he
hours after work, that I found the beginning of my philosophy.

There were two that especially helped me, the "Encyclopaedia
Britannica," from which I gained my first notions of electricity, and
Mrs. Marcet's "Conversation on Chemistry," which gave me my foundation
in that science.

'Do not suppose that I was a very deep thinker, or was marked as a
precocious person. I was a very lively imaginative person, and could
believe in the "Arabian Nights" as easily as in the "Encyclopaedia."
But facts were important to me, and saved me. I could trust a fact, and
always cross-examined an assertion. So when I questioned Mrs. Marcet's
book by such little experiments as I could find means to perform, and
found it true to the facts as I could understand them, I felt that I
had got hold of an anchor in chemical knowledge, and clung fast to
it. Thence my deep veneration for Mrs. Marcet--first as one who had
conferred great personal good and pleasure on me; and then as one able
to convey the truth and principle of those boundless fields of knowledge
which concern natural things to the young, untaught, and inquiring mind.

'You may imagine my delight when I came to know Mrs. Marcet personally;
how often I cast my thoughts backward, delighting to connect the
past and the present; how often, when sending a paper to her as a
thank-offering, I thought of my first instructress, and such like
thoughts will remain with me.

'I have some such thoughts even as regards your own father; who was,
I may say, the first who personally at Geneva, and afterwards by
correspondence, encouraged, and by that sustained me.'

Twelve or thirteen years ago Mr. Faraday and myself quitted the
Institution one evening together, to pay a visit to our friend Grove in
Baker Street. He took my arm at the door, and, pressing it to his
side in his warm genial way, said, 'Come, Tyndall, I will now show you
something that will interest you.' We walked northwards, passed the
house of Mr. Babbage, which drew forth a reference to the famous evening
parties once assembled there. We reached Blandford Street, and after a
little looking about he paused before a stationer's shop, and then went
in. On entering the shop, his usual animation seemed doubled; he looked
rapidly at everything it contained. To the left on entering was a door,
through which he looked down into a little room, with a window in front
facing Blandford Street. Drawing me towards him, he said eagerly, 'L