One paper had folds and creases, another showed the lines of handwriting with a downward slope, the sort that would get you labeled a pessimist by the handwriting analysts.  Many were written in German, and I could just decipher a few words here and there, a byproduct of two years of fine public school German instruction.

One manuscript made my eyes well, not so much because of  the subject matter â€" the plight of the Jews in his home country of Germany â€" but because the visible embossing on the stationery told a tale in itself, the new address of A Einstein, 112 Mercer Street, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.

The manuscripts are a collection of Albert Einstein’s work owned by The Karpeles Manuscript Library Museums. There are nine total, including one in Tacoma next to Wright Park.

I am a weakling of physics, and much of what I read went over my head as effectively as much of the German I scanned.  But to be so near something so intimate as the letters to his son, to see the signs of paper as a fragile, mundane entity, was something powerful and yet ephemeral at the same time. 

Sums up Thomas Jutella, director of the museum, “The neatest thing about manuscripts is that they don’t go away.”  Especially not with institutions like the Karpeles Manuscript Museums to keep them alive.

"Exhibit: Einstein" shows through Sept. 30, 2006, at Karpeles, 407 S G St. just north of the bowling green at Wright Park, across from the observatory.  Admission is free. Also check out the cool sandstone Sumerian artifacts.  â€" Jessica Corey-Butler