In all his letters we find a charm in the simple earnestness of the man, in his straightforward search for truth, in the unreserved openness which characterised him when corresponding with one whom he not only called a friend, but treated as such on all occasions. Simplicity, in its best and highest meaning, was, if we can in one word sum up the character of a man, the chief feature of Faraday in all his relations throughout life. Through all his letters to his intimate friends, too, there runs a vein of unaffected pleasantry which shows us at once that he was no "mere scientist," no "dry-as-dust" philosopher, which is a character too often given by thoughtless and careless persons to men who earn their laurels in any special field of research. We find that the great chemist or philosopher is not only a great scientist, but that he is also, as Faraday undoubtedly was, a man of a simple, earnest, reverent nature, a man whose married life was one series of years of love-making, who was a cheerful, pleasant friend and companion, and intense and earnest lover of children. Perhaps I cannot better conclude this chapter than by giving a few passages from his early letters, passages that will fully bear out much of what is said in the preceding paragraph. It was in July, 1812, three months before the articles of his apprenticeship ran out, that Faraday began his letters to Abbott; he was not as yet twenty-one years of age, his early education, as we have seen, had been chiefly the three R's, yet we find these letters eminently remarkable for their correctness and fluency, not less than for their kindness, courtesy, and candour. His first letter to Abbott is, indeed, doubly interesting, for it gives us the earliest account we have of any of his experiments. After writing a good deal on what he considers to be the advantage of a correspondence, he continues: "I have lately made a few simple galvanic experiments, merely to illustrate to myself the first principles of the science.... I, sir, I my own self, cut out seven discs of the size of halfpennies each! I, sir, covered them with seven halfpence, and I interposed between seven, or rather six, pieces of paper soaked in a solution of muriate of soda!!! But laugh no longer, dear A.; rather wonder at the effects this trivial power produced. It was sufficient to produce the decomposition of sulphate of magnesia--an effect which extremely surprised me; for I did not, could not, have any idea that the agent was competent to the purpose."