Faraday to William Charles Macready   6 October 1837

R Institution | 6 Octr 1837

Dear Sir

Though surprised at the receipt of your note & card I was also very much delighted with it. Not that it gave me a free admission to your Theatre1, of which all have such high expectations, but that it reincurred the remembrance of a meeting that I had the honor of having with you many years ago at a friends house in Gt Marlborough Street2[.]

Accept my very sincere thanks for your kindness. I am obliged to return the card because I have no right to take the title you have attached to my name, nor indeed wish to have; and you are one of those that I should be sorry to leave in a mistake on that point. The honor is all very well where well placed: but the government have never offered me the title, as indeed there is no reason why they should, and if they were to do so I hope they would allow me to decline it3[.]

I am My dear Sir | Your Very Obliged Servant | M. Faraday

W.C. Macready Esq | &c &c &c

1
On 30 September 1837, the Covent Garden Theatre reopened with Macready as manager. See Macready (1875), 432.
2
Possibly Charles Joseph Hullmandel (1789-1850, DNB, lithographer) who lived at 49 Great Marlborough Street.
3
In his diary for 6 October 1837, Macready noted receipt of this letter and his response (letter 1041). Macready (1875), 433.

Bibliography

MACREADY, William Charles (1875): Reminiscences, and Selections from His Diaries and Letters, London.

Please cite as “Faraday1040,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday1040