"I shall never look at the lightning flashes without recalling his delight in a beautiful storm. How he would stand at the window for hours, watching the effects and enjoying the scene; while we knew his mind was full of lofty thoughts; sometimes of the great Creator, and sometimes of the laws by which He sees meet to govern the earth. "I shall also always connect the sight of the hues of a brilliant sunset with him, and especially he will be present to my mind while I watch the fading of the tints into the sombre grey of night. He loved to have us with him, as he stood or sauntered on some open spot, and spoke his thoughts, perhaps in the words of Gray's Elegy, which he retained in memory, clearly, long after many other things had faded quite away. Then, as darkness stole on, his companions would gradually turn indoors, while he was well pleased to be left to solitary communings with his own thoughts." [Illustration: FARADAY'S TOMB AT HIGHGATE.] On the 25th of August, 1867, he passed quietly away, dying in his chair in his study at Hampton Court. His niece, Miss Barnard, from whose recollections we have learned much in earlier chapters, had spent a good part of her life with her aunt and uncle, and had helped to nurse the latter during the last few months. "My occupation has gone," she pathetically wrote to Dr. Bence Jones. On August 30th, the funeral took place, everything being conducted simply and quietly; it was, as Faraday had himself expressed a desire that it should be, strictly private. A plain headstone in Highgate Cemetery, with the following simple inscription, marks the place where lies all that was mortal of one of England's noblest sons. "MICHAEL FARADAY, Born, 22nd September, 1791, Died, 25th August, 1867" If it were necessary to add anything to these simple words that mark his resting-place, there might be put, and it would apply to Faraday as truly as to any man that ever lived, the well-known line-- "An honest man, the noblest work of God." [Illustration] FOOTNOTE: [9] Author of _Conversations on Chemistry_, a work which had had a considerable influence on Faraday in his early youth. [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII. AS FRIEND AND LECTURER. "I thought these men will carry hence Promptings their former life above, And something of a finer reverence For beauty, truth, and love." LOWELL.