Or, as Freud once said more eloquently, ‘From error to error, one discovers the entire truth’.



PART ONE (#ulink_17e97ba4-2f5b-5c61-adc3-7e6a777221ae)




CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_0c1b09ec-c8b2-56df-98ed-d7100d5bb19b)

ALFRED NOBEL (#ulink_0c1b09ec-c8b2-56df-98ed-d7100d5bb19b)


For those readers unfamiliar with the early history of the Nobel Prizes, the man in whose honour they were named – Alfred Bernhard Nobel – was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1833. The third eldest of four sons (two younger siblings died in infancy), Alfred’s childhood years in Sweden were spent in relative poverty. His father, Immanuel Nobel, a self-taught pioneer in the arms industry, had been forced into bankruptcy the year of Alfred’s birth. Immanuel subsequently left his wife Andriette and their children in Sweden to pursue opportunities, first in Finland and later in Russia, that would re-establish the family’s wealth. It was not until 1842 that the Nobel family was reunited in St Petersburg. By then, Immanuel had convinced Tsar Nicholas I that submerged wooden barrels filled with gunpowder were an effective means to protect Russia’s coastal cities from enemy naval attack. This was surprising, as virtually all of Immanuel’s brightly painted underwater mines failed to detonate, even those brought ashore and struck severely with hammers.

Due to the ongoing military tensions that eventually led to Russia’s involvement in the Crimean War (1853–1856), Immanuel’s munitions factory prospered and Alfred’s adolescent years in St Petersburg were privileged. With the assistance of private tutors, he became fluent in five languages and excelled in both the sciences and the arts. At age seventeen, Alfred was sent abroad for two years in order to train as a chemical engineer. In Paris, his principal destination, he was introduced to Ascanio Sobrero, the first chemist to successfully produce nitroglycerine. On Alfred’s return to St Petersburg in 1852, he and his father began to experiment with the highly explosive liquid, initially considered too volatile to be of commercial value.

Despite initial setbacks, Alfred Nobel quickly established himself as a talented chemist and aggressive entrepreneur. His most important discoveries – the detonator, dynamite, and blasting gelatin – would form the lucrative underpinnings of an industrial empire. By the time of his death in 1896, Nobel held 355 patents and owned explosives manufacturing plants and laboratories in more than twenty countries. According to his executors, his net assets amounted to over 31 million Swedish kronor, the current equivalent of 265 million American dollars.

As his legacy, Nobel directed in his will that his immense fortune be used to establish a series of prizes. These were to be annual awards for exceptional contributions in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. The will then ended with a curious closing directive:

Finally, it is my express wish that following my death my veins shall be opened, and when this has been done and competent Doctors have confirmed clear signs of death, my remains shall be cremated in a so-called crematorium.

It was Freud who stated that there was no better document than the will to reveal the character of its writer. Nobel was terrified of being buried alive, a phobia termed taphophobia (from the Greek taphos, for ‘grave’). The triggering stimulus, at least as cited in Nobel’s conventional biographies, was Verdi’s opera Aida. Nobel had attended its European premiere at La Scala, Milan, on 8 February 1872 and was deeply affected by the closing scene. Aida, a slave in Egypt (but, in truth, an Ethiopian princess), chooses to join her condemned lover Radamès as he is about to be sealed within a tomb. Horrified by the imagery of their impending immurement, Nobel immediately developed a deep-rooted fear that he, too, was destined to die while sentient and trapped. To address his anxiety, Nobel first carried a crowbar on his person. He next relied on a ‘life-signalling’ coffin of his own design.


In the end, Nobel trusted on the certainty of cremation. It was only on realising he was now at risk for being burned alive, as opposed to buried alive, that a cautious Nobel also stipulated that his ‘veins shall be opened’ prior to his cremation (i.e., exsanguination by way of phlebotomy).

Years later, Nobel was to die suddenly in San Remo, Italy. As his will, the provisions of which were unknown to others, was on deposit in a private Swedish bank, it took three days before his executors learned of his morbid last wishes. By then, Nobel’s corpse had been embalmed, a standard funerary practice in Italy during the 1890s and a process that, by good fortune, begins with bleeding the veins of the deceased.






Figure 2. The Nobel Family. Immanuel Nobel (top left), Andriette Nobel (top right), and the Nobel brothers: Robert, Alfred, Ludvig, and baby Emil (bottom, clockwise from top).

Sadly, even Nobel had recognised he was troubled throughout his life by more than an operatic death scene. Though capable of congenial social interactions and outright levity in the right company, Nobel had lived a lonely existence without a lifelong partner or children. It was a lament he would frequently share, even in letters to strangers, as evidenced by the following admission:

At the age of 54, when one is completely alone in the world, and shown consideration by nobody except a paid servant, one’s thoughts become gloomy indeed.

With bitter insight, Nobel accepted his unwanted isolation as central to his melancholic outlook and the frequent episodes of depression that were particularly prevalent in his middle years. Nobel would refer to these periods of despair as visits from the ‘spirits of Niflheim’, the cold and misty afterworld in Nordic mythology and the location of Hel, to where those who failed to die a heroic death were banished.

