s it might have led him. But the work was too heavy for his tired
brain. It was long before he could bring himself to relinquish it and
during this struggle he often suffered from fatigue of mind. It was at
this period, and before he resigned himself to the repose which marked
the last two years of his life, that he wrote to me the following
letter--one of many priceless letters now before me--which reveals, more
than anything another pen could express, the state of his mind at the
time. I was sometimes censured in his presence for my doings in the
Alps, but his constant reply was, 'Let him alone, he knows how to take
care of himself.' In this letter, anxiety on this score reveals itself
for the first time.

'Hampton Court, August 1, 1864.

'My Dear Tyndall,--I do not know whether my letter will catch you, but I
will risk it, though feeling very unfit to communicate with a man whose
life is as vivid and active as yours; but the receipt of your kind
letter makes me to know that, though I forget, I am not forgotten, and
though I am not able to remember at the end of a line what was said at
the beginning of it, the imperfect marks will convey to you some sense
of what I long to say. We had heard of your illness through Miss Moore,
and I was therefore very glad to learn that you are now quite well;
do not run too many risks or make your happiness depend too much upon
dangers, or the hunting of them. Sometimes the very thinking of you, and
what you may be about, wearies me with fears, and then the cogitations
pause and change, but without giving me rest. I know that much of this
depends upon my own worn-out nature, and I do not know why I write
it, save that when I write to you I cannot help thinking it, and the
thoughts stand in the way of other matter.

* * * * *

'See what a strange desultory epistle I am writing to you, and yet I
feel so weary that I long to leave my desk and go to the couch.

'My dear wife and Jane desire their kindest remembrances: I hear them in
the next room:... I forget--but not you, my dear Tyndall, for I am

'Ever yours,

'M. Faraday.'

This weariness subsided when he relinquished his work, and I have a
cheerful letter from him, written in the autumn of 1865. But towards
the close of that year he had an attack of illness, from which he never
completely rallied. He continued to attend the Friday Evening Meetings,
but the advance of infirmity was apparent to us all. Complete rest
becam