Faraday to Jean-Baptiste-André Dumas   28 December 1849

Royal Institution | 28, Decr. 1849

My dear friend

I feel as if I were writing a last letter to you; for I can hardly think your duty & high occupation, apart as it is from every link that can recall or relate to a remembrance of me, can ever leave you a moment for imagination to travel hitherward: but, whatever our different destinies in, and paths through, life; that you may be prosperous in your proceedings & happy in your heart and home is the earnest hope & wish of one who will never forget you. It was a great grief to me to miss the meeting with your Son¹. They told me at the Hotel he would leave England in the evening & I found afterwards he was a day or two longer in London. I think I must have made some mistake between him & the son whom I met with at the Jardin des Plants²; however, I trust he will be as kind as his father, and excuse any written mistakes in my note to him[.]

Though I was very glad to see your handwriting³, yet I must confess, that, in the matter of M. Milne Edwards, I felt somewhat humbled in the thought that he would not come to me without a letter:- does he think that I have forgotten the Evening when he & I passed over from your house to his?⁴ he was too kind, for me to lose the remembrance of it. If you see him again tell him I am almost inclined to reproach him.

But I must consider your time and thoughts. I do not know where I ought to direct this letter, but, for the old associations sake, shall send it to the Institute: and as I have a paper in hand⁵, when it is printed I shall still send you a copy, and so on indeed till I hear I ought not. With our kindest remembrances to Madame Dumas and to both your sons I remain Ever My dear friend

Yours | M. Faraday

Mons | M. Dumas | &c &c &c