Charles John Huffam Dickens to Faraday   31 May 1850

Devonshire Terrace | Thirty First May, 1850.

My dear Sir

I really cannot tell you how very sensible I am of your great kindness, or what an honor I feel it to be to have interested you in my books¹.

I think I may be able to do something with the Candle²; but I will not touch it, or have it touched, unless it can be re-lighted with something of the beautiful simplicity and clearness of which I see the traces in your notes.

Since you are so generous as to offer me the notes of the lectures on the breakfast table³, I will borrow them when you have done with them, if it be only for my own interest and gratification. I deeply regret now, not having heard the lectures to children, as it would have been a perfect delight to me to have described them, however generally.

I should take it as a great favor if you could allow me (in the event of my being unfortunately unable to come myself) to introduce my Sub Editor to your next lecture⁴; for a subsequent comparison of his recollection of it, with your notes, might enlighten us very much.

Pray let me add, as one who has long respected you, and strongly felt the obligations Society owes to you, that the day on which I took the liberty of writing to you⁵ will always be a memorable day in my calendar, if I date from it - as I now hope I shall - the beginning of a personal knowledge of you.

My Dear Sir | Yours faithfully and obliged | Charles Dickens

Michael Faraday Esquire