"He carried Galpin's Botany in his pocket, and used to make me examine any flower new to me as we rested in the fields. The first we got at Walmer was the Echium vulgare, and is always associated in my mind with his lesson. For when we met with it a second time he asked, 'What is the name of that flower?' 'Viper's bugloss,' said I. 'No, no, I must have the Latin name,' said he."
On one occasion he called his wife and niece into his room to "see a spectre." It was about ten o'clock in the evening, a thick white mist had risen. He then placed a candle behind them as they stood by the window, and they saw two gigantic shadowy beings projected on the mist and imitating, of course, every movement they made. Faraday had gone to Walmer for rest and refreshment, and his niece says that she, the young one of the party, had to inveigle him away from his books and papers to which he would return, and tempt him out on some excursion to see or find something, on which occasion he was nothing loth. We see, indeed, at all times of his life how keen was the delight he took in the company of young people; how beautifully he could enter into the spirit which animated their play, as though he was still a child himself, and this valuable faculty was his up to the latest.
Of the Walmer excursion his niece further says:—"One day he went far out among the rocks, and brought home a great many wonderful things to show me; for in those days I had never seen nor heard of hermit crabs and sea anemones. My uncle seemed to watch them with as much delight as I did; and how heartily he would laugh at some of the movements of the crabs! We went one night to look for glow-worms. We searched every bank and likely place near, but not one did we see. On coming home to our cottage he espied a tiny speck of light on one of the doorposts. It came from a small centipede; but though it was put carefully under a glass, it never showed its light again.
"My uncle read aloud delightfully. Sometimes he gave us one of Shakespeare's plays or Scott's novels. But of all things I used to like to hear him read Childe Harold; and never shall I forget the way in which he read the description of the storm on Lake Leman. He took great pleasure in Byron, and Coleridge's 'Hymn to Mont Blanc' delighted him. When anything touched his feelings as he read—and it happened not infrequently—he would show it not only by tears in his voice, but by tears in his eyes also. Nothing vexed him more than any kind of subterfuge or prevarication, or glossing over things."
His niece mentioned on one occasion a professor who had been discovered abstracting some manuscript from a library. He instantly said, "What do you mean by abstracting? You should say stealing; use the right word, my dear."
Indecision of any kind Faraday could not bear; not only should one decide, but quickly. Indeed he thought that in trifling matters immediate decision was important; it was better to decide incorrectly than to remain hesitating. As soon as he left his study and laboratory Faraday had the happy faculty of being able to throw aside his science, and would, on going into the sitting-room, "enter into all the nonsense that was going on as heartily as any one; and as we sat round the fire he would often play some childish game, at which he was usually the best performer; or he would take part in a charade, and I well recollect his being dressed up to act the villain, and very fierce he looked. Another time I recollect him as the learned pig."
FARADAY'S STUDY.
As we learn such things as these about him we cease to wonder that Faraday was the object of so much admiration and love from all persons, old and young, with whom he came in contact. His wonderful work as a scientist will, it is to be hoped, never be remembered as his only claim on our regard; for as one of the best and kindest and most helpful of men, whose singular modesty and gentleness of character endeared him to all, he certainly deserves to be kept ever in our recollection. We must not, as a friend wrote of him, allow the name of Faraday "to be nothing but a peg on which to hang discoveries;" but must also recollect that his "time, thoughts, purse, everything was freely given to those who had need of them."
