STUDY OF HIS CHARACTER.
In the previous section we have traced the leading events of a life
which was quietly and uniformly successful. We have watched the passage
of the errand-boy into the philosopher, and we have seen how at first
he begged for the meanest place in a scientific workshop, and at
last declined the highest honour which British Science was capable
of granting. His success did not lie in the amassing of money--he
deliberately turned aside from the path of proffered wealth; nor did it
lie in the attainment of social position and titles--he did not care
for the weight of these. But if success consists in a life full of
agreeable occupation, with the knowledge that its labours are adding to
the happiness and wealth of the world, leading on to an old age full of
honour, and the prospect of a blissful immortality,--then the highest
success crowned the life of Faraday.
How did he obtain it? Not by inheritance, and not by the force of
circumstances. The wealth or the reputation of fathers is often an
invaluable starting-point for sons: a liberal education and the
contact of superior minds in early youth is often a mighty help to
the young aspirant: the favour of powerful friends will often place on
a vantage-ground the struggler in the battle of life. But Faraday had
none of these. Accidental circumstances sometimes push a man forward,
or give him a special advantage over his fellows; but Faraday had to
make his circumstances, and to seize the small favours that fortune
sometimes threw in his way. The secret of his success lay in the
qualities of his mind.
It is only fair, however, to remark that he started with no
disadvantages. There was no stain in the family history: he had no dead
weight to carry, of a disgraced name, or of bad health, or deficient
faculties, or hereditary tendencies to vice. It must be acknowledged,
too, that he was endowed with a naturally clear understanding and an
unusual power of looking below the surface of things.
The first element of success that we meet with in his biography is the
faithfulness with which he did his work. This led the bookseller to
take his poor errand-boy as an apprentice; and this enabled his father
to write, when he was 18: "Michael is bookbinder and stationer, and is
very active at learning his business. He has been most part of four
years of his time out of seven. He has a very good master and mistress,
and likes his place well. He had a hard time for some while at first
going; but, as the old saying goes, he has rather got the head above
water, as there is two other boys under him." This faithful industry
marked also his relations with Davy and Brande, and the whole of his
subsequent life; and at last, when he found that he could no longer
discharge his duties, it made him repeatedly press his resignation on
the managers of the Royal Institution, and beg to be relieved of his
eldership in the Church.
His love of study, and hunger after knowledge, led him to the
particular career which he pursued, and that power of imagination,
which reveals itself in his early letters, grew and grew, till it gave
him such a familiarity with the unseen forces of nature as has never
been vouchsafed to any other mortal.
As a source of success there stands out also his enthusiasm. A new
fact seemed to charge him with an energy that gleamed from his eyes
and quivered through his limbs, and, as by induction, charged for the
time those in his presence with the same vigour of interest. Plücker,
of Bonn, was showing him one day in the laboratory at Albemarle Street
his experiments on the action of a magnet on the electric discharge
in vacuum tubes. Faraday danced round them; and as he saw the moving
arches of light, he cried, "Oh! to live in it!" Mr. James Heywood once
met him in the thick of a tremendous storm at Eastbourne, rubbing his
hands with delight because he had been fortunate enough to see the
lightning strike the church tower, and displace a pinnacle.
This enthusiasm led him to throw all his heart into his work. Nor was
the energy spasmodic, or wasted on unworthy objects; for, in the words
of Bence Jones, his was "a lifelong lasting strife to seek and say that
which he thought was true, and to do that which he thought was kind."
Indeed, his perseverance in a noble strife was another of the grand
elements in his success. His tenacity of purpose showed itself equally
in little and in great things. Arranging some apparatus one day with a
philosophical instrument maker, he let fall on the floor a small piece
of glass: he made several ineffectual attempts to pick it up. "Never
mind," said his companion, "it is not worth the trouble." "Well, but,
Murray, I don't like to be beaten by something that I have once tried
to do."
The same principle is apparent in that long series of electrical
researches, where for a quarter of a century he marched steadily along
that path of discovery into which he had been lured by the genius of
Davy. And so, whatever course was set before him, he ran with patience
towards the goal, not diverted by the thousand objects of interest
which he passed by, nor stopping to pick up the golden apples that were
flung before his feet.
This tremendous faculty of work was relieved by a wonderful
playfulness. This rarely appears in his writings, but was very frequent
in his social intercourse. It was a simple-hearted joyousness, the
effervescence of a spirit at peace with God and man. It not seldom,
however, assumed the form of good-natured banter or a practical
joke. Indications of this playfulness have already been given, and
I have tried to put upon paper some instances that occur to my own
recollection, but the fun depended so much upon his manner, that it
loses its aroma when separated from himself.
However, I will try one story. I was spending a night at an hotel at
Ramsgate when on lighthouse business. Early in the morning there came
a knock at the bed-room door, but, as I happened to be performing my
ablutions, I cried, "Who's there?" "Guess." I went over the names of
my brother commissioners, but heard only "No, no," till, not thinking
of any other friend likely to hunt me up in that place, I left off
guessing; and on opening the door I saw Faraday enjoying with a laugh
my inability to recognize his voice through a deal board.
A student of the late Professor Daniell tells me that he remembers
Faraday often coming into the lecture-room at King's College just when
the Professor had finished and was explaining matters more fully to any
of his pupils who chose to come down to the table. One day the subject
discoursed on and illustrated had been sulphuretted hydrogen, and a
little of the gas had escaped into the room, as it perversely will do.
