Faraday to Jean-Baptiste-André Dumas   29 April 1840

Royal Institution | 29 April 1840

My kind friend

When I came home the other day from the country, where I had been for healths sake, the most pleasant thing to greet me was your affectionate face and your paper still more touching because of the brief but pleasant words upon it and today on my return from Woolwich I find your most welcome letter and the glasses of M. Guinand¹[.] Believe me very grateful for your kindness and the more so as I feel quite undeserving of it[.] You know that I am a recluse & unsocial and have no right to share in the mutual good feeling of Society at large for the man that does not take his share of goodwill into the common stock has no claim on others[.] Such is not the case I hope from any cold or morose feeling in the heart but from particular circumstances amongst which are especially mental fatigue and loss of memory[.] Do not think therefore that I am unaffected by your kindness of which I feel quite unworthy[.] It has disturbed my feelings the more as it was quite unexpected, for knowing your high station in science & seeing your value as a man I did not think you would spare much thought for me after your return to Paris²[.]

I must not let you mistake me. You speak in your letter of an election and your wish that my name had been chosen³. I had not before heard of it but I know that whomever the Academy has chosen must be more fit than myself[.] I feel ever grateful but still unworthy of the honor the Academy has already done me⁴ and I have a consciousness within that the time is past in which I could make myself more deserving. It is not for these things that I feel most grateful to you (though for them I earnestly thank you) but for your kindness & affection which is to me of more value than distinction & renown[.] How I shall ever return your goodness I do not know except by words of acknowledgment for I feel as if all the power of doing pleasant things was on your part & none on mine[.]

You remind me of two of your countrymen alas no more to whom I was most deeply indebted and yet if I remember aright whose faces I never saw, Ampere and Hachette⁵[.] When a young man and fearful of venturing into science because of the hard feelings I saw around me both these wrote to me when I durst not have ventured to speak to them & cheered me & gave me that confidence to which the little I have done if it is any thing at all is entirely due⁶[.]

I could run on sometime this way for the subject tempts me but must not[.] Will you thank M. Guinand for me when you see him[.] I will write to him soon. I have not yet seen Monsieur Thomas⁷ but shall call on him this afternoon. I hear he leaves London tomorrow morning but I hope still to see him[.] May every happiness be with you & Madame Dumas⁸ to whom offer my humble respects. I would mention a name or two and amongst them Arago, Biot & Becquerell, but I must not give you trouble & will write. I am in all sincerity Dear Sir Your obliged and | most grateful Servant. | M. Faraday

Monsieur Dumas &c &c &c