Remarkably, Nobel failed to consider the root cause of his isolation, which was directly attributable to the loss of the many family members and colleagues who had died sudden violent deaths (i.e., were blown to smithereens) as a result of their association with him. In 1856, the Crimean War had ended unfavourably for Russia, in no small part due to the failure of Immanuel’s ineffectual mines to cut off crucial enemy shipping lanes in the Baltic Sea. The financial circumstances of the Nobel family declined accordingly. After retreating hastily to Stockholm with only limited resources, Alfred and his father continued their experiments with nitroglycerine. On 3 September 1864, five individuals died in a horrific explosion; among the casualties was Emil Nobel, Alfred’s younger brother. To compound the tragedy, a grieving Immanuel suffered a debilitating stroke just one month later. Yet within two months of Emil’s death, Alfred was defiantly exporting the world’s first source of industrial-grade nitroglycerine. Due to the concerns of government officials about the dangers of the unstable compound, its preparation was restricted to a barge anchored on a lake located beyond Stockholm’s city limits. Despite such safety measures, a distressing loss of lives would continue to accompany the commercial production of nitroglycerine, which Nobel quickly extended by establishing factories throughout Europe. Although Nobel refused to express remorse in public (possibly on the advice of his lawyers), the deaths of so many of his employees and innocent bystanders would have a lingering impact on his sensitive disposition.




Nobel’s poor physical health would also constantly undermine his fragile temperament. As a fragile and sickly child, Nobel frequented health spas while still in his late teens. Troubled by chronic indigestion, he was once diagnosed with scurvy, and for a period of months consumed only horseradish and grape juice. In his late forties, Nobel developed severe migraine headaches, and then, more seriously, the onset of paroxysmal spasms of chest pain. Though the latter symptoms were initially assumed to be hysterical in nature, he was eventually diagnosed as suffering from a debilitating form of angina pectoris. As he aged, his attacks worsened. While visiting Paris in October 1896 Nobel had a particularly severe episode. As he drolly wrote, Within two months of returning to his winter residence in San Remo, Italy, Nobel suffered a catastrophic cerebral haemorrhage. On 10 December 1896, agitated, semi-paralysed and attended only by Italian servants unable to comprehend his last words, which were uttered in Swedish, Nobel died as he had feared, trapped within his body, frightened and alone.






Figure 3. Alfred Nobel.

Isn’t it the irony of fate that I have been prescribed nitroglycerine to be taken internally! They call it Trinitrin, so as not to scare the chemist and the public.







CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_066072fa-1765-559e-88c2-bd730b2474ce)

LILLJEQVIST AND SOHLMAN (#ulink_066072fa-1765-559e-88c2-bd730b2474ce)


The challenge of implementing Nobel’s will fell to his two designated executors.

As Executors of my testamentary dispositions, I hereby appoint Mr Ragnar Sohlman, resident at Bofors, Värmland, and Mr Rudolf Lilljequist, 31 Malmskillnadsgatan, Stockholm, and at Bengtsfors near Uddevalla. To compensate for their pains and attention, I grant to Mr Ragnar Sohlman, who will presumably have to devote most time to this matter, One Hundred Thousand Crowns, and to Mr Rudolf Lilljequist, Fifty Thousand Crowns.

Nobel had only recently met Rudolf Lilljeqvist, a Swedish civil engineer, in May of 1895. Their initial discussions had revolved around the electrolytic decomposition of salt. Nobel and Lilljeqvist developed an instant rapport, likely due to a shared antipathy towards lawyers.


Years of litigation involving alleged patent infringements, charges of industrial espionage, and a series of wrongful death lawsuits had left Nobel with a fierce aversion to those in the legal profession. Lilljeqvist was equally wary, a victim of incompetent lawyers who had undermined his previous efforts to court potential investors. After only three months of congenial negotiations, conducted without legal advice, Nobel agreed to fund Lilljeqvist’s proposal to establish an electrochemical plant in Bengtsfors, a village in north-west Sweden. Nobel had obviously been deeply impressed with Lilljeqvist, and despite their brief acquaintance, had developed an immediate confidence in his new partner’s acumen and ethical principles.

Although Lilljeqvist subsequently declined Nobel’s invitation to take up a well-paid managerial position at a weapons foundry (AB Bofors, see here (#ulink_236609b5-b423-57e3-a18b-598a8bdd8ed8)), the two men engaged in a second collaboration just prior to Nobel’s death. The impetus was the unpredictable and explosive nature of nitroglycerine at temperatures higher than 180 degrees Celsius. As the chemical production of nitroglycerine created heat, the temperature of the nitration vats within Nobel’s factories required careful monitoring. In practical terms, this meant that one employee was assigned the task of staring at a thermometer throughout the production process. Not surprisingly, the hypnotic nature of the activity frequently induced sleep, and lethal gaffes were prevalent.

In an effort to reduce fatalities, Nobel had first mandated that the relevant workers must complete their shifts without shoes and wearing only a single sock. The principle was simple: Nobel knew from the privations of his early childhood that it was impossible to fall asleep if one foot was colder than the other. It was only upon learning that this prescription contravened nascent employee safety regulations that Nobel rescinded the directive. To gain a first-hand impression of the inherent challenge, Nobel then joined his own labour force. Struggling to stay alert during one shift, an exhausted Nobel realised that it would require a high degree of wakefulness for a worker to remain upright while seated on an unstable surface; should a worker still manage to fall asleep, there would be an obligatory tumble and abrupt arousal. Nobel subsequently conceived of the exact solution – the one-legged stool – while enduring the last act of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Nobel patented his invention and Lilljeqvist undertook its manufacture. Despite worker protests, the one-legged wooden stool became an immediate and effective industry standard.









Figure 4. Rudolf Lilljeqvist.

The other executor appointed in Nobel’s will was Ragnar Sohlman. In contrast to his purely professional relationship with Lilljeqvist, Nobel’s association with Sohlman was more personal. Sohlman, a Swedish-born chemical engineer like Nobel, was only twenty-five years old at the time of Nobel’s death. The two men had first met three years earlier. In 1893, Sohlman had moved to Paris to begin work as Nobel’s personal assistant. After efficiently reorganising Nobel’s reference library and his extensive files, Sohlman was precipitously transferred to Nobel’s new laboratory in San Remo, Italy. Sohlman had little choice but to move: the French government had accused Nobel of stealing a formula from a French competitor and had forcibly closed his laboratory on the outskirts of Paris.






