1838-39. SOUL CARRIED OFF BY GOBLINS. 187 



other respects some of his most cherished wishes in visiting 

 London. Among these may be specially noticed his obtaining 

 an introduction to Faraday, and his attending one of his brief 

 courses of Lectures at the Eoyal Institution. To these I accom- 

 panied him. The subject was Electricity in some of the aspects 

 in which it was then receiving his special attention ; and sub- 

 ject and lecturer alike furnished a rich treat to the young che- 

 mist. Faraday delighted him in all ways ; a self-made man, 

 and yet with a manner so modest, and a bearing so kindly to 

 the eager inquiring youth ; in addition to all which, he was a 

 link that seemed to connect him with Sir Humphry Davy. 

 So those lectures on Electricity, in the Albemarle Street Institu- 

 tion, were a pleasure of the highest kind, and full of profit to 

 him afterwards in various ways." 



During this winter the illness of his cousin Catherine had 

 caused much solicitude. For above twelve months, she had 

 been almost entirely confined to bed, and George's letters abound 

 in the kindest messages to her. Mary's health was also indiffe- 

 rent ; and dark clouds hung over the household. On March 

 26th, he writes : " How very mournfully you are circumstanced 

 at home ! I shall soon be with you and find myself in the midst 

 of all the sorrow ; till then, I am the occasional sufferer from 

 sad reflections, but I do not revolve these subjects half so often 

 as I should do, being engrossed too much about far less profit- 

 able things. My Thesis has knocked everything else out of my 

 head. I had a severe fit of sickness after finishing it, which does 

 not seem to have left my head clear yet." Referring to this letter 

 he says, ten days' later : 



" MY DEAR MOTHER, I sent you a letter by a fellow- chemist, 

 who left this for Edinburgh, which I suppose you have got by 

 this time ; you will have found it a very heavy, stupid pro- 

 duction, altogether unfitted to excite a pleasing emotion, and 

 very unlike the sort of letters I generally send you. I suppose 

 I had been suffering under the reaction which succeeded to the 

 toss and ferment I had been in for three weeks before, and that 

 I was paying the penalty of overtasking my powers and work- 