When Faraday entered he put on a look of astonishment, as though he had
never smelt such a thing before, and in a comical manner said, "Ah!
a savoury lecture, Daniell!" On another occasion there was a little
ammonia left in a jar over mercury. He pressed Daniell to tell him
what it was, and when the Professor had put his head down to see more
clearly, he whiffed some of the pungent gas into his face.
Occasionally this humour was turned to good account, as when, one
Friday evening before the lecture, he told the audience that he had
been requested by the managers to mention two cases of infringement of
rule. The first related to the red cord which marks off the members'
seats. "The second case I take to be a hypothetical one, namely, that
of a gentleman wearing his hat in the drawing-room." This produced a
laugh, which the Professor joined in, bowed, and retired.
This faithful discharge of duty, this almost intuitive insight into
natural phenomena, and this persevering enthusiasm in the pursuit of
truth, might alone have secured a great position in the scientific
world, but they alone could never have won for him that large
inheritance of respect and love. His contemporaries might have gazed
upon him with an interest and admiration akin to that with which he
watched a thunderstorm; but who feels his affections drawn out towards
a mere intellectual Jupiter? We must look deeper into his character to
understand this. There is a law well recognized in the science of light
and heat, that a body can absorb only the same sort of rays which it is
capable of emitting. Just so is it in the moral world. The respect and
love of his generation were given to Faraday because his own nature was
full of love and respect for others.
Each of these qualities--his respect for and love to others, or, more
generally, his reverence and kindliness--deserves careful examination.
Throughout his life, Michael Faraday appeared as though standing in a
reverential attitude towards Nature, Man, and God.
Towards Nature, for he regarded the universe as a vast congeries of
facts which would not bend to human theories. Speaking of his own early
life, he says: "I was a very lively imaginative person, and could
believe in the 'Arabian Nights' as easily as in the 'Encyclopædia;' but
facts were important to me, and saved me. I could trust a fact, and
always cross-examined an assertion." He was indeed a true disciple of
that philosophy which says, "Man, who is the servant and interpreter
of Nature, can act and understand no farther than he has, either in
operation or in contemplation, observed of the method and order of
Nature."[11] And verily Nature admitted her servant into her secret
chambers, and showed him marvels to interpret to his fellow-men more
wonderful and beautiful than the phantasmagoria of Eastern romance.
His reverence towards Man showed itself in the respect he uniformly
paid to others and to himself. Thoroughly genuine and simple-hearted
himself, he was wont to credit his fellow-men with high motives and
good reasons. This was rather uncomfortable when one was conscious of
no such merit, and I at least have felt ashamed in his presence of the
poor commonplace grounds of my words and actions. To be in his company
was in fact a moral tonic. As he had learned the difficult art of
honouring all men, he was not likely to run after those whom the world
counted great. "We must get Garibaldi to come some Friday evening,"
said a member of the Institution during the visit of the Italian hero
to London. "Well, if Garibaldi thinks he can learn anything from us,
we shall be happy to see him," was Faraday's reply. This nobility
of regard not only preserved him from envying the success of other
explorers in the same field, but led him heartily to rejoice with them
in their discoveries.
Dumas gives us a picture of Foucault showing Faraday some of his
admirable experiments, and of the two men looking at one another with
eyes moistened, but full of bright expression, as they stood hand in
hand, silently thankful--the one for the pleasure he had experienced,
the other for the honour that had been done him. He also tells how, on
another occasion, he breakfasted at Albemarle Street, and during the
meal Mr. Faraday made some eulogistic remarks upon Davy, which were
coldly received by his guest. After breakfast, he was taken downstairs
to the ante-room of the lecture theatre, when Faraday, walking up to
the portrait of his old master, exclaimed, "Wasn't he a great man!"
then turning round to the window next the entrance door, he added, "It
was there that he spoke to me for the first time." The Frenchman bowed.
They descended the stairs again to the laboratory. Faraday pulled out
an old note-book, and turning over its pages showed where Davy had
entered the means by which the first globule of potassium was produced,
and had drawn a line round the description, with the words, "Capital
experiment." The French chemist owned himself vanquished, and tells
the tale in honour of him who remembered the greatness and forgot the
littlenesses of his teacher.
And the respect he showed to others he required to be shown to himself.
It is difficult to imagine anyone taking liberties with him, and it
was only in early life that there were small-minded creatures who
would treat him not according to what he was, but according to the
position from which he had risen. His servants and workpeople were
always attentive to the smallest expression of his wish. Still, he
did not "go through his life with his elbows out." He once wrote to
Matteucci: "I see that that moves you which would move me most, viz.
the imputation of a want of good faith; and I cordially sympathize with
anyone who is so charged unjustly. Such cases have seemed to me almost
the only ones for which it is worth while entering into controversy. I
have felt myself not unfrequently misunderstood, often misrepresented,
sometimes passed by, as in the cases of specific inductive capacity,
magneto-electric currents, definite electrolytic action, &c. &c.: but
it is only in the cases where moral turpitude has been implied, that I
have felt called upon to enter on the subject in reply." Yet, where he
felt that his honour was impugned, none could be more sensitive or more
resolute.
This desire to clear himself, combined with his delicate regard for
the feelings of others, struck me forcibly in the following incident.
