Faraday to Benjamin Abbott   14 January 1816

R.I. Sunday Evening

Dear Abbott

I promised to write to you at the end of the last week and yet have suffered this to commence without doing so however I haste to follow my past word and endeavour (vainly) to overtake it if I had chosen a roguish part I might have put saturday evening at the top have deceived you and in losing my credit have saved it. I was aware however that in the latter part of this paper it would be sure to go and then so small a thing as the above became of no consequence[.]

I am much vexed at the circumstance of my present situation rendering me incapable of making the arrangement you desire[.] I had fixed tomorrow or Tuesday as days convenient to me but on speaking to Mrs. Greenwood for tea equipage and the &c &c she gave me to understand that I should run the risk of being censured for breaking the rules of the house and as the Managers meet very often of being called to answer to a breach of appearances.- I endeavoured to modify things in some way so as to suit all parties but found I could not gain my point at this time of the year - Had Mrs Greenwood health permitted her she could have received you for me but at present it is so low and so much impaired that I cannot ask such a thing - and so for the present Dear Ben I am obliged very reluctantly to decline the honor intended me.

I had when I read your first letter a great deal to say in answer to it but I do not feel inclined to take up the subject at present indeed there is not much in it but may be settled with a few yes’s & no’s and as my tone of mind is not just now what it was at the reading I shall adopt & have adopted the latter more concise method of answering you - You hint at a sheet full of observations on Lectures & Lecturers - and you shall have it some time or another but as I intend making some experiments on that subject soon I will defer it till after such experiments are made1. In the meantime as preparatory & introductory to such a course of experiments I will ask your opinions of & observations on English composition - style - delivery - reading - oratory - grammar - pronunciation - perspicacity & in general, all the branches into which the Belles Lettres divide themselves and if by asking I procure I shall congratulate myself on the acquisition of much useful knowledge & experience[.]

I must bid you good night Ben for I am quite tired & very dull.

Yours ever | M. Faraday

11. o’clk


Address: Mr. B. Abbott | Long Lane | Bermondsey

Postmark: <<1>>5 JA

Faraday gave his first lecture to the City Philosophical Society on 17 January 1816 “On the general properties of matter”. Text in “Chemistry Lectures”, IEE MS SC 2.

Please cite as “Faraday0062,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 29 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday0062