FARADAY. 347 



work which even now arc not entirely revealed. The min- 

 ister was bitterly attacked, but he bore the censure of the 

 press with great dignity. Faraday, while he disavowed 

 having either directly or indirectly furnished the matter of 

 those attacks, did not publicly exonerate his lordship. The 

 Hon. Caroline Fox had proved herself Faraday's ardent 

 friend, and it was she who had healed the breach between 

 the philosopher and the minister. She manifestly thought 

 that Faraday ought to have come forward in Lord Mel- 

 bourne's defence, and there is a flavor of resentment in one 

 of her letters to him on the subject. No doubt Faraday had 

 good grounds for his reticence, but they are to me unknown. 

 In 1841 his health broke down utterly, and he went to 

 Switzerland with his wife and brother-in-law. His bodily 

 vigor soon revived, and he accomplished feats of walking 

 respectable even for a trained mountaineer. The published 

 extracts from his Swiss journal contain many beautiful and 

 touching allusions. Amid references to the tints of the 

 Jungfrau, the blue rifts of the glaciers, and the noble Niesen, 

 towering over the Lake of Thun, we come upon the charm- 

 ing little scrap which I have elsewhere quoted : " Clout-nail 

 making goes on here rather considerably, and is a very neat 

 and pretty operation to observe. I love a smith's shop, and 

 any thing relating to smithery. My father was a smith." 

 This is from his journal ; but he is unconsciously speaking 

 to somebody — perhaps to the world. 



His descriptions of the Staub-bach, Giessbach, and of 

 the scenic effects of sky and mountain, are all fine and sym- 

 pathetic. 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 Neuchatelois ; " but indisposition put the pro- 

 ject out. 



