Augusta Ada Lovelace to Faraday   1 December 1844

Dear Mr Faraday,

My engagements & also the rain prevented my looking in on you either yesterday or Friday¹. I do not know when you will return to Town, but I shall beg sometime for another hour or two from you in the evening.

We must talk business & science next time.

Pray do not fancy you are too plain & rough for me. You do not know how I have (for years past) dispensed with all the ordinary appurtenances & ceremonials of my situation in life.

I have in fact roughed it thoroughly, as they say;- & I am unused to adulation & attention; so much so that such are irksome & intolerable to me.

I have been highly trained, so to speak, to habits of independance or rather of self-dependance, in all respects.

Often I go about incog to all sorts of places, and travelling &c, quite unattended.

Of course I have thus to deal with various characters, to fight my own way, and to take care of myself in many ways.

All this is a very necessary training for one who dares to grasp at ambitious intellectual enterprises. There is an important connexion, tho' not a direct one, between these handy, these anti-luxurious, practical habits, & intellectual success. These practical daily habits, engender a certain state of mind & feeling, very promotive of all that is a sine quâ non to success in high intellectual training.

I write in a hurry, & perhaps I am not over clear in expressing to you all I mean.

If so, we can talk about it.

Ever yours | A.A.L

St. James' Sqre | Sunday

Endorsed by Faraday: Dec. 1, 1844