Hale's “Little ELF”: The Mental Breakdowns of George Ellery Hale

Kendall P. M. , Warwick the kingmaker (New York, 1957), 12.

Wright Helen , Explorer of the universe: A biography of George Ellery Hale (New York, 1966), 28.

Wright , op. cit. (ref. 2), 29.

Wright , op. cit. (ref. 2), 30.

Wright , op. cit. (ref. 2), 32.

Wright , op. cit. (ref. 2), 17.

Wright , op. cit. (ref. 2), 51.

Wright , op. cit. (ref. 2), 51.

Osterbrock D. E. , Pauper & prince: Ritchey, Hale, & big American telescopes (Tucson, 1993), 23.

Hale G. E. to Goodwin H. M. , 8 Oct. 1891, Henry L. Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. (hereafter: HHL).

Wright , op. cit. (ref. 2), 43.

James William , The varieties of religious experience (New York, 1902), 23–24.

Goodman F. W. and Jamison K. R. , Manic-depressive illness (Oxford, 1990), 359.

Wright , op. cit. (ref. 2), 11.

Goodman and Jamison , op. cit. (ref. 13), 147.

Storr Anthony , Churchill's black dog, Kafka's mice, and other phenomena of the human mind (New York, 1988), 4.

Wright , op. cit. (ref. 2), 29.

Wright , op. cit. (ref. 2), 112.

Wright , op. cit. (ref. 2), 135.

Wright , op. cit. (ref. 2), 170; Hale G. E. to Billings J. S. , 6 July 1903, Microfilm edition, George Ellery Hale Papers, California Institute of Technology (hereafter: HPM).

Wright , op. cit. (ref. 2), 197.

Lears T. J. J. , No place of grace: Antimodernism and the transformation of American culture, 1880–1920 (Chicago, 1994), 9.

Osterbrock , op. cit. (ref. 9), 284.

Osterbrock , op. cit. (ref. 9), 284.

Osterbrock , op. cit. (ref. 9), 157; Ritchey G. W. to Thomson Elihu , 16 Sep. 1919, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

Lears , op. cit. (ref. 22), 49.

Hale to Goodwin , 2 Dec. 1904, HHL.

Osterbrock , op. cit. (ref. 9), 88.

Storr , op. cit. (ref. 16), 16.

Osterbrock , op. cit. (ref. 9), 107.

Beard George M. , American nervousness, its causes and consequences: A supplement to nervous exhaustion (neurasthenia) (New York, 1881).

Osterbrock , op. cit. (ref. 9), 124.

Helen Wright's story, that Hale in his later years believed a “little elf” visited him and spoke with him was stated as a fact in, e.g., Flowers Ronald , The perfect machine: Building the Palomar telescope (New York, 1994), 47, and Panek Richard , Seeing and believing: How the telescope opened our eyes and minds to the heavens (New York, 1998), 124–5. It was also stated as a fact by Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics on an American PBS television special on astronomy and physics, narrated by Charles Osgood, in January 1999; and earlier, sometime in 1998, it was so stated on the American “X-Files” television series. There is no basis known to us for their statements other than Helen Wright's story, which we show here to be based on a misunderstanding and incorrect.

Hale to Goodwin , 25 Mar. 1911, HHL.

McBride J. H. to Hale , 11 July [19] 11, HPM.

Hale to Newall H. F. , 11 Nov. 1931, HPM.

Wright , op. cit. (ref. 2), 279.

Hale to Goodwin , 30 July 1911, HHL.

Osterbrock , op. cit. (ref. 9), 144–5.

Hale William B. to Scherer Margaret Hale , 10 July 1936 (telegram), 11 July 1936 (telegram); [ Hale Evalina C. ] to Hale William E. [11 July 1936]; [ Hale] E. C. to [ Scherer] M. H. , 12 July 1936 (telegram); Merriam John C. to Hale E. C. , 10 Nov. 1936; Margaret Breckenridge Hale to Ma[r]g[aret H. Scherer], [c. 15 Feb. 1937]; Hale M. B. to Scherer] M. H. , 25 Dec. 1937; HPM.

Goodman and Jamison , op. cit. (ref. 13), 336.

Sandage Allan to Wright Helen , 1966, quoted in the forward to Wright , op. cit. (ref. 2), 14.

Goodman and Jamison , op. cit. (ref. 13), 356.

Goodman and Jamison , op. cit. (ref. 13), 341.