At Mr. Barlow's, one Friday evening after the discourse, two or three
other chemists and myself were commenting unfavourably on a public act
of Faraday, when suddenly he appeared beside us. I did not hesitate
to tell him my opinion. He gave me a short answer, and joined others
of the company. A few days afterwards he found me in the laboratory
preparing for a lecture, and, without referring directly to what I had
said, he gave me a full history of the transaction in such a way as to
show that he could not have acted otherwise, and at the same time to
render any apology on my part unnecessary.
Intimately connected with his respect for Man as well as reverence
for truth, was the flash of his indignation against any injustice,
and his hot anger against any whom he discovered to be pretenders.
When, for instance, he had convinced himself that the reputed facts of
table-turning and spiritualism were false, his severe denunciation of
the whole thing followed as a matter of course.
Thus, too, a story is told of his once taking the side of the injured
in a street quarrel by the pump in Savile Row. One evening also at
my house, a young man who has since acquired a scientific renown was
showing specimens of some new compounds he had made. A well-known
chemist contemptuously objected that, after all, they were mere
products of the laboratory: but Faraday came to the help of the young
experimenter, and contended that they were chemical substances worthy
of attention, just as much as though they occurred in nature.
His reverence for God was shown not merely by that homage which
every religious man must pay to his Creator and Redeemer, but by the
enfolding of the words of Scripture and similar expressions in such a
robe of sacredness, that he rarely allowed them to pass his lips or
flow from his pen, unless he was convinced of the full sympathy of the
person with whom he was holding intercourse.
This characteristic reverence was united to an equally characteristic
kindliness. This word does not exactly express the quality intended;
but unselfishness is negative, goodness is too general, love is
commonly used with special applications; kindness, friendship,
geniality, and benevolence are only single aspects of the quality. Let
the reader add these terms all together, and the resultant will be
about what is meant.[12]
Faraday's love to children was one way in which this kindliness was
shown. Having no children of his own, he surrounded himself usually
with his nieces: we have already had a glimpse of him heartily entering
into their play, and we are told how a word or two from Uncle would
clear away all the trouble from a difficult lesson, that a long sum in
arithmetic became a delight when he undertook to explain it, and that
when the little girl was naughty and rebellious, he could gently win
her round, telling her how he used to feel himself when he was young,
and advising her to submit to the reproof she was fighting against. Nor
were his own relatives the only sharers of his kindness. One friend
cherishes among his earliest recollections, that of Faraday making for
him a fly-cage and a paper purse, which had a real bright half-crown in
it. When the present Mr. Baden Powell was a little fellow of thirteen,
he used to give short lectures on chemistry in his father's house, and
the philosopher of Albemarle Street liked to join the family audience,
and would listen and applaud the experiments heartily. When one day
my wife and I called on him with our children, he set them playing
at hide-and-seek in the lecture theatre, and afterwards amused them
upstairs with tuning-forks and resounding glasses. At a _soirée_ at Mr.
Justice Grove's, he wanted to see the younger children of the family;
so the eldest daughter brought down the little ones in their nightgowns
to the foot of the stairs, and Faraday expressed his gratification
with "Ah! that's the best thing you have done to-night." And when his
faculties had nearly faded, it is remembered how the stroking of his
hand by Mr. Vincent's little daughter quickened him again to bright and
loving interest.
It would be easy to multiply illustrations of this kindliness in
various relations of life.
Here is one of his own telling, where certainly the effect produced was
not owing to any knowledge of how princely an intellect underlay the
loving spirit. It is from a journal of his tour in Wales:--
"_Tuesday, July 20th._--After dinner I set off on a ramble to
Melincourt, a waterfall on the north side of the valley, and about six
miles from our inn. Here I got a little damsel for my guide who could
not speak a word of English. We, however, talked together all the way
to the fall, though neither knew what the other said. I was delighted
with her burst of pleasure as, on turning a corner, she first showed me
the waterfall. Whilst I was admiring the scene, my little Welsh damsel
was busy running about, even under the stream, gathering strawberries.
On returning from the fall I gave her a shilling that I might enjoy
her pleasure: she curtsied, and I perceived her delight. She again ran
before me back to the village, but wished to step aside every now and
then to pull strawberries. Every bramble she carefully moved out of the
way, and ventured her bare feet to try stony paths, that she might find
the safest for mine. I observed her as she ran before me, when she met
a village companion, open her hand to show her prize, but without any
stoppage, word, or other motion. When we returned to the village I bade
her good-night, and she bade me farewell, both by her actions and, I
have no doubt, her language too."
In a letter which Mr. Abel, the Director of the Chemical Department of
the War Establishment, has sent me, occur the following remarks:--
"Early in 1849 I was appointed, partly through the kind recommendation
of Faraday, to instruct the senior cadets and a class of artillery
officers in the Arsenal, in practical chemistry. On the occasion of
my first attendance at Woolwich, when, having just reached manhood, I
was about to deliver my first lecture as a recognized teacher, I was
naturally nervous, and was therefore dismayed when on entering the
class-room I perceived Faraday, who, having come to Woolwich, as usual,
to prepare for his next morning's lecture at the Military Academy, had
been prompted by his kindly feelings to lend me the support of his
presence upon my first appearance among his old pupils. In a moment
Faraday put me completely at my ease; he greeted me heartily, saying,
'Well, Abel, I have come to see whether I can assist you;' and suiting
action to word, he bustled about, persisting in helping me in the
arrangement of my lecture-tables,--and at the close of my demonstration
he followed me from pupil to pupil, aiding each in his first attempt
at manipulation, and evidently enjoying most heartily the self-imposed
duty of assistant to his young _protégé_."