Figure 5. A one-legged stool.

Sohlman’s tenure at San Remo was brief. Within a year of his arrival, Nobel acquired controlling interest in AB Bofors, a large Swedish ironworks and weapons foundry located on the outskirts of Karlskoga, a town in western Sweden. As part of the purchase price, Nobel also acquired ownership of Björkborn Manor, a comfortable but slightly worn residence on the grounds of the property. With the assistance of his nephew Hjalmer, Nobel planned to refurbish the Manor as his permanent home. After years of an unsettled and itinerant lifestyle, Nobel had finally grown nostalgic for the country of his birth and had resolved to spend his remaining years in Sweden.

Both Nobel and Sohlman moved from San Remo to Karlskoga in early 1895. Sohlman had, by then, favourably married. With Nobel’s permission, he had taken a short holiday the preceding year to pursue his courtship of Ragnhild Strom, a Norwegian woman he had met through family friends. Once living in Karlskoga, the young couple began to dine with Nobel, an arrangement then unusual in an employer–employee relationship. Soon, Nobel was inviting Sohlman to address him as Father.


Though Sohlman was too embarrassed to do so, he did begin to greet Nobel by his Christian name and to refer to himself as ‘your affectionate friend R’ when signing his letters to Nobel.

Nobel’s tender feelings for Sohlman would prove lifesaving. In the early 1890s, Salomon August Andrée, Sweden’s first balloonist, had roused patriotic fervour by proposing to pilot a balloon to the North Pole in order to claim the iconic destination in the name of Sweden. Anticipating the arrival of aerial warfare, Nobel envisioned that manned balloons might one day become effective vehicles to drop bombs on enemy positions. Eager to participate in all aspects of the explosives industry, Nobel became one of Andrée’s earliest and most generous financial backers.






Figure 6. Ragnar Sohlman.

In the summer of 1896, Andrée visited Bofors at Nobel’s invitation. During the ensuing discussions, in which Sohlman also participated, Nobel encouraged Andrée to persevere with his dream of Arctic sovereignty. Earlier that spring, Andrée’s first attempt to launch his balloon had failed and there were critics who now viewed the entire notion as foolhardy. Nobel’s optimism, however, was infectious and a re-energised Andrée assured Nobel he would re-attempt the flight in the coming year. As Andrée’s large hydrogen balloon required a three-man crew, Sohlman volunteered – unexpectedly – to join the proposed expedition. The following day Nobel, concerned for Sohlman’s safety, spoke to Andrée privately and threatened to withdraw his financial support should the flight proceed with Sohlman on board. Andrée duly informed Sohlman that, in light of Sohlman’s meteorological inexperience, his participation would no longer be possible on what would ultimately prove to be a doomed expedition.









Figure 7. S. A. Andrée’s doomed Arctic balloon expedition (1897).

Nobel summered at Björkborn Manor in 1895 and 1896. Although he had initially intended to live year-round within its poorly insulated quarters, Nobel found he could no longer endure the bitterly cold Swedish winters. To avoid the inhospitable weather, he would stay instead at his Italian residence in San Remo. On 7 December 1896, in a letter mailed from Villa San Remo, Nobel would write his last words to Sohlman:

Alas, my health is so poor again that I can only scribble these words with difficulty. But I shall come back as soon as possible to the subjects which interest us both,

Affectionately, Alfred Nobel

One day later, Nobel collapsed into a state of semi-consciousness. Although Sohlman was alerted of Nobel’s abrupt deterioration and immediately left Sweden for Italy, he did not arrive until shortly after Nobel’s death. It was there, while assisting with Nobel’s funeral arrangements, that Sohlman first learned of the provisions of Nobel’s will and his unexpected responsibilities. When Lilljeqvist was informed by telegram one day later that he was also an executor of Nobel’s testamentary dispositions, he was as surprised as Sohlman.




CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_c92a084f-011f-5c24-adec-cfe0945c846d)

NOBEL’S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT (#ulink_c92a084f-011f-5c24-adec-cfe0945c846d)


Nobel’s Last Will and Testament was dated 27 November 1895. An unexpectedly informal document, the will was handwritten in Swedish and signed by four Swedish witnesses at the Swedish–Norwegian Club in Paris in early December 1895. After specifying individual bequests to eighteen family members, servants, and acquaintances, the will read as follows:

The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses. The prize for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences; that for physiological or medical works by Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm; and that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storting. It is my express wish that in awarding the prizes no consideration whatever shall be given to the nationality of the candidates, but that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be a Scandinavian or not.

It was a remarkable philanthropic vision. As Sohlman and Lilljeqvist immediately recognised, however, the will – stubbornly constructed by Nobel without legal advice – contained significant deficiencies that might easily undermine its realisation. For assistance, the two executors turned to Carl Lindhagen, a young lawyer who would later serve a long tenure as Chief Magistrate of Stockholm. The three men quickly established that Sohlman, despite substantial reservations on his part, would take on the role of principal executor. Lilljeqvist would be available to provide advice and encouragement, but his new business interests in Bengtsfors would preclude more active involvement. Lindhagen would serve as legal counsel.









Figure 8. The first page of Alfred Nobel’s will.

