It was at about this time that another incident occurred which illustrates Faraday's absolute integrity of character—integrity that would not wink at anything that was in the slightest degree not straightforward, even though it was against his own interest, which, indeed, rather shunned doing a good deed that might seem dictated by mere self-interest. His brother was working at the time as a gas-fitter, and there was a possibility of his getting the Athenæum Club work in connection with his trade. Michael, writing on the subject, said, "Few things would please me more than to help my brother in his business, or than to know that he had got the Athenæum work; but I am exceedingly jealous of myself, lest I should endeavour to have that done for him as my brother which the Committee might not like to do for him as a tradesman, and it is this which makes me very shy of saying a word about the matter."
During these years Faraday was getting through a vast quantity of work, his experimental researches in electricity were taking up a great part of his time, but other matters were not neglected. He was frequently lecturing before the Royal Institution or the Royal Society; while he wrote a large number of scientific papers for the various philosophical periodicals to which he contributed. Besides presenting series after series of his brilliant Experimental Researches to the Royal Society, he had also to attend to his lectures at Woolwich, and his work for the Trinity House. He must indeed, hard-working man that he was, have found his long day very fully occupied; and it is scarcely to be wondered at that in 1839 the strain began to tell upon him, and a period of rest became necessary. As years went on, such periods of rest were more frequent and yet more vitally important.
In 1837 the British Association[8] held its Annual Meeting at Liverpool, and Faraday attended it, and was made, as he put it, "a most responsible person," President of the Chemical section. From Liverpool he wrote home to his wife, "To-day I think we made our section rather more interesting than was expected, and to-morrow I expect will be good also. In the afternoon Daniell and I took a quiet walk; in the evening he dined with me here. We have been since to a grand conversazione at the Town Hall, and I have now returned to my room to talk with you as the pleasantest and happiest thing I can do. Nothing rests me so much as communion with you. I feel it even now as I write; and I catch myself saying the words aloud as I write them, as if you were within hearing. Dear girl, think of me till Saturday evening. I find I can get home very well by that time; so you may expect me.
"Ever, my dear Sarah, your affectionate husband,
"M. Faraday."
This reference to getting home on Saturday evening is especially interesting, for Faraday always took his wife home to her father's house every Saturday evening, that she might see her family; they all went to church together on the Sunday. This was an unvarying rule of Faraday's for very many years, as long, indeed, as it was possible.
Faraday's mother, after having lived to see "her Michael" come to be one of the great men of his time, died at Islington in March, 1838. The loss must have been keenly felt by Faraday, for between mother and son the tenderest affection had always subsisted. She was justly proud of the position which her boy had won for himself; and he ever retained that beautiful chivalrous kindness and deference to his mother that had characterised him all along. The passages from his earlier letters to his mother which have been given in previous pages are evidence of this, and his kindly consideration was ever the same. Much as the death of his mother, and, a few years later, of his brother Robert, affected him, Faraday had in his beautiful clear-sighted faith in his religion a source of inextinguishable solace, and looking forward to a reunion hereafter could see a "beautiful and consoling influence in the midst of all these troubles."
Severe and long-continued mental work, as I have said, began to tell upon Faraday in 1839, and he was ordered by his doctor to take an absolute rest. He suffered from loss of memory and similar symptoms of an overworked brain. His wife, as her niece tells us, used to carry him off to Brighton, or somewhere down into the country for a few days when he became dull and low-spirited, and the rest soon restored him. During such a sojourn at Brighton, towards the close of 1839, Professor Brande wrote to him, saying that the doctor said Faraday was to remain thoroughly idle for a time; and he (Brande) kindly offered at the same time to do anything he could to relieve Faraday of any routine work. He had indeed read some of Faraday's electricity lectures at the Institution, although, as he terms it in his letter to Faraday, "he began to fear the fate of Phæton in the chariot of Phœbus." As yet, however, Faraday would not take a very long-continued rest, and he was before long back in Albemarle Street working, although less than he had been doing.
In the year 1840 Faraday's health made it necessary that his scientific labours should be reduced, and just about this time, although he was still adding to his series of Experimental Researches, he was husbanding his strength as far as possible. This year, too, deserves especial note, for it was now that he became an elder in the Sandemanian Church; he had before on some occasions exhorted those present at week-day meetings, but it now devolved upon him to deliver regular sermons. Faraday, as we have already seen, on more than one occasion, was not a man to undertake anything without doing it to the best of his abilities; and if this was his character in matters of everyday concern, how much more so should we expect it to be, and not without reason, his character in so vital a question as that concerning his religion. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say concerning the more obvious exercise of his religious faith, for the spirit of his religion coloured all that he did; it was indeed the moving force of his soul, and was not confined to any narrow circle.
