Michael Faraday, His Life and Work

by Silvanus P. Thompson

We have been working very hard here at the copper works, and with some success. Our days have gone on just as before. A walk before breakfast; then breakfast; then to the works till four or five o’clock, and then home to dress, and dinner. After dinner, tea and conversation. I have felt doubly at a loss to-day, being absent from both the meeting and you. When away from London before, I have had you with me, and we could read and talk and walk; to-day I have had no one to fill your place, so I will tell you how I have done. There are so many here, and their dinner so late and long, that I made up my mind to avoid it, though, if possible, without appearing singular. So, having remained in my room till breakfast time, we all breakfasted together, and soon after Mr. Phillips and myself took a walk out to the Mumbles Point, at the extremity of this side of the bay. There we sat down to admire the beautiful scenery around us, and, after we had viewed it long enough, returned slowly home. We stopped at a little village in our way, called Oystermouth, and dined at a small, neat, homely house about one o’clock. We then came back to Marino, and after a little while again went out—Mr. Phillips to a relation in the town, and myself for a walk on the sands and the edge of the bay. I took tea in a little cottage, and, returning home about seven o’clock, found them engaged at dinner, so came up to my own room, and shall not see them again to-night. I went down for a light just now, and heard them playing some sacred music in the drawing-room; they have all been to church to-day, and are what are called regular people.

The trial at Hereford is put off for the present, but yet we shall not be able to be in town before the end of this week. Though I long to see you, I do not know when it will be; but this I know, that I am getting daily more anxious about you. Mr. Phillips wrote home to Mrs. Phillips from here even before I did—i.e. last Wednesday. This morning he received a letter from Mrs. Phillips (who is very well) desiring him to ask me for a copy of one of my letters to you, that he may learn to write love-letters of sufficient length. He laughs at the scolding, and says that it does not hurt at a distance....

It seems to me so long since I left you that there must have been time for a great many things to have happened. I expect to see you with such joy when I come home that I shall hardly know what to do with myself. I hope you will be well and blooming, and animated and happy, when you see me. I do not know how we shall contrive to get away from here. We certainly shall not have concluded before Thursday evening, but I think we shall endeavour earnestly to leave this place on Friday night, in which case we shall get home late on Saturday night. If we cannot do that, as I should not like to be travelling all day on Sunday, we shall probably not leave until Sunday night; but I think the first plan will be adopted, and that you will not have time to answer this letter. I expect, nevertheless, an answer to my last letter—i.e. I expect that my dear wife will think of me again. Expect here means nothing more than I trust and have a full confidence that it will be so. My kind girl is so affectionate that she would not think a dozen letters too much for me if there were time to send them, which I am glad there is not.

Give my love to our mothers as earnestly as you would your own, and also to Charlotte or John, or any such one that you may have with you. I have not written to Paternoster Row yet, but I am going to write now, so that I may be permitted to finish this letter here. I do not feel quite sure, indeed, that the permission to leave off is not as necessary from my own heart as from yours.

With the utmost affection—with perhaps too much—I am, my dear wife, my Sarah, your devoted husband,

M. Faraday.

Faraday’s next scientific success was the liquefaction of chlorine (see Chapter III., [p. 93]). This discovery, which created much interest in the scientific world, was the occasion of a serious trouble with Sir Humphry Davy; for doubtless Davy was annoyed that he had left such a simple experiment to a mere assistant. Writing on the matter years after, Faraday said:—

When my paper was written, it was, according to a custom consequent upon our relative positions, submitted to Sir H. Davy (as were all my papers for the “Philosophical Transactions” up to a much later period), and he altered it as he thought fit. This practice was one of great kindness to me, for various grammatical mistakes and awkward expressions were from time to time thus removed, which might else have remained.

In point of fact, Davy on this occasion added a note (which was duly printed) saying precisely how far he had any share in suggesting the experiment, but in no wise traversing any of Faraday’s claims. Although he thus acted generously to the latter, there can be no question that he began to be seriously jealous of Faraday’s rising fame. The matter was the more serious because some who did not have a nice appreciation of the circumstances chose to rake up a charge which had been raised two years before against Faraday by some of Dr. Wollaston’s friends—in particular by Dr. Warburton—about the discovery of the electro-magnetic rotations, a charge which Faraday’s straightforward action and Wollaston’s frank satisfaction ought to have dissipated for ever. And all this was doubly aggravating because Faraday was now expecting to be proposed as a candidate for the Fellowship of the Royal Society, of which Sir Humphry was President.

PROPOSED FOR THE FELLOWSHIP.