As Lindhagen predicted, the successful execution of the will would require resolution of three contentious issues. The most problematic of these involved the legal clarification of Nobel’s last permanent residence, his so-called ‘true’ domicile. This determination would, in turn, establish which court in which country would grant probate. As Nobel’s intention had been to live out his years in Björkborn Manor, Lindhagen advised Sohlman and Lilljeqvist to apply for probate in a Swedish court. It was not certain, however, whether Nobel would be declared a resident of Sweden and that, a fortiori, a Swedish court would adjudicate the validity and terms of the will. The courts would consider, for example, that Nobel also owned a mansion in Paris and a country home in Italy at the time of his death. Should Paris be determined to have been Nobel’s true domicile, as the French authorities immediately requested, the financial consequences would be particularly severe. In addition to the crushing inheritance taxes imposed in France, the legality of the entire will would also be in jeopardy due to the much more stringent laws of the Code Napoléon.

A second prickly subject was the immediate opposition of disappointed relatives who bitterly viewed their inheritance as insufficient. To add to the perceived slight, an earlier will which Nobel had rescinded had contained far more generous bequests to individual heirs than the current iteration. Nobel’s family was also concerned that the interest-generating capital required to fund the annual prizes appeared to depend on immediately liquidating Nobel’s vast financial assets. Selling all investments would jeopardise the financial stability of a number of Nobel family holdings, particularly that of the large Russian oil company started by Nobel’s two older brothers.

The third potential impasse was the astonishing fact that Nobel had never discussed with any representatives of the institutions he had named in his will his intention that they administer the prizes he sought to establish. The cooperation of any, let alone all, of these institutional bodies was far from certain. To further embroil matters, the designation of the Norwegian Storting (Parliament) to award the peace prize drew a strong political backlash. Nobel had written his will in 1895, at a time when Sweden and Norway were still united as one country. By the end of 1896, the dissolution of their fragile political union was imminent. The inclusion of Norway now bordered on treason, inciting Sweden’s reigning King Oscar II to petition Nobel’s nephew and most influential heir, Emanuel Nobel, to challenge the will on patriotic grounds. One of the few family members who was a strong advocate for his uncle’s wishes, Emanuel was, by the time he received the king’s request, defiant:

Your Majesty – I will not expose my family to the risk of reproaches in future for having appropriated funds which rightfully belonged to deserving scientists.

Remarkably, all obstacles were eventually resolved. The courts sided with the executors and the will was favourably probated in Sweden. Thanks to financial concessions and the support of Emanuel Nobel, all branches of the Nobel family eventually agreed to the will’s provisions.


Each prize-awarding body also came to accept the terms of the will, and collaborated on establishing clearer instructions related to the distribution of the prizes. Nobel’s assets were liquidated and a single fund was constituted that would be managed by an entity referred to as the Nobel Foundation. This foundation would also be responsible for overseeing the Nobel Prize ceremonies.

On 29 June 1900, the Swedish government approved the statutes of the Nobel Foundation by royal ordinance. These contained the clarifications related to the wording of the will and such details as the establishment of the prize-awarding Nobel Committees. On 10 December 1901, precisely five years after the death of Alfred Nobel, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded: in physics to Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, in chemistry to Jacobus H. van ’t Hoff, in medicine to Emil von Behring, and in literature to Sully Prudhomme. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Jean Henry Dunant and Frédéric Passy. Each laureate received a diploma, a gold medal and a significant sum of money; later that day, a celebratory banquet was held in their honour at Stockholm’s Grand Hôtel. As Ragnar Sohlman so elegantly stated, ‘The long struggle over Nobel’s will was now at an end’.

It was Freud who said the optimist sees the rose and not its thorns.



PART TWO (#ulink_796e5a77-5f5b-5dfc-8750-ef409b5287e7)




CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_67892108-6b7c-59dc-b23e-ff3c39d4286c)

‘FRAU SOFIE’ AND COUNTESS BERTHA KINSKY (#ulink_67892108-6b7c-59dc-b23e-ff3c39d4286c)


With the establishment of the Nobel Foundation in 1900, Sohlman’s responsibilities as principal executor diminished substantially. No longer required to consolidate and administer Nobel’s financial assets, Sohlman could finally turn to the systematic organisation of Nobel’s personal files. These were extensive, as Nobel saved all incoming letters. It was also his habit to travel with a portable hectograph, about the size of a large briefcase. With little effort, Nobel could methodically reproduce onionskin duplicates of all outgoing correspondence, which he then kept in a large number of carelessly organised folders and folio boxes. Most letters were written in Swedish or Russian, but Nobel also corresponded in French, English and German. Sohlman, also a competent multilinguist due to Nobel’s influence and the nature of their work together, was soon surprised to find that he now faced the challenging task of cataloguing over ten thousand documents

Regrettably, Sohlman was already familiar with one specific folder that he himself had stamped ‘Legal and Confidential’ two years earlier. Within it, there were 216 letters Nobel had written to a Miss Sofie Hess. There were also forty letters from Sofie to Nobel, a single well-written telegram, a photogravure of the couple, as well as one affidavit assuring the Nobel estate that Sofie ‘had no further claims against the estate apart from the annual income designated to her’. Of note, some of Nobel’s letters to Sofie were addressed to ‘Dear, pretty child’, ‘Little Sweetheart’, ‘My dearest Sofiechen’, and even ‘Frau Sofie Nobel’.

The awkward details were as follows: In 1876, a forty-three-year-old Nobel had met the much younger Sofie – then representing herself as eighteen years old


– at a spa in a small Austrian resort. Sofie was working in a florist shop but aspired to advance beyond her lower-middle-class Viennese background. Nobel, enthralled by Sofie’s beauty, offered assistance. Assuming a role akin to an avuncular patron, Nobel installed his protégée in a small but comfortable Paris apartment. Sofie was then provided with a substantial allowance intended to further her education. Although Sofie neglected her studies, Nobel fell in love. The infatuation would last fifteen years, fluctuating substantially in its intensity and warmth. At times, Nobel was jealous;


at other times he was more concerned that Sofie was wasting her life with an ‘old philosopher’ like himself. Nobel’s largesse could also waver. Most often indulgent, he was also capable of railing against Sofie’s extravagant and heavily subsidised lifestyle.

