Faraday to John Frederic Daniell   6 November 1832

Royal Institution | 6th Novr. 1832.

Dear Daniell,

I write in haste that my messenger may reach you immediately after your Lecture. I am very sorry to say I cannot be with you this evening but I have been down & up again two or three times since we met at Dr. Paris’1 house and yesterday after the Meeting of Members2 an attack of Cholera3 slight but yet very annoying & depressing came on so that I am not just now very fit for the lecture I must give4. I hoped that during the night it might pass away & that I should be able to hold my pleasant engagement with you & Mrs. Daniell5 but I feel very low &c &c and am afraid I may not expect much degree of improvement by the evening.

Give my kind remembrances to Mrs Daniell & your family. I care less for the illness than the loss of the pleasure I expected because the pleasure is just of that kind which I can enjoy whereas ordinary i.e extra dinners are little to except as proofs of the kind feeling of my friends[.]

I should perhaps have written to Mrs. Daniell but I could not so well explain in that case the imperative nature of the cause which holds me from you[.]

I am | My Dear Sir | Yours Very faithfully | M. Faraday

J.F. Daniell Esq | &c &c

I shall tell the messenger to wait answer merely to be sure you receive my letter.


Address: Professor Daniell | &c &c &c | Laboratory | Kings College

1
John Ayrton Paris (1785–1856, ODNB). Physician and first biographer of Humphry Davy.
2
RI MS GM, 5 November 1832, 4: 200-2.
3
Although cholera had broken out in London in October 1831, Faraday would have been recording an attack of diarrhoea here.
4
This was a morning chemistry lecture. See RI MS Le2, p.33.
5
Charlotte Daniell, née Rule (d.1834, ODNB under J.F. Daniell). Married Daniell in 1817.

Please cite as “Faraday0622b,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday0622b