Faraday to Christian Friedrich Schoenbein   16 May 1843

Royal Institution | 16 May 1843

My dear friend

I must begin to write you a letter, though feeling as I do in the midst of one of my low nervous attacks with memory so treacherous that I cannot remember the beginning of a sentence to the end - hand disobedient to the will that I cannot form the letters but with a certain crampness so I hardly know whether I shall bring it to a close with consistency or not. But that most valued thing your kindness moves me to write when to another I would not reveal my weakness by a halting letter. As to your opinion & power of judgement &c of a certain person I have no doubt the advantages you possess which I admit have shewn you blemishes as well as beauties but I will not put your candour to the test by asking for them. The glass of a kind heart through which you look has something to do with the matter[.]

Now as to the book¹ in English I am afraid to say any thing on the matter² not because of my opinion of it for how can that be anything but favourable but because of the woeful mistakes which I have made in judgments of this kind before[.] I will tell you a case a dear friend a foreigner³ now dead sent me a MS. on English Scientific matters⁴ which I thought good & booksellers of character told me they thought good & attractive; in one way or another it led to the printing & publishing of the work⁵. I paid for the printing and did not receive a farthing back from the sale. I could not tell my friend this he never asked for or had an account, and the thought often comes back to my mind that up to the day of his death he might perhaps imagine I had made a profit by his work & never rendered him an account. So much for my judgment in these matters. In fact I find the Booksellers prospects nothing but words words words. I wish Murray would take your work in his own hands for then I know he would use a sound discretion but I do not know how to get him to do so[.]

As to the steam paper⁶ it is now printing & when you have it I hope you will think the reasoning satisfactory - the point that the water must be pure is a very strong one as a ground for conclusions. As to Grove I do not recollect that he says isolated oxygen & hydrogen can by combining produce a current of electricity - but I have no confidence in my memory in such matters⁷. I have been reading with great pleasure some of your papers lately but am so confused I cannot just now remember which but I have not yet touched No. 7 of the Archives where I see your name⁸ - it now lies before me but fear to read because of the giddiness[.]

De la Rive is here & I have seen his experiment on the increase of the decomposing power of a single pair of plates by adding in the inductive force brought into play at the moment of interrupting the current⁹[.] Grove brought the account over from Paris & tells me that he found all here that he spoke to apparently aware of the effect[.] I imagine this was only because they recognized in it an action due to the principle I had examined in Exp Research series IX, especially as illustrated at 1084¹⁰. For myself I thank De la Rive for a very beautiful form of the application though it is the same principle & I do not see why a thermo current should not be exalted in the same manner until it could effect chemical action and now indeed I have a faint recollection that Watkins¹¹ or somebody has done that also¹²[.]

I grieve to hear of Mrs. Schoenbeins illness & cares with the children I wish there were nothing but happy pleasure in her way. But all these cares have their reward in a Mothers bosom, & though we dislike them at the moment it is better they should be than not[.] Nevertheless I am very glad to find that all are improving. The kindest thoughts from us both to you both.

Ever My dear Schoenbein Your | faithful friend | M. Faraday

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