Though Nobel would insist to others that his association with Sofie was platonic, the two often travelled together and, with Nobel’s collusion, Sofie would at times represent herself as Madame Nobel. Ultimately, their relationship cooled and by the late 1880s, Sofie had returned to Austria and begun openly to entertain other men. In July 1891, she had a daughter out of wedlock. She eventually married the Hungarian father, a Captain von Kapivar, in 1895. By then, Nobel had established a fixed annuity of six thousand Hungarian florins for Sofie, albeit with the following admonition:






Figure 9. Sofie Hess.

It is clear to everyone who knows the circumstances that you have been extremely lucky. Most men in my position would have calmly left you to the misery you have brought upon yourself.

Despite the generous support, both Sofie and Captain von Kapivar began to beg Nobel for an increase in her allowance. With the assistance of a lawyer, Sofie’s petitions continued after Nobel’s death. These were now directed to Nobel’s executors (i.e., Sohlman) and with a more threatening tone: if increased funds were not forthcoming, Nobel’s highly personal letters to Sofie would be sold for publication to the highest bidder. Sohlman, anxious to avoid a scandal, negotiated a one-time settlement in return for the affidavit referenced above as well as all outstanding letters from Nobel in Sofie’s possession.

The distasteful nature of Sofie’s demands left Sohlman puzzled as to how a man as sophisticated as Nobel could have fallen in love with such an ill-suited woman. One explanation for Nobel’s puzzling infatuation with Sofie relates to his fragile psychological state at the time of their initial meeting. A few months prior to encountering Sofie, Nobel had taken out the Victorian equivalent of a classified advertisement in a Viennese newspaper: ‘A wealthy and highly educated old gentleman living in Paris seeks to engage a mature lady with language proficiency as secretary and housekeeper’. The successful applicant was a thirty-three-year-old Austrian woman, Countess Bertha Kinsky von Chinic und Tettau. The aristocratic title was misleading. Bertha was a poor cousin within an otherwise prominent family and was then working as a governess in the home of the wealthy Baron Karl von Suttner. After travelling by train to Paris, Bertha was met by Nobel, who then escorted his new employee to comfortable quarters in a nearby hotel. Nobel appears to have fallen instantly in love. By all accounts, Bertha was beautiful and sophisticated. She was fluent in four languages. She shared Nobel’s love of literature and opera.


She, in turn, appears to have been pleasantly surprised by her new circumstances: ‘Alfred Nobel made a very good impression on me. He was certainly anything but the “old gentleman” described in the advertisement.’

Unknown to Nobel, Bertha arrived in Paris still deeply attached to Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner, the son of her recent employer and seven years younger than herself. After only one week of employment, Bertha returned to Vienna so that she and Arthur could elope. Nobel was heartbroken. Despite their limited acquaintance, he had already indulged in fantasies about their life together, including the renovations that would be required to accommodate a married couple within his elegant Parisian mansion on Avenue Malakoff. Reeling from the pain of unrequited love,


Nobel retreated to a spa in Austria. It was there that he met Sofie and her easily won affection.






Figure 10. Bertha von Suttner.

Sohlman, not completely naive, eventually concluded that Sofie represented more than a timely remedy for Nobel’s injured self-esteem. There was also the matter of Nobel’s more ‘basic’

needs. In Sohlman’s words, Sofie was adeptly prepared to do ‘everything possible to amuse and entertain him’.

Years later, Nobel would again find himself in the lingering lonely aftermath of a failed relationship, this time with Sofie as the rejecting figure. Once again, Nobel would turn to a younger woman for affection.




CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_81bd900f-c73f-58c2-ab04-9354e17894dc)

STONEHENGE FOR SALE (#ulink_81bd900f-c73f-58c2-ab04-9354e17894dc)


Among Nobel’s personal papers was a series of letters involving a correspondent by the name of Florence Antrobus. It was a forename and surname that Sohlman immediately recognised. In late January 1894, Sohlman had accompanied Nobel on a brief trip to London. Nobel had been scheduled to appear before the House of Lords, then England’s highest court, as a plaintiff in the so-called Cordite Case. The proceedings were the legal culmination of a bitter dispute that arose from Nobel’s invention of a smokeless explosive powder that he had patented in 1877 as ballistite. In 1899, two British scientists (who had been former associates of Nobel) proceeded with their own patent for a compound, which they named cordite. As cordite was virtually identical to ballistite, Nobel was suing for patent infringement.




After completing two days of testimony in London, Nobel asked Sohlman to join him on a short excursion. Until then, Sohlman had been unaware that Nobel was actively looking to procure a substantial tract of land in England in order to test cannons, missiles, and other large-scale armaments. With some excitement, Nobel had read of an interesting opportunity on the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, about eighty-five miles from London. It was the headline in London’s Evening News that had captured Nobel’s attention: ‘Stonehenge for sale!’ Although the majestic stone ruins were highlighted in the accompanying advertisement, Nobel had also noticed that 1,300 acres of adjoining land would be associated with the purchase. As Nobel had yet to establish a foothold in the English explosives industry, he was intent on inspecting the acreage for sale as soon as possible.

Nobel and Sohlman visited the property in early February 1894. Acting as principal host and guide was Sir Edmund Antrobus, Third Baronet of Antrobus and proprietor of the estate.


