Christian Friedrich Schoenbein to Faraday   c.2 November 1858¹

My dear Faraday,

As Doctor Bernoulli², a former pupil of mine is going to London and from there to Guatemala, I make use of this opportunity to send you through my young friend amongst other memoirs that paper, in which I have treated the reciprocal Katalysis of a number of oxy-compounds³. You may give the “fasciculum” to a scientific friend, who happens to be master of the german tongue. The little parcel joined, you will be good enough to forward it to its place of destination.

It is not long since I returned from a journey undertaken to the south-west of Germany, which has turned out highly pleasant and interesting to me. First I attended the meeting of german philosophers held at Carlsruhe in the middle of September last⁴, which was the most numerous and brilliant one, I have as yet had the good luck of attending. With a very few exceptions all the leading scientific men of Germany were present: Liebig, Woehler, Bunsen, Magnus, Dove⁵ and a host of others. Under such “auspiciis” the meeting could not but be excellent. All sorts of honors and attentions were showered down upon us from the grand duke⁶ and his young amiable duchess⁷ (the sister of the husband⁸ of your princess⁹), the government and magistrates down to the very lowest inhabitants of the capital. I think indeed, that science has very seldom been so much honored in its representatives, as it was the case at Carlsruhe some weeks ago.

Both their Royal Highnesses, all the Ministers, a number of political notabilities and the chief Magistrate of the Metropolis attended all the general meetings holding out from the beginning to the end. No less than three times we enjoyed the hospitality of the reigning duke, supping, dining and taking tea with the court. Of other festivities there was no want: the finest plays were acted before the learned audience, splendid balls given in honor of the philosophers, the town of Baden-Baden in the beautiful ruins of the magnificently situated old castle treated the association in a sumptuous style and the good people of Durlach invited us to enjoy their delicious grapes in their vine-yards, celebrating, what we call a “Wintzerfest” (vintage-feast) in which beautiful young Ladies of the town, clad in white, offered in a graceful and highly engaging manner the choicest fruits of the Land to the philosophers present, the number of whom was very great indeed at least five or six hundred. In music-loving Germany nothing can be done without songs and other musical performances, and certainly we had plenty of them along with patriotic toasts and other manifestations of joy at Carlsruhe, Baden and Durlach. The people on the other side of the water have hardly a notion of the teutonic enjoyments and the comfortable ease, in which those things are done. Am I right or not, if I say, that pleasure is a sort of business to the majority of the English and the enjoyment of it too much ruled by the codex of “bienséance” the statutes of which are too much in favor of formalities and ceremonies. But every nation may have its own ways and whims and after all “de gustibus non est disputandum”¹⁰.

After having been fully satiated by intellectual and bodily pleasures at Carlsruhe, I took a trip with Liebig, Rose¹¹ and some other philosophers to see some interesting establishments in the country and then tempted by the glorious weather of Autumn and the seducing neighbourhood of the finest scenery of the Rhine I loungered about in the classical regions of the history of the Rhine, visiting many an old friend and drinking more than one glass of old Hock. One Excursion was most particulary beautiful: With a couple of friends I descended from Mayence to Bingen and arrived there all of us, devout reverers of father R[h]ine, went up to the Chapel Saint Rochus emptying there in honor of his Majesty a bottle or two of his most generous and incomparable nectar. Those heights afford one of the most picturesque views along the Rhine. I won’t tell you any more about my idle ramblings, suffice it to know, that they proved delicious and that Mr. Schoenbein was “joliment” scolded by Mrs. Schoenbein on account of his very long outstayings. By this time I have entered the career of every day life and shall, before long, live again in the consortium of my chemical hero, whose interior nature I want to know much better, than I do now. You have no doubt enjoyed a tranquil and pastoral country-life at Hampton court and I confidently hope, that Mrs. Faraday’s health has been much benefited by it. Miss Schoenbein is, as far as I know doing well at Stamford Hill and continues to like her stay in England.

Expecting to hear soon of and from you and asking you the favor to present my humble respects to Your Lady

I am, my dear Faraday | for ever your’s | C.F. Schoenbein

Pray be kind to the bearer of this letter, written in a hurry.