[5] The following anecdote has been sent me on the authority of Mr. Benjamin Abbott:--"Sergeant Anderson was engaged to attend to the furnaces in Mr. Faraday's researches on optical glass in 1828, and was chosen simply because of the habits of strict obedience his military training had given him. His duty was to keep the furnaces always at the same heat, and the water in the ashpit always at the same level. In the evening he was released, but one night Faraday forgot to tell Anderson he could go home, and early next morning he found his faithful servant still stoking the glowing furnace, as he had been doing all night long." A more probable and better authenticated version of this story is that after nightfall Anderson went upstairs to Faraday, who was already in bed, to inquire if he was to remain still on duty. [6] One evening, when the Rev. A. J. D'Orsey was lecturing "On the Study of the English Language," he mentioned as a common vulgarism that of using "don't" in the third person singular, as "He don't pay his debts." Faraday exclaimed aloud, "That's very wrong." [7] The _St. Paul's Magazine_, June 1870. [8] _British Quarterly Review_, April 1868. [9] See Appendix. [10] No wonder the celebrated electrician P. Riess, of Berlin, once addressed a long letter to him as "Professor Michael Faraday, Member of all Academies of Science, London." SECTION II. STUDY OF HIS CHARACTER. In the previous section we have traced the leading events of a life which was quietly and uniformly successful. We have watched the passage of the errand-boy into the philosopher, and we have seen how at first he begged for the meanest place in a scientific workshop, and at last declined the highest honour which British Science was capable of granting. His success did not lie in the amassing of money--he deliberately turned aside from the path of proffered wealth; nor did it lie in the attainment of social position and titles--he did not care for the weight of these. But if success consists in a life full of agreeable occupation, with the knowledge that its labours are adding to the happiness and wealth of the world, leading on to an old age full of honour, and the prospect of a blissful immortality,--then the highest success crowned the life of Faraday. How did he obtain it? Not by inheritance, and not by the force of circumstances. The wealth or the reputation of fathers is often an invaluable starting-point for sons: a liberal education and the contact of superior minds in early youth is often a mighty help to the young aspirant: the favour of powerful friends will often place on a vantage-ground the struggler in the battle of life. But Faraday had none of these. Accidental circumstances sometimes push a man forward, or give him a special advantage over his fellows; but Faraday had to make his circumstances, and to seize the small favours that fortune sometimes threw in his way. The secret of his success lay in the qualities of his mind.