Earlier in his career, Faraday and his brother-in-law used to enjoy conversaziones of artists, actors, and musicians at Hullmandel’s. Sometimes they went up the river in Hullmandel’s eight-oar boat, camping gipsy-wise on the banks for dinner, and enjoying the singing of Signor Garcia and his wife and of his daughter, afterwards Madame Malibran. From these things, too, he withdrew very largely when he ceased to dine out, though he still liked to hear the opera and to visit the theatre. Curiously enough, he seems to have had very little in common with literary men. In the last half of the previous century there had been many intimate relations between the leaders of literature and those of science. The circle which included Watt, Boulton, and Wedgwood included also Priestley and Erasmus Darwin. In our own time the names of Darwin, Huxley, Hooker, and Tyndall are to be found in conjunction with those of Tennyson, Browning, and Jowett. But the biographies of literary men and artists of the period from 1830 to 1850 bear few references to Faraday. He moved in his own world, and that a world very much apart from literature or art. In his method of working he was indeed an artist, often feeling his way rather than calculating it, and arriving at his conclusions by what seemed insight rather than by any direct process of reasoning. The discovery of truth comes about in many ways; and if Faraday’s method in science was artistic rather than scientific, it was amply justified by the brilliant harvest of discoveries which it enabled him to reap.

As is well known, Faraday never took out any patents for his discoveries; indeed, whenever in his investigations he seemed to come near to the point where they began to possess a marketable value from their application to the industries, he left them, to pursue his pioneering inquiries in other branches. He sought, indeed, for principles rather than for processes, for facts new to science rather than for merchantable inventions. When he had made the discovery of magneto-electric induction—the basis of all modern electric engineering—he carried the research to the point of constructing several experimental machines, and then abruptly turned away with these memorable words:—

Several times was Faraday known, when asked about the possible utility of some new scientific discovery, to quote Franklin’s rejoinder: “What is the use of a baby?”

It is narrated of him that on one occasion, at a Trinity House dinner, he and the Duke of Wellington had a little friendly chat, in the course of which the Duke advised Faraday to give his speculations “a practical turn as far as possible”—“a suggestion,” said Faraday, who always spoke of the veteran with pleasure, “full of weight, coming from such a man.” Faraday was, however, the last to despise the importance of industrial applications of science. In his unpublished manuscripts at the Royal Institution there are some curious references to trials which he made of a meat-canning process, invented about 1848 by a Mr. Goldner, of Finsbury. He also had fancies for other domestic applications, including wine-making. He used himself to bind his own note-books. To a Mr. Woolnough, who had written a book on the marbling of paper, he wrote a letter saying how much interest he felt in the subject, “because of its associations with my early occupation of bookbinding; and also because of the very beautiful principles of natural philosophy which it involves.” He even, on one occasion, produced a home-made pair of boots. His devotion to the practical applications of science is attested by his untiring work for improving the lighthouses of our coast. It is believed that his death was accelerated by a severe cold caught when on a visit of lighthouse inspection during stormy weather.

Faraday was never ashamed of the circumstance of his having risen from a humble origin. In his letters he not unfrequently alludes to things that remind him of his bookbinding experiences, or of boyish episodes in his father’s smithy. Yet he had none of the vulgar pride of ascent which too often dogs the path of the self-made man. Severe self-discipline and genuine humility prevented either undue proclamation or awkward reticence respecting his early life. His elder brother Robert was a gasfitter. Faraday was not ashamed to help him to secure work in his trade, nor to give him the benefit of his scientific aid in perfecting appliances for ventilating by gas-burners. The following characteristic story was told by Frank Barnard:—

In 1853 Faraday came before the public in a novel manner—as the exposer of the then rampant charlatanry of table-turning and spirit-rapping. The Athenæum for July 2nd contains a long letter from him on table-turning. He experimentally investigated the alleged phenomena as produced by three skilful mediums in séances at the house of a friend. His mechanical skill was more than a match, however, for that of the supposed spirits. When the observers assembled around the table placed their hands in the orthodox way upon the table-top, the table turned, apparently without any effort on the part of any one of the party. This was eminently satisfactory for the spirits. But when Faraday interposed between each hand and the table-top a simple roller-mechanism which, if any individual in the circle applied muscular forces tending to turn it, instantly indicated the fact, the table remained immovable. Faraday wrote merely describing the facts, and saying that the test apparatus was now on public view at 122, Regent Street. He ends thus:—

This exposure excited great interest at the time, and there was an active correspondence in The Times. The spiritualists, instead of appreciating the services to truth rendered by the man of science, railed bitterly at him. Even the refined and noble spirit of Mrs. Browning was so dominated by the superstition of the moment that, as shown by her recently published letters, she denounced Faraday in singularly acrimonious terms, and taunted him for shallow materialism! What Faraday thought of the hubbub evoked by his action is best learned from a letter which he addressed three weeks later to his friend Schönbein:—

He declined an invitation in 1855 to see manifestations by the medium Home, saying that he had “lost too much time about such matters already.” Nine years later the Brothers Davenport invited him to witness their cabinet “manifestations.” Again he declined, and added: “I will leave the spirits to find out for themselves how they can move my attention. I am tired of them.”

In this year he wrote to The Times respecting the disgraceful and insanitary condition of the river Thames. In Punch of the following week appeared a cartoon representing Faraday presenting his card to old Father Thames, who rises holding his nose to avoid the stench.

