Faraday to Christian Friedrich Schoenbein   11 January 1861

Royal Institution | 11 January 1860 [sic]

My dear friend

Whether this letter be long or short, I will write to you for I see by my book of dates (I date and enter all the letters I receive from abroad) that I have neglected you too long. But all things slip out of my mind, I have nothing else to say. Do not estimate my esteem & affection for you by any such measure as you might draw from my letters but value it by the length & quality of your own. As for your last¹ I received it so near the end of the month that I sent it off at once to Dr. Francis² in hopes of seeing it within three days in the Philosophical Magazine. It did not however appear but I have seen a proof since & it will be given to our men next month³.

You really startled me with your independent antozone. What a wonderful thing oxygen is and to think of the <plus>O being included in a solid body. I suppose you do not despair of separating it from the fluor spar in its own proper form whatever that may be - for I hope it can exist by itself. Does heat reduce it to O as it does <minus>O[.] Surely you must hold it in your hand like a little struggler for if I understand you rightly it must be a far more abundant body than the Caesium of Bunsen & Knoblauch⁴. - For the hold you have already obtained over it I congratulate you as I would do if you had obtained a crown and more than for a new metal.

But surely these wonderful conditions of existence cannot be confined to oxygen alone[.] I am waiting to hear that you have discovered like parallel states with iodine or bromine or hydrogen - and nitrogen what of nitrogen - is not its apparent quiet simplicity of action all a sham - not a show indeed but still not the only state in which it can exist. If the compounds which a body can form shew something of the state & powers it may have when isolated (as in your <minus>O O <plus>O), then what should nitrogen be in its separate state.

You see I do not work - I cannot - but I fancy & and stuff my letter with such fancies (not a fit return) to you - Well any thing to get a letter back from you.

Now I come to a dead stop - for this cold weather has laid hold of me & I have either an attack of Sciatica or perhaps something more serious we shall see in due time.

My dear Wife also feels the infirmity of years & of winter - but we cheer each other up. Miss Hornblower is pretty well just now. My kindest regards to M. Wiedemann (to whom I wrote⁵ the best I could) and our sincere remembrances to Madame Schoenbein[.]

Ever My dear friend | Yours | M. Faraday

Dr. Schoenbein | &c &c &c