This exposure excited great interest at the time, and there was an active correspondence in _The Times_. The spiritualists, instead of appreciating the services to truth rendered by the man of science, railed bitterly at him. Even the refined and noble spirit of Mrs. Browning was so dominated by the superstition of the moment that, as shown by her recently published letters, she denounced Faraday in singularly acrimonious terms, and taunted him for shallow materialism! What Faraday thought of the hubbub evoked by his action is best learned from a letter which he addressed three weeks later to his friend Schönbein:-- I have not been at work except in turning the tables upon the table-turners, nor should I have done that, but that so many inquiries poured in upon me, that I thought it better to stop the inpouring flood by letting all know at once what my views and thoughts were. What a weak, credulous, incredulous, unbelieving, superstitious, bold, frightened, what a ridiculous world ours is, as far as concerns the mind of man. How full of inconsistencies, contradictions, and absurdities it is. I declare that, taking the average of many minds that have recently come before me (and apart from that spirit which God has placed in each), and accepting for a moment that average as a standard, I should far prefer the obedience, affections, and instinct of a dog before it. Do not whisper this, however, to others. 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. He declined an invitation in 1855 to see manifestations by the medium Home, saying that he had “lost too much time about such matters already.” Nine years later the Brothers Davenport invited him to witness their cabinet “manifestations.” Again he declined, and added: “I will leave the spirits to find out for themselves how they can move my attention. I am tired of them.” In this year he wrote to _The Times_ respecting the disgraceful and insanitary condition of the river Thames. In _Punch_ of the following week appeared a cartoon representing Faraday presenting his card to old Father Thames, who rises holding his nose to avoid the stench. [Sidenote: FAILURE OF MEMORY.] With increasing age the infirmity of loss of memory made itself increasingly felt. He alludes frequently to this in his letters. To one friend who upbraided him gently for not having replied to a letter he says: “Do you remember that I forget?” To another he says he is forgetting how to spell such words as “withhold” and “successful.” To Matteucci, in 1849, he bemoans how, after working for six weeks at certain experiments, he found, on looking back to his notes, he had ascertained all the same results eight or nine months before, and had entirely forgotten them! In the same year he wrote to Dr. Percy:--