The baronet was a ‘motivated’ seller. Although proud to preside over what those in the Antrobus family referred to as the ‘great relic’, the associated responsibilities had become tedious. Of primary concern was the onslaught of visitors, many of whom were intent on removing stones as souvenirs or desecrating those still remaining. There were other frustrations. Unstable stones had to be propped up with scaffolding; horse manure was everywhere; the burrows of rabbits and rodents were literally undermining the monument’s safety; and the baronet increasingly resented the incessant and often patronising requests from those who wished to explore and excavate the site, all of which he refused.

The additional sad reality was that the baronet needed money. Despite the illusion of wealth, he was badly in debt due to a combination of poor investments and the need to maintain ‘appearances’, which for the baronet meant a large servant staff and a far-too-lavish home. The latter was Amesbury Abbey, located some two miles from Stonehenge in the village of Amesbury. The baronet had spent his inheritance building the three-storey mansion with its imposing loggia on the site of the original abbey that had been destroyed by fire. At the time of Nobel’s visit, the sizeable residence was then home to nine servants in addition to the baronet, his wife, and an assortment of near and distant relations.

Once pleasantries had been exchanged with the baronet, the inspection proceeded. Despite the frailty of his sixty years and the chilly February weather, Nobel successfully utilised various vantage points and a commandeered horse-driven carriage to survey a great deal of the property. Nobel’s opinion was favourable: though he shielded his impressions from the baronet, he immediately recognised that the countryside surrounding Stonehenge would serve as an ideal artillery range. The appraisal ended at the ‘great relic’ itself. There, the baronet had prearranged the presence and assistance of his daughter-in-law Florence, who was among those family members who lived at Amesbury Abbey.

Florence was an unusually gifted and intelligent woman. Her wealthy father had died by suicide when she was seven, leaving her mother, Georgina, to raise her and two younger sisters. Thanks to Georgina’s progressive attitude and an extensive trust fund that afforded the best tutors, Florence’s education included not only the ‘domestic’ pursuits and English poetry and prose, a typical curriculum for a woman of her time, but also subjects such as mathematics and science, which were then largely reserved for males of her generation. Much to Georgina’s pleasure, Florence excelled at her studies and was to be one of the first female graduates of Bedford College at the University of London. It was there that Florence met the baronet’s eldest son (also named Edmund) and, after a courtship unusually extended due to Edmund’s military service in the Sudan, the couple married in 1886. Florence had then set aside her aspirations to teach English literature and settled, a little uncomfortably, into a traditional Victorian marriage.

At the time of Nobel’s visit, Florence’s husband was still active in the Grenadier Guards, and was stationed in London as Brevet Colonel of the Third Battalion. The couple’s only child, then seven, was also in London as a boarding student at a boys’ preparatory school.


Despite such separations from her husband and son, Florence was content living in Amesbury. She had developed a profound connection to the countryside, and often walked to Stonehenge to admire the old stones. There, she would spend hours sketching, in her words, their ‘dark, mysterious forms’ at different hours of the day or, in a series of notebooks, writing the poems that the ‘magic of Stonehenge’ had inspired.

At the baronet’s request, Florence carefully escorted Nobel and Sohlman between the upright and fallen stones, sharing her knowledge of Stonehenge as they proceeded. She particularly wanted Nobel and Sohlman to appreciate the beauty of their surroundings, and described in great detail how the stones changed their colours with the shifting weather. Florence also provided a charming overview of the various theories addressing how Stonehenge had arisen. The earliest of these was a medieval legend that implicated the conjurations of Merlin the Magician. Subsequent ‘experts’ ascribed Stonehenge to the work of invading armies, most often the Romans or the Danes. According to Florence, the most popular current belief was that the Druids, the most prominent priests of ancient Britain, had erected Stonehenge as a temple. Pointing dramatically to a large flat stone lying on the ground, Florence ended the walkabout by announcing in a hushed voice, ‘it was upon this very Slaughter Stone that the Druids practised their ritual of human sacrifice’. Taking Nobel by the hand to steady his stride, Florence then cheerily provided her own caveat emptor: she herself was uncertain if any of the explanations were true and preferred simply to delight in the splendour and mystery of Stonehenge.

Nobel was captivated by Florence’s performance (or, as Sohlman would later assert, by Florence herself). After posing a number of questions related to whether the missing stones might have been deliberately demolished and, if so, how, Nobel then insisted on briskly climbing the wooden scaffolding supporting the tallest of the upright stones. The elevation afforded Nobel a splendid view of the adjoining acreage as well as the nearby River Avon.




As Nobel thanked Florence, he surprised her by quoting from Lord Byron’s epic poem Don Juan, ‘The Druids’ groves are gone – so much the better’. Just as unexpectedly, Florence quickly finished the couplet, ‘Stone-Henge is not – but what the devil is it?’ To their delight, the two quickly discovered that each loved the English Romantic poets, Byron best of all. Sohlman was astonished. He had no idea that Nobel had read and memorised a great deal of poetry during his adolescence in St Petersburg. Moreover, when Florence shyly confided that she was also attempting to convey ‘feebly in words’ her poetic impressions of Stonehenge, Nobel shared that he, too,

had once written poetry as a young man. Unlike his own failed literary aspirations, however, Nobel assured Florence that he was certain it would one day be his pleasure to read her verse in print.

On returning to the continent, Nobel offered to purchase Stonehenge and the advertised acreage. Serious negotiations continued by both letter and telegram over the next few weeks. In dispute was the issue of grazing rights, which the baronet had hoped to maintain. Nobel was amused. Unless the baronet secretly intended to establish an outdoor abattoir, the presence of browsing sheep was dangerously incompatible with Nobel’s own intention of using the property as an oversized firing range. Though the baronet would concede this point, there was still the matter of establishing an agreed upon purchase price. The baronet was demanding £125,000. Given that downland was then worth only £10 per acre, it meant the ancient monument itself was being valued at over £100,000, a price Nobel viewed as highly inflated. Nevertheless, as Nobel had found himself strangely attracted to the presence of the old stones,


his counter-offer was a still generous £90,000. The difference, however, would soon become a moot point.

