other similar form:--'Dear Tyndall,--I was
looking for you, because we were at tea--we have not yet done--will you
come up?' I frequently shared his early dinner; almost always, in fact,
while my lectures were going on. There was no trace of asceticism in his
nature. He preferred the meat and wine of life to its locusts and wild
honey. Never once during an intimacy of fifteen years did he mention
religion to me, save when I drew him on to the subject. He then spoke
to me without hesitation or reluctance; not with any apparent desire to
'improve the occasion,' but to give me such information as I sought.
He believed the human heart to be swayed by a power to which science
or logic opened no approach, and, right or wrong, this faith, held in
perfect tolerance of the faiths of others, strengthened and beautified
his life.

From the letters just referred to, I will select three for publication
here. I choose the first, because it contains a passage revealing the
feelings with which Faraday regarded his vocation, and also because it
contains an allusion which will give pleasure to a friend.

'Royal Institution. [ this is crossed out by Faraday ]

'Ventnor, Isle of Wight, June 28, 1854.

'My Dear Tyndall,--You see by the top of this letter how much habit
prevails over me; I have just read yours from thence, and yet I think
myself there. However, I have left its science in very good keeping, and
I am glad to learn that you are at experiment once more. But how is the
health? Not well, I fear. I wish you would get yourself strong first
and work afterwards. As for the fruits, I am sure they will be good, for
though I sometimes despond as regards myself, I do not as regards you.
You are young, I am old.... But then our subjects are so glorious,
that to work at them rejoices and encourages the feeblest; delights and
enchants the strongest.

'I have not yet seen anything from Magnus. Thoughts of him always
delight me. We shall look at his black sulphur together. I heard from
Schonbein the other day. He tells me that Liebig is full of ozone, i.e.,
of allotropic oxygen.

'Good-bye for the present.

'Ever, my dear Tyndall,

'Yours truly,

'M. Faraday.'

The contemplation of Nature, and his own relation to her, produced in
Faraday a kind of spiritual exaltation which makes itself manifest here.
His religious feeling and his philosophy could not be kept apart; there
was an habitual overflow of the one into the other.