Faraday to Christian Friedrich Schoenbein   10 August 1842

Tynemouth | 10 August 1842.

My dear Schoenbein

I have received both your letters i.e those of the dates of April 9th and July 8th¹ the last just now at Tynemouth - so that if your friend went to the Institution I lost the pleasure of seeing him and in any little attention to him the pleasure of doing any thing as thanks to you for your continual & unvarying kindness which is to me of great value for though I now feel pretty nearly excluded as a workman in science it would grieve me much to think that I was forgotten by the few friends which similarity of pursuit has accidentally as it were made for me. I rather hope & am persuaded of it in your case that whilst they vigorously run their successful career they will let me look on & rejoice in their progress[.]

We have been here (Northumberland) for 5 or 6 weeks and must soon return home again[.] Although I am ashamed to write about myself yet I am sure you will wish to know that I am well in bodily health & in good spirits as long as I do not exert my memory it remains just as it was[.]

You appear to have heard that I was at Manchester and so I was in a manner but if you had been there I should not have seen you and did not have the pleasure of hearing your papers which however I think were read² but I have no access to any report here & cannot from memory tell you whether I did or did not read a report of it in the papers sent me. The facts are these I did not mean to go but the Society of Sciences at Modena wrote to Herschel & myself saying they had appointed us to represent them at the Association and as he at first said he could not go & wrote to me on the matter I went to Manchester and made my appearance at the Committee meeting on the day previous to the opening of the General Meeting and reported the credentials of the Society which I represented³; having done that I left Manchester early in the morning in which the great body met & so escaped to London.

The volumes you sent and of which I think I know the author I immediately conveyed to their destination. You know I do not read German but just before I came here I was looking at some of the words which caught my attention & guessing at the meaning suspect the book was written by a very partial friend of mine⁴. The volume is now in the hands of a friend who when I go back is to tell me something of what it says[.]

I shall look for Your paper in the Archives⁵ with some impatience. I see that in No. 4 De la Rive says he was obliged to postpone it to the next number⁶ where I suppose I shall find the account of the Iron battery also⁷. That Iron is a very various matter & evidently must be of great importance to the theory of Electrical action because it is a case of one substance assuming such different conditions of electrical action[.] I hope you will ultimately find the key to all the phenomena which no doubt are simple and <I> am fully persuaded great discoveries (now unexpected) <will> be the reward[.]

Pray give my kindest remembrances to Mrs Schoenbein and try to raise up a recollection of me in the minds of the children[.] I wonder whether they would know me if they saw me again[.] My wife unites in best wishes & thoughts to Yourself & your wife. May you both enjoy together all the health & happiness that a contented mind can desire[.]

Ever Most Truly Yours | M. Faraday

Address: Dr Schoenbein | Professor | &c &c &c | Basle | on the Rhine