Within days of his visit, rumours had reached Westminster that Nobel was about to acquire Stonehenge. Unfortunately for Nobel, there was now mounting concern throughout the United Kingdom that wealthy foreigners were seeking to buy structures of national importance just to dismantle them, either for the worth of their components or in order to transport and re-erect them upon foreign soil. The precipitant for such apprehension was the recent sale of Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire. A consortium of American entrepreneurs had purchased the castle, only to remove its twenty-eight medieval stone fireplaces for immediate sale across the Atlantic. Members of Parliament and peers of the House of Lords, previously more concerned with the property rights of private citizens, were finally recognising the importance of preserving England’s historic monuments and properties. With the sale of Stonehenge to Nobel apparently on the horizon, and with no certainty of Nobel’s intentions, the British politicians acted quickly.






Figure 11. Stonehenge.

In early March 1894, the Parliament of the United Kingdom introduced the Ancient Monuments Protection Act. Although the Act was designed principally to preclude the injury or defacement of historic buildings and monuments, there was an additional caveat: the owner of any ‘ancient monument’ scheduled in the Act was no longer permitted to sell or gift the monument of interest to anyone other than a citizen or agency of the United Kingdom. Prominent on the list of sixty-eight prehistoric monuments mentioned specifically in the Act was ‘the group of stones known as Stonehenge, Amesbury, Wiltshire’.

Nobel was indignant. Though he had assured the baronet he had no intention of razing Stonehenge, he was well aware of the Act’s ramifications. Despite both men’s disappointment, there was little choice but to amicably end the negotiations.

Florence’s first letter to Nobel was dated two months later.




CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_3e9883fc-32ac-5646-86c2-58dc1f087d0a)

FLORENCE ANTROBUS (#ulink_3e9883fc-32ac-5646-86c2-58dc1f087d0a)


Amesbury Abbey

3 May 1894

Dear Mr Nobel,

I do hope you remember our meeting. I had the recent pleasure of introducing you to the grandeur of Stonehenge, those magnificent stones just beyond our Amesbury home. I confess I was pleased to hear that you are no longer their suitor, but not because you would be their unworthy guardian. No – it is only because I would miss the old stones so desperately, though they no longer stand as proud as they once did in ancient days.

I trust you do not think it overfamiliar of me to mention that I still recall with delight our spirited discussion – not only of Stonehenge but of Shelley, and Wordsworth and, of course, our dear Lord Byron.

Mr Nobel: when you departed, you encouraged my literary pursuits, fanciful as they may be, and I turn to you now for advice. Would you see fit to share your thoughts on the enclosed verse and prose? If so, you will find I have attempted to express my profound sentiments for the poetical aspects of Stonehenge. I hope I am not overstepping propriety by making this request, but I sensed in you a shared love of the written word – and I hope of Stonehenge itself.

Regardless of your interest in my minor ambitions, I do trust I can write to you from time to time. I am concerned about your health and encourage you to dress more warmly when outside.

Sincerely,

Florence C. M. Antrobus

P.S. Since your visit, the baronet has received no other offers for Stonehenge. Indeed, the Inspector of Ancient Monuments


has recently arrived – unannounced! – and has now presented the baronet with a ‘Preservation Order’. A number of stones must immediately be made safe, at the baronet’s expense, and the roadway for wheeled traffic that runs through the monument must be diverted. It is apparently now our legal ‘duty’ to preserve Stonehenge. The baronet is furious; he is convinced the ongoing costs of upkeep will now jeopardise any chance of selling Stonehenge. I am, on the other hand, enormously happy!

Nobel was relieved. The vast majority of the correspondence he received was what he would refer to as ‘begging letters’ – individuals in difficult personal circumstances, funding campaigns to raise statues, and so on. It was therefore with genuine pleasure and interest that Nobel read Florence’s letter and the enclosures it contained: a small packet of poems, six in all, and a short piece of pastoral prose detailing the sun’s passage through the stones.

Nobel’s letter of response, written in English, arrived in mid-July, just over two months later.

San Remo

15 July 1894

Dear Miss


Antrobus,

I most certainly remember our meeting at Stonehenge. Your charming tour made a great impression upon me and my thoughts have returned on more than one occasion to the delightful time we spent together. I was fortunate indeed to have such a well-informed guide.

And now to receive your wonderful poetry and prose. Thank you for entrusting me with it. I am far from a worthy critic, but I read all you enclosed with interest and admiration. I must again encourage you to publish your work one day. Your talents must not be wasted only on me!

And now a request of you. Though I first regretted my failure to acquire Stonehenge, I am now relieved I have not deprived you of your muse. However I believe the Inspector is correct; it was also my impression that the taller stones are in imminent danger of falling. Would you and your family do me the honour of accepting a contribution towards the costs incurred by the ‘Preservation Order’? As I wish to see the stones again one day – and their gracious docent – it is in MY selfish interest that this offer be accepted.

My warmest greetings to your husband and the Baronet. I remain,

A. Nobel

Florence replied immediately, thanking Nobel for his generous words. She hoped, of course, that Nobel would indeed visit again, perhaps in the fall, when he might experience ‘the wild, tempestuous autumnal gales that usually sweep across the Plain in October’. She was firm, however, on declining any financial support for Stonehenge. As she conveyed to Nobel, the baronet, a proud man, would simply hear of no such assistance.

