LIFE AND LKTTKHS OF FARADAY. 31 1 



shop and anything relating to smithery. My father 

 was a smith." This is from his journal; but lie is uncon- 

 sciously speaking to somebody perhaps to the world. 



His description of the Staubbach, Giessbach, and of the 

 scenic effects of sky and mountain, are all fine and sympa- 

 thetic. But amid it all, and in reference to it all, he tells 

 his sister that " true enjoyment is from within, not from 

 without." In those days Agassiz was living under a slab 

 of gneiss on the glacier of the Aar. Faraday met Forbes 

 at the Grimsel, and arranged with him an excursion to 

 the " Hotel des Neuchtelaois;" but indisposition put the 

 project out. 



From the Fort of Ham, in 1843, Faraday received a 

 letter addressed to him by Prince Louis Napoleon Bona- 

 parte. He read this letter to me many years ago, and the 

 desire, shown in various ways by the French emperor, to 

 turn modern science to account, has often reminded me of 

 it since. ' At the age of thirty-five the prisoner of Ham 

 speaks of " rendering his captivity less sad by studying the 

 great discoveries" which science owes to Faraday; and he 

 asks a question which reveals his cast of thought at the 

 time: " What is the most simple combination to give to a 

 voltaic battery, in order to produce a spark capable of set- 

 ting fire to powder under water or under ground?" 

 Should the necessity arise, the French emperor will not 

 lack at the outset the best appliances of modern science; 

 while we, I fear, shall have to learn the magnitude of the 

 resources we are now neglecting amid the pangs of actual 

 war.* 



One turns with renewed pleasure to Faraday's letters to 

 his wife, published in the second volume. Here surely the 

 loving essence of the man appears more distinctly than any- 

 where else. From the house of Dr. Percy, in Birmingham, 

 he writes thus: 



" Here even here the moment I leave the table, I wish 

 I were with you IK QUIET. Oh, what happiness is ours! 

 My runs into the world in this way only serve to make me 

 esteem that happiness the more." 



* The "science" has since been applied, with astonishing effect , 

 by those who had studied it far more thoroughly than the emperor of 

 the French. We also, I am happy to think, have improved the time 

 since the above words were written [1878]. 



