Faraday to Sarah Barnard   December 18201

Royal Institution: Tuesday evening

My dear Sarah, - It is astonishing how much the state of the body influences the powers of the mind. I have been thinking all the morning of the very delightful and interesting letter I would send you this evening, and now I am so tired, and yet have so much to do, that my thoughts are quite giddy, and run round your image without any power of themselves to stop and admire it. I want to say a thousand kind and, believe me, heartfelt things to you, but am not master of words fit for the purpose; and still, as I ponder and think on you, chlorides, trials2, oil, Davy, steel, miscellanea3, mercury4, and fifty other professional fancies swim before and drive me further and further into the quandary of stupidness.

From your affectionate | Michael

Date given in Bence Jones (1870a), 1: 322.
The case of Severn and King v the Phoenix Insurance Company was heard from 13 to 19 December 1820. See note 1, letter 110 and Fullmer (1980).
Of the Quart.J.Sci.
On which Faraday was working. See Faraday Diary, 21 October 1820, 1: 28 and Faraday (1821b).

Bibliography

BENCE JONES, Henry (1870a): The Life and Letters of Faraday, 1st edition, 2 volumes, London.

FARADAY, Michael (1821b): “On the Vapour of Mercury at common Temperatures”, Quart. J. Sci., 10: 354-55.

FULLMER, June Z. (1980): “Technology, Chemistry, and the Law in Early 19th-Century England”, Tech. Cult., 21: 1-28.

Please cite as “Faraday0122,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 29 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday0122