Another scientific friend, Mr. W. F. Barrett, writes:--"My first
interview with Mr. Faraday ten years ago left an impression upon me
I can never forget. Young student as I then was, thinking chiefly of
present work and little of future prospects, and till then unknown to
Mr. Faraday, judge of my feelings when, taking my hand in both of his,
he said, 'I congratulate you upon choosing to be a _philosopher_: it
is an arduous life, but a noble and a glorious one. Work hard, and
work carefully, and you will have success.' The sweet yet serious way
he said this made the earnestness of work become a very vivid reality,
and led me to doubt whether I had not dared to undertake too lofty a
pursuit. After this Mr. Faraday never forgot to remember me in a number
of thoughtful and delicate ways. He would ask me upstairs to his room
to describe or show him the results of any little investigation I might
have made: taking the greatest interest in it all, his pleasure would
seem to equal and thus heighten mine, and then he would add words of
kind suggestion and encouragement. In the same kindly spirit he has
invited me to his house at Hampton Court, or would ask me to join him
at supper after the Friday evening's lecture. His kindness is further
shown by his giving me a volume of his researches on Chemistry and
Physics, writing therein, 'From his friend Michael Faraday.' Those who
live alone in London, unknown and uncared-for by any around them, can
best appreciate these marks of attention which Mr. Faraday invariably
showed, and not only to myself, but equally to my fellow-assistant in
the chemical laboratory."
The following instance among many that might be quoted will illustrate
his readiness to take trouble on behalf of others. When Dr. Noad was
writing his "Manual of Electricity," a doubt crossed his mind as to
whether Sir Snow Harris's unit jar gave a true measure of the quantity
of electricity thrown into a Leyden jar: he asked Faraday, and his
doubt was confirmed. Shortly afterwards he received a letter beginning
thus:--
"MY DEAR SIR,
"Whilst looking over my papers on induction, I was reminded of our
talk about Harris's unit jar, and recollected that I had given you a
result just the _reverse_ of my old conclusions, and, as I believe,
of the truth. I think the jar _is a true measure_, so long as the
circumstances of position, &c., are not altered; for its discharge and
the quantity of electricity thus passed on depends on the constant
relation of the balls connected with the inner and outer surface
coating to each other, and is independent of their joint relation to
the machine, battery, &c.... Perhaps I have not made my view clear,
but next time we meet, remind me of the matter.
"Ever truly yours,
"M. FARADAY."
And just a week afterwards Dr. Noad received a second letter,
surmounted by a neat drawing, and describing at great length
experiments that the Professor had since made in order to place the
matter beyond doubt.
And it was not merely for friends and brother _savants_ that he would
take trouble. Old volumes of the _Mechanics' Magazine_ bear testimony
to the way in which he was asked questions by people in all parts of
the kingdom, and that he was accustomed to give painstaking answers to
such letters.
"Do to others as you would wish them to do to you," was a precept
often on his lips. But I have heard that he was sometimes charged with
transgressing it himself, inasmuch as he took an amount of trouble for
other people which he would have been greatly distressed if they had
taken for him.
His charities were very numerous,--not to beggars; for them he had
the Mendicity Society's tickets,--but to those whose need he knew.
The porter of the Royal Institution has shown me, among his treasured
memorials, a large number of forms for post-office orders, for sums
varying from 5_s._ to 5_l._, which Faraday was in the habit of sending
in that way to different recipients of his thoughtful bounty. Two or
three instances have come to my knowledge of his having given more
considerable sums of money--say 20_l._--to persons who he thought would
be benefited by them. In some instances the gift was called a loan,
but he lent "not expecting again," and entered into the spirit of the
injunction, "When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy
right hand doeth."
This principle was in fact stated in one of his letters to a friend:
"As a case of distress I shall be very happy to help you as far as my
means allow me in such cases; but then I never let my name go to such
acts, and very rarely even the initials of my name." His contributions
to the general funds of his Church were kept equally secret.
From all these circumstances, therefore, it is impossible to gauge
the amount of his charitable gifts; but when it is remembered that
for many years his income from different sources must have been
1,000_l._ or 1,200_l._, that he and Mrs. Faraday lived in a simple
manner--comfortably, it is true, but not luxuriously--and that his
whole income was disposed of in some way, there can be little doubt
that his gifts amounted to several hundred pounds per annum.
But it was not in monetary gifts alone that his kindness to the
distressed was shown. Time was spent as freely as money; and an
engrossing scientific research would not be allowed to stand in the
way of his succouring the sorrowful. Many persons have told me of
his self-denying deeds on behalf of those who were ill, and of his
encouraging words. He had indeed a heart ever ready to sympathize. Thus
meeting once in the neighbourhood of Hampton Court an old friend who
had retired there invalided and was being drawn about in a Bath chair,
he is said to have burst into tears.
When eight years ago my wife and my only son were taken away together,
and I lay ill of the same fatal disease, he called at my house, and
in spite of remonstrances found his way into the infected chamber. He
would have taken me by the hand if I had allowed him; and then he sat
a while by my bedside, consoling me with his sympathy and cheering me
with the Christian hope.
It is no wonder that this kindliness took the hearts of men captive;
and this quality was, like mercy, "twice blessed; it blesseth him
that gives, and him that takes." The feeling awakened in the minds of
others by this kindliness was indeed a source of the purest pleasure
to himself; trifling proofs of interest or love could easily move his
thankfulness; and he richly enjoyed the appreciation of his scientific
labours. This would often break forth in words. Thus in the middle of a
letter to A. De la Rive, principally on scientific matters, he writes:--
"Do you remember one hot day, I cannot tell how many years ago, when I
was hot and thirsty in Geneva, and you took me to your house in the
town and gave me a glass of water and raspberry vinegar? That glass of
drink is refreshing to me still."
