William Charles Macready to Faraday   1 March 1841¹

5, Clarence Terrace, Regt Park, | March 1st 1841.

My dear Sir,

Your kind letter was a great pleasure and a great disappointment to me. You gratified me very much in making me believe, that the difficulty of your refusal had reference to myself, but the refusal itself not even that it ought could console me far.

I thank you very much for your too liberal enclosure, which I hope will prove more than I have a right to receive:- The Committee upon their first meeting will settle the question of limitation or no limitation, and I trust will so settle it, that I shall be obliged to return you the greater part of your kind subscription. I will keep it unsealed till then, and inform you of their decision².

It seems to me, that you all, who range along the loftier heights of science rarely deign to reciprocate that homage, which is so reverentially accorded to you by those, who are comparatively idlers in the humble walks of art. I perhaps ought to not to say so to you, or to wish you to do anything, that would look like inconsistency:- indeed I would not have you do, if I had to decide the question. Still I grudge your absence[.]

Always my dear Sir | Most truly Yours | W.C. Macready

M. Faraday Esq.