Faraday to Peter Theophilus Riess1   24 November 1864

My dear friend

Your most agreeable & courteous letter arrived here yesterday & gave me great pleasure, for though I fail through years in many things, yet not in respect for such men as you. Do what you please with the letter, reprint it & treat it as you would myself for that would be well2. I hardly know how my hand moves or what my words say: last month [sic] I passed my 74th year & I am leaving all that ties me to business & life[.] My limbs shake & totter as you will see by the failure of this attempt but all about me are very kind & I am quite at ease[.]

Adieu My dear friend | Ever yours | M. Faraday

I preferred shewing you my ink marks but you see how they come forward malformed3[.] Remember me to kind friends about you MF.

Royal Institution | 24 Novr. 1864

To Dr. Riess | &c &c &c

1
Peter Theophilus Riess (1804–1883, ADB). Professor of Physics at the Academie der Wissenschaften in Berlin from 1842.
2
Faraday and Riess (1856) was reprinted in Riess (1867), 30-52.
3
‘& distrustful’ is crossed through here.

Bibliography

RIESS, Peter Theophilus (1856): “On the Law of Electric Discharge”, Phil. Mag., 11: 524-7.

Please cite as “Faraday4509,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday4509