Again: "Tyndall, the sweetest reward of my work is the sympathy and
good-will which it has caused to flow in upon me from all quarters of
the world."
But to estimate rightly this amiability of character, it must
be distinctly remembered that it was not that superabundance of
good-nature which renders some men incapable of holding their own, or
rebuking what they know to be wrong. In proof of this his letters to
the spiritualists might be quoted; but the following have not hitherto
seen the light. They are addressed to two different parties whose
inventions came officially before him.
"You write 'private' on the outside of your official communication, and
'confidential' within. I will take care to respect these instructions
as far as falls within my duty; but I can have nothing private or
confidential _as regards the Trinity House_, which is my chief.
Whatever opinion I send to them I must accompany with the papers you
send me. If therefore you wish anything held back from them, send me
another official answer, and I will return you the one I have, marked
'confidential.' Our correspondence is indeed likely to become a little
irregular, because your papers have not come to me through the Trinity
House. You will feel that I cannot communicate any opinion I may form
to you: I am bound to the Trinity House, to whom I must communicate in
confidence. I have no objection to your knowing my conclusions; but the
_Trinity House_ is the fit judge of the use it may make of them, or
the degree of confidence they may think they deserve, or the parties to
whom they may choose to communicate them."
By a foot-note it appears that the _private and confidential_
communication was returned to the writer, by desire, four days
afterwards.
"SIR,
"I have received your note and read your pamphlet. There is nothing in
either which makes it at all desirable to me to see your apparatus,
for I have not time to spare to look at a matter two or three
times over. In referring to ----, I suppose you refer also to his
application to the Trinity House. In that case I shall hear from him
_through the Trinity House_. He has, however, certain inquiries (which
I have no doubt have gone to him long ago through the Trinity House)
to answer before I shall think it necessary to take any further steps
in the matter. With these, however, I suppose you have nothing to do.
"Are you aware that many years ago our Institution was lighted up
for months, if not for years together, by oil-gas (or, as you call
it, olefiant gas), compressed into cylinders to the extent of thirty
atmospheres, and brought to us from a distance? I have no idea that
the patent referred to at the bottom of page 9 could stand for an hour
in a court of law. I think, too, you are wrong in misapplying the
word _olefiant_. It already belongs to a particular gas, and cannot,
without confusion, be used as you use it.
"I am Sir,
"Your obedient Servant,
"M. FARADAY."
"SIR,
"Thanks for your letter. At the close of it you ask me _privately_ and
confidingly for the encouragement my opinion might give you if _this
power_ gas-light is fit for lighthouses. I am unable to assent to your
request, as my position at the Trinity House requires that I should be
able to take up any subject, applications, or documents they may bring
before me in a perfectly unbiassed condition of mind.
"I am, Sir,
"Yours very truly,
"M. FARADAY."
The kindliness which shed its genial radiance on every worthy object
around, glowed most warmly on the domestic hearth. Little expressions
in his writings often reveal it, as when we read in his Swiss journal
about Interlaken: "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 anything relating to smithery. My father was a smith."
When he was sitting to Noble for his bust, it happened one day that
the sculptor, in giving the finishing touches to the marble, made
a clattering with his chisels: noticing that his sitter appeared
_distrait_, he said that he feared the jingling of the tools had
annoyed him, and that he was weary. "No, my dear Mr. Noble," said
Faraday, putting his hand on his shoulder, "but the noise reminded me
of my father's anvil, and took me back to my boyhood."
This deep affection peeps out constantly in his letters to different
members of his family, "bound up together," as he wrote to his
sister-in-law, "in the one hope, and in faith and love which is in
Jesus Christ." But it was towards his wife that his love glowed most
intensely. Yet how can we properly speak of this sacred relationship,
especially as the mourning widow is still amongst us? It may suffice
to catch the glimpse that is reflected in the following extract from a
letter he wrote to Mrs. Andrew Crosse on the death of her husband:--
"_July 12, 1855._
"... Believe that I sympathize with you most deeply, for I enjoy in my
life-partner those things which you speak of as making you feel your
loss so heavily.
"It is the kindly domestic affections, the worthiness, the mutual aid
in sorrow, the mutual joy in happiness that has existed, which makes
the rupture of such a tie as yours so heavy to bear; and yet you would
not wish it otherwise, for the remembrance of those things brings
solace with the grief. I speak, thinking what my own trouble would
be if I lost my partner; and I try to comfort you in the only way in
which I think I could be comforted.
"M. FARADAY."
There was, as Tyndall has observed, a mixture of chivalry with this
affection. In his book of diplomas he made the following remarkable
entry:--
"_25th January, 1847_.
"Amongst these records and events, I here insert the date of one
which, as a source of honour and happiness, far exceeds all the rest.
We were _married_ on June 12, 1821.
"M. FARADAY."
On the character of Faraday, these two qualities of reverence and
kindliness have appeared to me singularly influential. Among the ways
in which they manifested themselves was that beautiful combination of
firmness and gentleness which has been frequently remarked: intimately
associated with them also were his simplicity and truthfulness. These
points must have made themselves evident already, but they deserve
further illustration.
