MY DEAR SCHÖNBEIN,--I wish I could talk with you, instead of being obliged to use pen and paper. I have fifty matters to speak about, but either they are too trifling for writing, or too important, for what can one discuss or say in a letter?... By the bye, I have been working with the oxygen of the air also. You remember that three years ago I distinguished it as a magnetic gas in my paper on the diamagnetism of flame and gases founded on Bancalari’s experiment. Now I find in it the cause of all the annual and diurnal, and many of the irregular, variations in the terrestrial magnetism. The observations made at Hobarton, Toronto, Greenwich, St. Petersburg, Washington, St. Helena, the Cape of Good Hope, and Singapore, all appear to me to accord with and support my hypothesis. I will not pretend to give you an account of it here, for it would require some detail, and I really am weary of the subject. I have sent in three long papers to the Royal Society, and you shall have copies of them in due time.... Ever, my dear Schönbein, most truly yours, M. FARADAY. [Sidenote: PAPERS TO BE LET LOOSE.] While writing out these researches for the Royal Society, he had been staying in Upper Norwood. He wrote thus of himself to Miss Moore at the end of August:-- We have taken a little house here on the hill-top, where I have a small room to myself, and have, ever since we came here, been deeply immersed in magnetic cogitations. I write, and write, and write, until three papers for the Royal Society are nearly completed, and I hope that two of them will be good if they justify my hopes, for I have to criticise them again and again before I let them loose. You shall hear of them at some of the Friday evenings. At present I must not say more. After writing, I walk out in the evening, hand-in-hand with my dear wife, to enjoy the sunset; for to me, who love scenery, of all that I have seen or can see there is none surpasses that of Heaven. A glorious sunset brings with it a thousand thoughts that delight me. To De la Rive he wrote later as follows:-- [_M. Faraday to A. de la Rive._] Royal Institution, February 4, 1851. MY DEAR DE LA RIVE,--My wife and I were exceedingly sorry to hear of your sad loss. It brought vividly to our remembrance the time when we were at your house, and you, and others with you, made us so welcome. What can we say to these changes but that they show by comparison the vanity of all things under the sun? I am very glad that you have spirits to return to work again, for that is a healthy and proper employment of the mind under such circumstances.