he permitted himself to use to me." The required apology came, frank and full, creditable, I thought, alike to the prime minister and the philosopher.
Considering the enormous strain imposed on Faraday's intellect, the boy-like buoyancy even of his later years was astonishing. He was often prostrate, but he had immense resiliency, which he brought into action by getting away from London whenever his health failed. I have already indicated the thoughts which filled his mind during the evening of his life. He brooded on magnetic media and lines of force; and the great object of the last investigation he ever undertook was the decision of the question whether magnetic force requires time for its propagation. How he proposed to attack this subject we may never know. But he has left some beautiful apparatus behind; delicate wheels and pinions, and associated mirrors, which were to have been employed in the investigation. The mere conception of such an inquiry is an illustration of his strength and hopefulness, and it is impossible to say to what results 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,