In his early days, "one Sabbath morning his swift and sober steps were
carrying him along the Holborn pavement towards his meeting-house, when
some small missile struck him smartly on the hat. He would have thought
it an accident and passed on, when a second and a third rap caused him
to turn and look just in time to perceive a face hastily withdrawn from
a window in the upper story of a closed linendraper's establishment.
Roused by the affront, he marched up to the door and rapped. The
servant opening it said there was no one at home, but Faraday declared
he knew better, and desired to be shown upstairs. Opposition still
being made, he pushed on, made his way up through the house, opened
the door of an upper room, discovering a party of young drapers'
assistants, who at once professed they knew nothing of the motive of
this sudden visit. But the hunter had now run his game to earth: he
taxed them sharply with their annoyance of wayfarers on the Sabbath,
and said that unless an apology were made at once, they should hear
from their employer of something much to their disadvantage. An apology
was made forthwith."[13]
Long, long after this event, Dr. and Mrs. Faraday, with Dr. Tyndall,
were returning one evening from Mr. Gassiot's, on Clapham Common: a
dense fog came on, and they did not know where they were. The two
gentlemen got out of their vehicle, and walked to a house and knocked.
A man appeared, first at a window and afterwards at the door, very
angry indeed at the disturbance, and demanded to know their business.
Faraday, in his calm, irresistible manner, explained the situation and
their object in knocking. The man instantly changed his tone, looked
foolish, and muttered something about being in a fright lest his house
of business was on fire.
As to simplicity of character: when, in the course of writing this
book, I have spoken to his acquaintances about Faraday, the most
frequent comment has been in such words as, "Oh! he was a beautiful
character, and so simple-minded." I have tried to ascertain the cause
of this simple-mindedness, and I believe it was the consciousness that
he was meaning to do right himself, and the belief that others whom
he addressed meant to do right too, and so he could just let them see
everything that was passing through his mind. And while he knew no
reason for concealment, there was no trace of self-conceit about him,
nor any pretence at being what he was not. To illustrate this quality
is not so easy; the indications of it, like his humour, were generally
too delicate to be transferred to paper; but perhaps the following
letter will do as well as anything else, for there are few philosophers
who could have written so naturally about the pleasures of a pantomime
and then about his highest hopes:--
"ROYAL INSTITUTION, LONDON, W.
"_1st January, 1857._
"MY DEAR MISS COUTTS,
"You are very kind to think of our pleasure and send us entrance to
your box for to-morrow night. We thank you very sincerely, and I mean
to enjoy it, for I still have a sympathy with children and all their
thoughts and pleasure. Permit me to wish you very sincerely a happy
year; and also to Mrs. Brown. With some of us our greatest happiness
will be content mingled with patience; but there is much happiness in
that and the expected end.
"Ever your obliged Servant,
"M. FARADAY."[14]
As to truthfulness: he was not only truthful in the common acceptation
of the word, but he did not allow, either in himself or others,
hasty conclusions, random assertions, or slippery logic. "At such
times he had a way of repeating the suspicious statement very slowly
and distinctly, with an air of wondering scrutiny as if it had
astonished him. His irony was then irresistible, and always produced a
modification of the objectionable phrase."
One Friday evening there was exhibited an improved Davy lamp, with an
eulogistic description. Faraday added the words, "The opinion of the
inventor."
"An acquaintance rather given to inflict tedious narratives on his
friends was descanting to Faraday on the iniquity of some coachman
who had set him down the previous night in the middle of a dark and
miry road,--'in fact,' said the irksome drawler, 'in a perfect morass;
and there I was, as you may imagine, half the night, plunging and
struggling to get out of this dreadful morass.' 'More ass you!' rapped
out the philosopher at the top of his scale of laughter." This was
a rare instance, for it was only when much provoked that he would
perpetrate a pun, or depart from the kind courtesy of his habitual talk.
That he was quite ready to give up a statement or view when it was
proved by others to be incorrect, is shown by the Preface to the
volumes in which are reprinted his "Experimental Researches." "In
giving advice," says his niece Miss Reid, "he always went back to first
principles, to the true right and wrong of questions, never allowing
deviations from the simple straightforward path of duty to be justified
by custom or precedent; and he judged himself strictly by the same rule
which he laid down for others."
These beauties of character were not marred by serious defects or
opposing faults. "He could not be too closely approached. There were
no shabby places or ugly comers in his mind." Yet he was very far from
being one of those passionless men who resemble a cold statue rather
than throbbing flesh and blood. He was no "model of all the virtues,"
dreadfully uninteresting, and discouraging to those who feel such calm
perfection out of their reach. His inner life was a battle, with its
wounds as well as its victory. Proud by nature, and quick-tempered,
he must have found the curb often necessary; but notwithstanding the
rapidity of his actions and thoughts, he knew how to keep a tight rein
on that fiery spirit.
I have listened attentively to every remark in disparagement of
Faraday's character, but the only serious ones have appeared to me
to arise from a misunderstanding of the man, a misunderstanding the
more easy because his standard of right and wrong, and of his own
duty, often differed from the notions current around him. Still, it
may be true that his extreme sensitiveness led him sometimes to do
scant justice to those who, he imagined, were treading too closely
in his own footsteps; as, for instance, when Nobili brought out some
beautiful experiments on magnetism, just after the short notice of his
own discoveries in 1831 which Faraday had sent to M. Hachette, and
which was communicated to the Académie des Sciences. It is true also
that, with his great caution and his repugnance to moral evil, he was
more disposed to turn away in disgust from an erring companion than to
endeavour to reclaim him. It has also been imputed to him as a fault
that he founded no school, and took no young man by the hand as Davy
had taken him. That this was rather his misfortune than his fault,
would appear from words he once wrote to Miss Moore: "I have often
endeavoured to discover a genius, but have not been very successful,
though many cases seemed promising at first." The world would doubtless
have been the gainer if he had stamped his own image on the minds
of a group of disciples: but a man cannot do everything; and had
Faraday been more of a teacher, he would perhaps have been less of an
investigator.
