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,
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 became finally essential to him, and he ceased to appear among us. There was no pain in his decline to trouble the memory of those who loved him. Slowly and peacefully he sank towards his final rest, and when it came, his death was a falling asleep. In the fulness of his honours and of his age he quitted us; the good fight fought, the work of duty—shall I not say of glory-done. The "Jane" referred to in the foregoing letter is Faraday's niece, Miss Jane Barnard, who, with an affection raised almost to religious devotion, watched him and tended him to the end.
I saw Mr. Faraday for the first time on my return from Marburg in 1850. I came to the Royal Institution, and sent up my card, with a copy of the paper which Knoblauch and myself had just completed. He came down and conversed with me for half-an-hour. I could not fail to remark the wonderful play of intellect and kindly feeling exhibited by his countenance. When he was in good health the question of his age would never occur to you. In the light and laughter of his eyes you never thought of his grey hairs. He was then on the point of publishing one of his papers on magne-crystallic action, and he had time to refer in a flattering note to the
