To Thomas Archer Hirst

My dear Tom

I have read your article¹ as you wished though it dropped down upon me at a moment when I was very busy. Your health however concerns me more than your article. I should not, rash as I am, attempt to do what you did and attempt composition while perspiring in bed. I should make a sad mess of my composition under the circumstances. With regard to the visit I have no choice whatever of a time. Of course if I consulted myself I would not go at all so soon, it was Bevington’s own proposal but there was nothing rigid in our agreement and I doubt not the first Saturday in December will be to him as pleasant as the last in November² – I will leave the matter between you and him, and shall be ready at any time you and he may agree upon.

And now for your article – I will tell you simply what I think – without waiting for qualifying expressions and you are to take all I say in good nature.

The first page or two dont strike me as being your best. The style is not I think the offspring of sober intellectual conviction, but makes rather an effort at being brilliant. The parallel with Newton I think is faulty. Newton grasped all that had been done before him on gravity & reduced it all to a simple law. Faraday has been the originator of new facts which some subsequent Newton must tie together. The phrase ‘compared the effects of each’ sounds bad to my ear. I think the style in these first pages and at some other places is more like that of a master to his disciples than that of a man telling to cultivated men what a book contains. Only a little change is required but a little will be of service. ‘Of this kind is Faradays conception of Lines of Force’ – you are not talking about ‘kinds’ – you mean I suppose to say that it is an illustration of what you have been stating. ‘Committing ourselves to his or our own theoretic views’ is a curious way of saying what you intend to say. What do you mean by ‘fulfilling the sincere desires of Faraday himself?’ I should rather say following the example of Faraday.

Why ‘blackened at one side’ – the blacking has nothing to do with the polarization – have you ever known it to be done? – The glass of your polariscope is, or ought to be, black glass. Any glass would polarise as well. – ‘Celebrated one’ – I would say celebrated investigation. ‘Knew the direction of the pencil’ I would omit the word direction. – Aperture has not two p^s I excuse Anna – it is rather a scientific word. – ‘Called the plane of incidence’ ‘Called the angle of polarization’ You must manage to convey this knowledge without letting people know that you are teaching them. The phrase ‘what is more’ does for boys, not I think for review readers. ‘A direct relationship between magnetism & light’ – I doubt it. I would strike out ‘direct’ – You speak somewhere of a thing being important in two ways and still you have a ‘thirdly’ – You draw no clear line between the ‘Rotation’ and the discovery of diamagnetism. It ought I think simply to be stated that a piece of the same heavy glass suspended between the poles behaved so and so, and led to the discovery of this new force. Reich made no inference about polarity – he had no idea of the bearing of his own experiment. Weber applied it for him. – You are too explanatory about the attraction of a sphere of soft iron – don’t forget – that your readers wont forgive you for assuming too much ignorance on their part They may be ignorant but to teach them requires a little tact and management. I know Mr Hopkins³ well – a few short pithy lines, hitting the silly public which now demands a third edition of this stupid book⁴ would be just the thing – You have dwelt too long on the book I think. Dont mention Baden Powell’s lecture.⁵ Your ought I think to speak of the book as if it were a disgrace to criticism to waste time upon it. ‘To us this appears unfounded’ – a very sober affirmation and one calculated to make a man say ‘indeed!’ after wading through such humbug. Both on Hopkins & Harrington^{6 7}you have spent too much time. Had you not written that notice for the Phil. Mag. I dare say you would have said more about the Reading Lessons.⁸ But you have I think said enough. Indeed now comes an unpleasant point viz.

The Review contains about 550 words to the page. Your notice is therefore far too long. Leave out or shorten immensely that long introduction to the paper on the rotation of the plane of polarisation. The experiment with the models in your allusion to me might just be mentioned, not described in full. I think the case described in the memoir I wrote in Berlin⁹ of the crystal being caught between the forces of the magnet is a bit fit for a review. But you must not wander too far from your subject. You must keep close to 8 pages, and must calculate at the rate of 550 words a page. I know when you look over the notice once more, not while you are perspiring in bed – you will be able to make it shine like burnished silver. Lest you should be savage against me I send you a pretty sketch of Loch Lomond¹⁰ as a peace offering. Indeed were I not so busy I would try and butter what I had to say a little. At present it is like M^rs ---¹¹ brown bread, coarse, but perhaps not unwholesome.

I have a german lamp¹² before me. I lighted it for the first time last night. It shed light upon my memory as well as upon my eyes and brings the living & the dead before me. Full as my brain was of magnetism I could almost have written a poem upon it. This I will do some day.

My health continues good. I won’t read this over Tom though I know it is full of blunders. Just casting my eye on the outside page I saw the word too (the adverb) spelt two.¹³ This reveals to me what a mess I am sending to you, but I know you are long suffering, and trust to the tenderness of those all-important flexible tubes – your bowels! I will see about the little scales when I have a little more breathing time.

Good bye | I kiss you & wish you well again | Your loving. John.

You say somewhere that I have ‘corroborated’ Weber’s experiments. This I have not done but by a totally different course of experiment I have reached the same result. In my next paper¹⁴ you will find the corroborations ample enough.

With regard to gases there is a great omission in the notice – you have alluded to Faraday’s first experiments only. See note at page 219 and about the region 185.¹⁵

RI MS JT/1/T/612