With increasing age the infirmity of loss of memory made itself increasingly felt. He alludes frequently to this in his letters. To one friend who upbraided him gently for not having replied to a letter he says: “Do you remember that I forget?” To another he says he is forgetting how to spell such words as “withhold” and “successful.” To Matteucci, in 1849, he bemoans how, after working for six weeks at certain experiments, he found, on looking back to his notes, he had ascertained all the same results eight or nine months before, and had entirely forgotten them! In the same year he wrote to Dr. Percy:—

In 1859, in a letter to his niece, Mrs. Deacon, filled mainly with religious thoughts, he says: “My worldly faculties are slipping away day by day. Happy is it for all of us that the true good lies not in them.”

From the journals of Walter White comes the following anecdote under date December 22nd, 1858:—

From another source we learn of a hitherto unrecorded incident which happened to Mr. Joseph Newton, for some time an assistant in the Royal Mint. While arranging some precious material on the Royal Institution theatre lecture-table, previous to a lecture on the Mint and minting operations by Professor Brande, Mr. Newton noticed an elderly, spare, and very plainly-dressed individual watching his movements. Imagining that this person was a superior messenger of the Institution, Mr. Newton volunteered some information as to the coinage of gold. “I suppose,” said the Mint employee, “you have been some years at the Royal Institution?” “Well, yes, I have, a good many,” responded the dilapidated one. “I hope they treat you pretty liberally—I mean, that they give you a respectable ‘screw,’ for that is the main point.” “Ah! I agree with you there. I think that the labourer is worthy of his hire, and I shouldn’t mind being paid a little better.” Mr. Newton’s surprise, on returning to the Royal Institution in the evening, to find that the man whom he had so recently patronised was none other than the illustrious but modest Michael Faraday can better be imagined than described.

A pretty instance, given on the authority of Lady Pollock, may be recorded of the feeling aroused by Faraday’s presence when he returned to his accustomed seat in the lecture-room of the Royal Institution, after a protracted absence occasioned by illness:—

In 1857 he was offered the Presidency of the Royal Society. A painting preserved in the rooms of the Royal Society records the scene when Lord Wrottesley, Grove, and Gassiot waited upon him as a deputation from the Council, to press on him his acceptance of the highest place which science has to offer. He hesitated and finally declined, even as he had declined the suggestion of knighthood years before. “Tyndall,” he said in private to his successor, “I must remain plain Michael Faraday to the last; and let me now tell you, that if I accepted the honour which the Royal Society desires to confer upon me, I could not answer for the integrity of my intellect for a single year.” He also declined the Presidency of the Royal Institution, which he had served for fifty years. His one desire was for rest. “The reverent affection of his friends was,” said Tyndall, “to him infinitely more precious than all the honours of official life.”

Allusion has been made to Faraday’s tender and chivalrous regard for his wife. Extracts from two letters, written in 1849 and 1863 respectively, must here suffice to complete the story:—

In 1858 the Queen, at the suggestion of Prince Albert, who much esteemed and valued Faraday’s genius, placed at his disposal for life a comfortable house on the green near Hampton Court. Faraday’s only hesitation in accepting the offer was a doubt whether he could afford the needful repairs. On a hint of this reaching the Queen, she at once directed that it should be put into thorough repair inside and out. He still kept his rooms at the Royal Institution, and continued to live there occasionally.

With the increasing infirmities of age, his anxieties for his wife seemed to be the only trouble that marred the serenity of his thought. Lady Pollock’s narrative gives the following particulars:—

Gradually his powers waned. He gave his last juvenile lectures at Christmas, 1860; and in October, 1861, being now seventy years of age, he resigned his Professorship, while retaining the superintendence of the laboratory. “Nothing,” he wrote to the managers, “would make me happier in the things of this life than to make some scientific discovery or development, and by that to justify the Board in their desire to retain me in my position here.” His last research in the laboratory was made on March 12, 1862. On June 20th he gave his last Friday night discourse—on Siemens’s gas furnaces. He had, as his notes show, already made up his mind to announce his retirement, and the lecture was a sad and touching occasion, for the failure of his powers was painfully evident. He continued for two years longer, and with surprising activity, to work for Trinity House on the subject of lighthouse illumination by the electric light. In 1865 he resigned these duties to Dr. Tyndall. In 1864 he resigned his eldership in the Sandemanian church. In March, 1865, he resigned the position of superintendent of the house and laboratories of the Royal Institution. He continued to attend the Friday evening meetings; but his tottering condition of frame and mind was apparent to all. All through the winter of 1865 and 1866 he became very feeble. Yet he took an interest in Mr. Wilde’s description of his new magneto-electric machine. Almost the last pleasure he showed on any scientific matter was when viewing the long spark of a Holtz’s influence machine. He still enjoyed looking at sunsets and storms. All through the summer and autumn of 1866 and the spring of 1867 his physical powers waned. He was faithfully and lovingly tended by his wife and his devoted niece, Jane Barnard. He was scarcely able to move, but his mind “overflowed” with the consciousness of the affectionate regard of those around him. He gradually sank into torpor, saying nothing and taking little notice of anything. Sitting in his chair in his study, he died peacefully and painlessly on the 26th of August, 1867. On the 30th of August he was quietly buried in Highgate Cemetery, his remains being committed to the earth, in accordance with the custom of the religious body to which he belonged, in perfect silence. None but personal friends were present, the funeral being by his own verbal and written wishes strictly simple and private. A simple unadorned tombstone marks the last resting-place of Michael Faraday.