Christian Friedrich Schoenbein to Faraday   26 April 1856

My dear Faraday,

I have to acknowledge the receit both of your letter and that of Mrs Faraday’s¹ and grateful as they have proved to me I could not help being very sorry for their contents, which have at once annihilated my hopes of seing you here this summer.

I ardently wish and confidently hope that your excellent wife will before long be restored to her full health.

The third volume of your researches² reached Basle a few days ago and I am very much obliged for that repeated piece of kindness of Your’s. I trust I shall live to see a fourth volume coming out containing detailed proofs of the Identity of Magnetism and Gravity. How I would rejoice if such a Glory should fall to your lot! You have however performed scientific exploits enough and if there has been any philosopher who legitimately merited to enjoy the “Otium cum dignitate”³, you are that privileged man.

This letter will be delivered to you by Professor Merian of Bâsle a most intimate friend of mine and with whom I am quite sure, you will downright fall in love at the very first sight. To his eminent intellectual powers (he is a profound mathematician), he joins a heart full of the “Milk” of human Kindness such as I know no better one. If possible, make his personal acquaintance and that of his wife too, who happens to be a pretty good english scholar and a member of the celebrated family “Bernoulli”.

I send you some papers of mine treating of mushrooms and ozoniferous organic substances⁴, subjects of which I wrote you some time ago⁵. If you cannot read them, give the trifles to some of your young chemical friends who may happen to learn a little bit of German by them if nothing else.

I returned last night from a beautiful walking trip made into the Jura Mountains and the valley of the Aar. Nothing could be finer than the landscaping I saw spring being out in its fullest bloom.

From the fact that I walked 24-30 Miles a day you may draw some inferences regarding the constitu<<tion>> of the legs of your old friend’s.

Pray, present my best compliments to Mrs. Faraday, thank her in my name for her kind letter and believe me my dear Faraday

Your’s | most faithfully | C.F. Schoenbein

Bâle April 26th 1856.

Address: Doctor Michael Faraday | &c &c &c | Royal Institution | Albemarle Street | London