Of course Faraday was subject, like other men, to errors of judgment,
and it was impossible, even if desirable, always to avoid giving
offence. Thus he was constantly pestered for his autograph; and instead
of throwing the applications into his waste-paper basket, he had a
formal circular lithographed excusing himself from complying. This
offended more than one recipient; and he was roughly made aware of it
by once having the circular returned from St. Louis with a scurrilous
comment, and the postage from America not prepaid. He never again used
the printed form, Miss Barnard undertaking to answer all such requests.
It has been previously remarked that Faraday took little part in social
movements, and went little into society, but it must not be supposed
that he was by any means unsocial. It seems probable that his freedom
in this matter was somewhat hampered by the principles in which he had
been brought up: it is certain that he was restrained by the desire
to give all the time and energy he could to scientific research. Yet
pleasant stories are told of his occasional appearances at social
gatherings. Thus he liked to attend the Royal Academy dinners, and
in earlier days he enjoyed the artistic and musical _conversaziones_
at Hullmandel's, where Stanfield Turner and Landseer met Garcia and
Malibran; and sometimes he joined this pleasant company at supper and
charades, at others in their excursions up the river in an eight-oared
cutter. Captain Close has described to me how, when the French
Lighthouse authorities put up the screw-pile light on the sands near
Calais, they invited the Trinity House officers and Faraday to inspect
it. A dinner was arranged for them after the inspection, and M. Reynaud
proposed the health of the _étranger célèbre_. A young engineer took
exception to Faraday being called a stranger--since he had been at St.
Cyr he had known the great Englishman well by his works. The Professor
replied to the compliment in the language of his hosts, with a few
of his happy and kindly remarks. A gentleman high in the diplomatic
service, who was present, remarked that Faraday had said many things
which were not French, but not a word which ought not to be so.
More unrestricted was Faraday's sympathy with Nature. He felt the
poetry of the changing seasons, but there were two aspects of Nature
that especially seemed to claim communion with his spirit: he delighted
in a thunderstorm, and he experienced a pleasurable sadness as the
orange sunset faded into the evening twilight. There are other
minds to which both these sensations are familiar, but they seem to
have been felt with great intensity by him. No doubt his electrical
knowledge added much to his interest in the grand discharges from the
thunder-clouds, but it will hardly account for his standing long at a
window watching the vivid flashes, a stranger to fear, with his mind
full of lofty thoughts, or perhaps of high communings. Sometimes, too,
if the storm was at a little distance, he would summon a cab, and, in
spite of the pelting rain, drive to the scene of awful beauty.
On a clear starry night Captain Close quoted to him the words of
Lorenzo in the "Merchant of Venice:"--
... "Look, how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;
There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close us in, we cannot hear it."
Faraday, who happened not to be familiar with the passage, made his
friend repeat it over and over again as he drank in the whole meaning
of the poetry, for there is a true sense in which no other mortal had
ever opened his ears so fully to the harmony of the universe.
* * * * *
From the plains of mental mediocrity there occasionally rise the
mountains of genius, and from the dead level of selfish respectability
there stand out now and then the peaks of moral greatness. Neither
kind of excellence is so common as we could wish it, and it is a rare
coincidence when, as in Socrates, the two meet in the same individual.
In Faraday we have a modern instance. There are persons now living who
watched this man of strong will and intense feelings raising himself
from the lower ranks of society, yet without losing his balance; rather
growing in simplicity, disinterestedness, and humility, as princes
became his correspondents and all the learned bodies of the world vied
with each other to do him homage; still finding his greatest happiness
at home, though reigning in the affections of all his fellows,--loving
every honest man, however divergent in opinion, and loved most by those
who knew him best.
This is the phenomenon. By what theory is it to be accounted for?
The secret did not lie in the nature of his pursuits. This cannot
be better shown than in the following incident furnished me by Mrs.
Crosse:--"One morning, a few months after we were married, my husband
took me to the Royal Institution to call on Mr. and Mrs. Faraday. I had
not seen the laboratory there, and the philosopher very kindly took us
over the Institution, explaining for my information many objects of
interest. His great vivacity and cheeriness of manner surprised me in
a man who devoted his life to such abstruse studies, but I have since
learnt to know that the highest philosophical nature is often, indeed
generally, united with an almost childlike simplicity.
"After viewing the ample appliances for experimental research, and
feeling impressed by the scientific atmosphere of the place, I turned
and said, 'Mr. Faraday, you must be very happy in your position and
with your pursuits, which elevate you entirely out of the meaner
aspects and lower aims of common life.'
"He shook his head, and with that wonderful mobility of countenance
which was characteristic, his expression of joyousness changed to one
of profound sadness, he replied: 'When I quitted business, and took
to science as a career, I thought I had left behind me all the petty
meannesses and small jealousies which hinder man in his moral progress;
but I found myself raised into another sphere, only to find poor human
nature just the same everywhere--subject to the same weaknesses and the
same self-seeking, however exalted the intellect.'
