"You know me as well or better than I do myself. You know my former prejudices and my present thoughts; you know my weaknesses, my vanity, my whole mind; you have converted me from one erroneous way; let me hope that you will attempt to correct what others are wrong.... Again and again I attempt to say what I feel, but I cannot. Let me, however, claim not to be the selfish being that wishes to bend his affections for his own sake only. In whatever way I can best minister to your happiness, either by assiduity or by absence, it shall be done. Do not injure me by withdrawing your friendship, or punish me for aiming to be more than a friend by making me less; and if you cannot grant me more, leave me what I possess but hear me." In spite of the sincere feeling of this letter, the lady hesitated. For a time she left London, apparently in order to give herself a breathing spell from the ardor of his suit. In spite of his deep interest in science, Faraday followed her to the seacoast, and after they had wandered together for several days at Margate and Dover, where Shakespeare's Cliff Was an especial haunt of theirs, the lady relented. Faraday returned to London bubbling over with happiness. He was not quite thirty when they were married, and at the time his salary did not amount to more than a thousand dollars a year. It was distinctly not a marriage of reason. Most of the happiness of his life came to him from his marriage. Many years afterward, he called it "An event which, more than any other, contributed to my happiness and healthful state of mind." With years, this feeling only deepened and strengthened. In the midst of his scientific triumphs, his first thought was always of her. When his attendance at scientific congresses took him away from her, his letters were frequent, and always expressive of his longing to be with her. One of his biographers has said "that doubtless at any time between their marriage and his final illness, he might have written to her as he did from Birmingham, at the time of the meeting of the British Association there." "After all, there is no pleasure like the tranquil pleasure of home; and here, the moment I leave the table, I wish I were with you _in quiet_. Oh! what happiness is ours! My runs into the world in this way only serve to make me esteem that happiness the more." Faraday had probably lost more illusions than most men, and came to the true appreciation of things as they are. In spite of his life-long study, he had no illusions with regard to the education of the intellect merely, or the possession of superior intellectual faculties as moral factors. His keen observation of men had made any such mistake as that impossible. On the other hand, he had often noted that the ignorant, or at least those lacking education, were very admirable in conduct and in principle, and so we have his suggestive testimony: