Michael Faraday: Third Edition, with PortraitGladstone, J. H. (John Hall)
Science
Michael Faraday: Third Edition, with Portrait
Gladstone, J. H. (John Hall)
Faraday, Michael, 1791-1867
"I am grieved to hear that your brain is weary; this has sometimes
happened on former occasions, in consequence of your numerous and
persevering labours, and you will bear in mind that a little rest is
necessary to restore you. You possess that which best contributes to
peace of mind and serenity of spirit--a full and perfect faith, a pure
and tranquil conscience, filling your heart with the glorious hopes
which the Gospel imparts. You have also the advantage of having always
led a smooth and well-regulated life, free from ambition, and therefore
exempt from all the anxieties and drawbacks which are inseparable from
it. Honour has sought you in spite of yourself; you have known, without
despising it, how to value it at its true worth. You have known how to
gain the high esteem, and at the same time the affection, of all those
acquainted with you.
"Moreover, thanks to the goodness of God, you have not suffered any of
those family misfortunes which crush one's life. You should, therefore,
watch the approach of old age without fear and without bitterness,
having the comforting feeling that the wonders which you have been
able to decipher in the book of nature must contribute to the greater
reverence and adoration of their Supreme Author.
"Such, my dear friend, is the impression that your beautiful life
always leaves upon me; and when I compare it with our troubled and
ill-fulfilled life-course, with all that accumulation of drawbacks and
griefs by which mine in particular has been attended, I put you down as
very happy, especially as you are worthy of your good fortune. This
leads me to reflect on the miserable state of those who are without
that religious faith which you possess in so great a degree."
In M. Dumas' Eloge at the Académie des Sciences, occur the following
sentences:--
"I do not know whether there is a _savant_ who would not feel happy in
leaving behind him such works as those with which Faraday has gladdened
his contemporaries, and which he has left as a legacy to posterity: but
I am certain that all those who have known him would wish to approach
that moral perfection which he attained to without effort. In him it
appeared to be a natural grace, which made him a professor full of
ardour for the diffusion of truth, an indefatigable worker, full of
enthusiasm and sprightliness in his laboratory, the best and most
amiable of men in the bosom of his family, and the most enlightened
preacher amongst the humble flock whose faith he followed.
"The simplicity of his heart, his candour, his ardent love of the
truth, his fellow-interest in all the successes, and ingenuous
admiration of all the discoveries of others, his natural modesty in
regard to what he himself discovered, his noble soul--independent and
bold,--all these combined gave an incomparable charm to the features of
the illustrious physicist.
"I have never known a man more worthy of being loved, of being admired,
of being mourned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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