"These were his words as well as I can recollect; and, looking at that
good and great man, I thought I had never seen a countenance which so
impressed me with the characteristic of perfect unworldliness. We know
how his life proved that this rare qualification was indeed his."
"Childlike simplicity:" "unworldliness." Where was the tree rooted
that bore such beautiful blossoms? Faraday had learnt in the school of
Christ to become "a little child," and he loved not the world because
the love of the Father was in him.
We have a charming glimpse of this in an extract which Professor
Tyndall has given from an old paper in which he wrote his impressions
after one of his earliest dinners with the philosopher:--"At two
o'clock he came down for me. He, his niece, and myself formed the
party. 'I never give dinners,' he said; 'I don't know how to give
dinners; and I never dine out. But I should not like my friends to
attribute this to a wrong cause. I act thus for the sake of securing
time for work, and not through religious motives as some imagine.' He
said grace. I am almost ashamed to call his prayer a 'saying' of grace.
In the language of Scripture, it might be described as the petition
of a son into whose heart God had sent the Spirit of His Son, and who
with absolute trust asked a blessing from his father. We dined on roast
beef, Yorkshire pudding, and potatoes, drank sherry, talked of research
and its requirements, and of his habit of keeping himself free from the
distractions of society. He was bright and joyful--boylike, in fact,
though he is now sixty-two. His work excites admiration, but contact
with him warms and elevates the heart. Here, surely, is a strong man.
I love strength, but let me not forget the example of its union with
modesty, tenderness, and sweetness, in the character of Faraday."
But his religion deserves a closer attention. When an errand-boy, we
find him hurrying the delivery of his newspapers on a Sunday morning
so as to get home in time to make himself neat to go with his parents
to chapel: his letters when abroad indicate the same disposition;
yet he did not make any formal profession of his faith till a month
after his marriage, when nearly thirty years of age. Of his spiritual
history up to that period little is known, but there seem to be good
grounds for believing that he did not accept the religion of his
fathers without a conscientious inquiry into its truth. It would be
difficult to conceive of his acting otherwise. But after he joined the
Sandemanian Church, his questionings were probably confined to matters
of practical duty; and to those who knew him best nothing could appear
stronger than his conviction of the reality of the things he believed.
In order to understand the life and character of Faraday, it is
necessary to bear in mind not merely that he was a Christian, but that
he was a Sandemanian. From his earliest years that religious system
stamped its impress deeply on his mind, it surrounded the blacksmith's
son with an atmosphere of unusual purity and refinement, it developed
the unselfishness of his nature, and in his after career it fenced his
life from the worldliness around, as well as from much that is esteemed
as good by other Christian bodies. To this small self-contained sect he
clung with warm attachment; he was precluded from Christian communion
or work outside their circle, but his sympathies at least burst all
narrow bounds. Thus the Abbé Moigno tells us that at Faraday's request
he one day introduced him to Cardinal Wiseman. The interview was very
cordial, and his Eminence did not hesitate frankly and good-naturedly
to ask Faraday if, in his deepest conviction, he believed all the
Church of Christ, holy, catholic, and apostolical, was shut up in
the little sect in which he bore rule. "Oh no!" was the reply; "but
I do believe from the bottom of my soul that Christ is with us."
There were other points, too, in his character which reflected the
colouring of the religious school to which he belonged. Thus, while
humility is inseparable from a Christian life, there is a special
phase of that virtue bred of those doctrines which teach that all our
righteousness must be the unmerited gift of another: these doctrines
are strongly insisted upon in the Sandemanian Church, and this humility
was acquired in an intense degree by its minister. Again, while all
Christians deplore the terrible amount of folly and sin in the world,
most recognize also a large amount of good, and believe in progressive
improvement; but small communities are apt to take gloomy views, and
so did Faraday, notwithstanding his personal happiness, and his firm
conviction that "there is One above who worketh in all things, and who
governs even in the midst of that misrule to which the tendencies and
powers of men are so easily perverted."
In writing to Professor Schönbein and a few other kindred spirits he
would turn naturally enough from scientific to religious thoughts,
and back again to natural philosophy, but he generally kept these two
departments of his mental activity strangely distinct; yet of course it
was well known that the Professor at Albemarle Street was one of that
long line of scientific men, beginning with the _savants_ of the East,
who have brought to the Redeemer the gold, frankincense, and myrrh of
their adoration.
But the peculiar features of Faraday's spiritual life are matters
of minor importance: the genuineness of his religious character is
acknowledged by all. We have admired his faithfulness, his amiability
of disposition, and his love of justice and truth; how far these
qualities were natural gifts, like his clearness of intellect, we
cannot precisely tell; but that he exercised constant self-control
without becoming hard, ascended the pathway of fame without ever losing
his balance, and shed around himself a peculiar halo of love and
joyousness, must be attributed in no small degree to a heart at peace
with God, and to the consciousness of a higher life.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] Bacon's "Novum Organum," i. 1.
[12] Bence Jones has used the Greek agapê; and it was just
this ideal of Christian love which Faraday set before himself.
[13] For this anecdote, and some others in inverted commas, I am
indebted to Mr. Frank Barnard.
[14] In another letter that Lady Burdett Coutts has kindly sent
me, Faraday says: "We had your box once before, I remember, for a
pantomime, which is always interesting to me because of the immense
concentration of means which it requires." In a third he makes admiring
comments on Fechter.