Although they would not, in fact, meet again, Florence continued to write to Nobel at regular intervals. In between descriptions of life at Amesbury Abbey, there began to appear more personal asides, including a diffident sharing of her husband’s prolonged absences and the growing burden of her loneliness. Most often, however, Florence wrote about Stonehenge. Emboldened by Nobel’s praise, she soon divulged that she had decided to write a ‘sentimental’ guide to Stonehenge, one that she hoped a traveller to Stonehenge might find ‘pleasure in reading’. It would contain her ‘poetical and picturesque’ impressions of Stonehenge, such as found in the following letter:

Amesbury Abbey

3 April 1895

Dear Mr Alfred Nobel,

Late this morning I walked to Stonehenge. Though I have visited the exquisitely-coloured stones a thousand times before, I have never failed to be moved by their startling, sudden presence. For even from the banks of the nearby River Avon, the old stones are at first nowhere to be seen. Yet as one moves determinedly through the crackling grass and up the winding valley with the turquoise spring flowers signalling the traveller’s way, the tallest of the stones suddenly appear! Those nearest join together in a large outer circle – as if each was holding another’s hands – and together the ancient stones stand in defiant solidarity against the onslaught of time.

I stayed until evening. The sense of peace and tranquillity are with me still.

Ever sincerely,

Florence Antrobus

Though not as prolific a correspondent as Florence, Nobel’s responses were always courteous and gracious. He was genuinely admiring of Florence’s ‘poetical’ powers of observation. But Nobel’s intrinsic inquisitiveness and pragmatism also led to more prosaic questions.

Björkborn Manor

13 July 1895

Dear Florence, (I trust I may name you so?)

Thank you for your recent letters. It is particularly exciting to hear news of your intention to publish a ‘sentimental’ guide to Stonehenge. I can think of no better wordsmith to capture the varying moods and colours of the ‘great relic’. But might your ‘sentimental’ guide also be a ‘practical’ one – a compilation of the facts and considerations of learned authorities on the subject of Stonehenge? From where did the stones arise? What purpose lay behind this ancient structure? Who were the people who built these circles? I still recall with pleasure your entertaining account of such matters during my visit to Stonehenge. Might you now explore these questions in a more methodical and scholarly way? It is my view that true knowledge emerges only by careful and detached study, preferably by examining the words and works of those who are cleverer than one self.

But no more preaching! I have news that may interest you. I am now settled at Björkborn Manor and have shared your interest in Stonehenge with the local antiquarians. It appears there is a place in southern Sweden where many larger boulders also stand – but in the shape of an ancient ship. It is known as the Ales Stenar.

Perhaps one day I will have the pleasure of providing you with a tour of our country’s Stonehenge?

Sincerely,

A. N.

P.S. Please accept my gift of a Remington typewriter. It is a selfish gesture on my part as I take such delight in reading your tidings of Stonehenge.

Florence was pleased to learn of Ales Stenar. She was even more delighted to receive the typewriter. Taking Nobel’s suggestions seriously, she began to gather and read all existing accounts that touched upon Stonehenge, forwarding to Nobel facts of particular interest. In response, Nobel’s next gift was a camera.


He was now encouraging Florence to document the general appearance of Stonehenge, not only by providing descriptions of the individual stones, but by including relevant illustrations and photographs. In thanking Nobel, Florence included not only photographs of Stonehenge but also a keepsake of her own likeness.

Nobel was, of course, deeply touched by Florence’s personal photo and her appreciation. However, it would be some time before he would write again. After the summer at Björkborn Manor, Nobel had travelled south to Paris. That fall, he began to experience bouts of severe chest pain. Nobel was hospitalised against his protestations and then spent two months confined to his Paris mansion. It was a contemplative Nobel who wrote Florence from Paris in November 1895.






Figure 12. Florence Antrobus.

5 November 1895

Paris

Dear Florence,

I’m afraid my delay in writing is by Doctor’s orders. My heart troubles are severe and I have been ordered to bed. Thespirits of Niflheim have descended and one of my few pleasures has been to receive your letters and the accompanying photographs. Indeed, it has given me great satisfaction to see you are progressing with your account of Stonehenge. Your book will be a lasting and noteworthy legacy, one that travellers to Stonehenge will find useful and inspiring in the years ahead.

Lately I, too, have been considering my contribution to posterity. As I am certain I am much more unwell than my doctors suspect, I wish to ensure I have made my bequests to those who are dear to me. I am now in the process of rewriting my Last Will and Testament. May I include you in some way? Your letters have meant a great deal to me, and I have valued our growing friendship, a rare treasure in my life of loneliness. You have been steadfast in refusing any monies for you or your family. But is there something that you might accept from a friend?

Sincerely,

Alfred

P.S. I am staring at your lovely red hair as I write this letter. This photograph is one of the dearest gifts I have ever received.

Florence initially refused to respond directly to Nobel’s heartfelt enquiry, assuring her friend he had years to live and that there was no rush in determining bequests of any kind. Instead, for the next six months, her letters to Nobel continued in the vein that had been previously established: impressions of Stonehenge that were now augmented by an increasing number of photographs and illustrations.

Florence was, in fact, deeply distressed by Nobel’s declining health. Due to a temporary improvement in his heart condition, Nobel was again well enough to summer at Björkborn Manor in July and August of 1896. That fall, however, Nobel’s angina worsened, and this time he was more convinced than ever that he was dying. Nobel again wrote to Florence, insisting she specify what bequest she was willing to receive from a man near death.

Florence finally responded as follows:

Amesbury Abbey

17 October 1896

Dear Alfred,

I, too, have valued our correspondence and friendship but I am afraid I cannot accept a financial bequest of any kind. As you are insistent, I now have one suggestion. You have honoured me with your interest in my passion – Stonehenge. You have challenged me to go beyond the beauty of Stonehenge and to learn more about its mysterious presence. I have strived vainly to do so – yet I have found so little is known with certitude.




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