Читать книгу Michael Faraday, His Life and Work - Silvanus P. Thompson - Страница 7

VISIT TO GENEVA.

Of that Geneva visit Faraday says, in 1858, to M. A. de la Rive:—

I have some such thoughts (of gratitude) even as regards your own father, who was, I may say, the first who personally at Geneva, and afterwards by correspondence, encouraged and by that sustained me.

This correspondence, which began with the father and was continued with the son, lasted altogether nearly fifty years.

From Geneva the travellers went northward, by Lausanne, Vevay, Bern, Zürich, and Schaffhausen, across Baden and Würtemburg to Munich. After visiting this and other German towns, they crossed Tyrol southwards to Vicenza, halting in the neighbourhood of the Pietra Mala to collect the inflammable gas which there rises from the soil. They spent a day in Padua, and three days in Venice; and on by Bologna to Florence, where Davy completed his analysis of the gas collected at Pietra Mala. Early in November they were again in Rome. He writes once and again to his mother, while his anxiety about the Royal Institution makes him send inquiries to Abbott as to what is going to happen there, and to charge him, “if any change should occur in Albemarle Street,” not to forget his books which are lying there. “I prize them now more than ever.”

To his former master, Riebau, he wrote from Rome as follows:—

Rome, Jan. 5th, 1815.

Honoured Sir,

It is with very peculiar but very pleasing and indeed flattering sentiments that I commence a letter intended for you, for I esteem it as a high honour that you should not only allow but even wish me to write to you. During the whole of the short eight years that I was with you, Sir, and during the year or two that passed afterwards before I left England, I continually enjoyed your goodness and the effects of it; and it is gratifying to me in the highest degree to find that even absence has not impaired it, and that you are willing to give me the highest proof of (allow me to say) friendship that distance will admit. I have received both the letters that you have wrote to me, Sir, and consider them as far from being the least proofs of your goodwill and remembrance of me. Allow me to thank you humbly but sincerely for these and all other kindness, and I hope that at some future day an opportunity will occur when I can express more strongly my gratitude.

I beg leave to return a thousand thanks to my kind Mistress, to Mr. and Mrs. Paine and George for their remembrances, and venture to give mine with respect in return. I am very glad to hear that all are well. I am very much afraid you say too much of me to Mr. Dance, Mr. Cosway, Mrs. Udney, etc., for I feel unworthy of what you have said of me formerly, and what you may say now. Since I have left England, the experience I have gained in more diversified and extended life, and the knowledge I have gained of what is to be learned and what others know, have sufficiently shown me my own ignorance, the degree in which I am surpassed by all the world, and my want of powers; but I hope that at least I shall return home with an addition to my self-knowledge. When speaking of those who are so much my superiors, as Mr. Dance, Mr. Cosway, and Mrs. Udney, etc., I feel a continual fear that I should appear to want respect, but the manner in which you mention their names in your letter emboldens me to beg that you will give my humblest respects to those honored persons, if, and only if (I am afraid of intruding) they should again speak of me to you. Mr. Dance’s kindness claims my gratitude, and I trust that my thanks, the only mark that I can give, will be accepted.

BOOKS AND BOOKSELLERS.

Since I have been abroad, my old profession of books has oftentimes occurred to my mind and been productive of much pleasure. It was my wish at first to purchase some useful book at every large town we came to, but I found my stock increase so fast that I was obliged to alter my plan and purchase only at Capital Cities. The first books that I wanted were grammars and dictionaries, but I found few places like London where I could get whatever I wanted. In France (at the time we were there) English books were very scarce, and also English and French books; and a French grammar for an Englishman was a thing difficult to find. Nevertheless the shops appeared well stocked with books in their own language, and the encouragement Napoleon gave to Arts and Sciences extended its influence even to the printing and binding of books. I saw some beautiful specimens in both these branches at the Bibliothèque Impériale at Paris, but I still think they did not exceed or even equal those I had seen in London before. We have as yet seen very little of Germany, having passed rapidly through Switzerland and stopping but a few days at Munich, but that little gave me a very favorable idea of the Booksellers’ shops. I got an excellent English and German dictionary immediately I asked for it, and other books I asked for I found were to be had, but E. and G. Grammars were scarce, owing to the little communication between the two Empires, and the former power of the French in Germany. Italy I have found the country furnished with the fewest means—if books are the means of disseminating knowledge, and even Venice which is renowned for Printing appeared to me bare and little worthy of its character. It is natural to suppose that the great and most estimable use of printing is to produce those books which are in most general use and which are required by the world at large; it is those books which form this branch of trade, and consequently every shop in it gives an account of the more valuable state of the art (i.e.) the use made of it. In Italy there are many books, and the shelves of the shops there appear full, but the books are old, or what is new have come from France; they seem latterly to have resigned printing and to have become satisfied with the libraries their forefathers left them. I found at Florence an E. and I. Grammar (Veneroni’s), which does a little credit to Leghorn; but I have searched unsuccessfully at Rome, Naples, Milan, Bologna, Venice, Florence, and in every part of Italy for and E. and I. Dictionary, and the only one I could get was Rollasetti in 8vo. E.F. and I. A circumstance still more singular is the want of bibles; even at Rome, the seat of the Roman Catholic faith, a bible of moderate size is not to be found, either Protestant or Catholic. Those which exist are large folios or 4tos and in several volumes, interspersed with the various readings and commentaries of the fathers, and they are in the possession of the Priests and religious professors. In all shops at Rome where I ask for a small pocket bible the man seemed afraid to answer me, and some Priest in the shop looked at me in a very inquisitive way.

I must now, Kind Sir, put an end to this letter, which I fear you will think already too long. I beg you will have the goodness to send to my Mother and say I am well, and give my duty to her and my love to my brother and sisters. I have wrote four or five times lately from Rome to various friends. Remember me, if you please, to Mr. Kitchen, and others who may enquire after me. I thank you for your concluding wishes and am, Sir,

Your most dutifully,

Faraday.

To his sisters he wrote also. To the elder, on the Church festivals, the Carnival, and the ruins of the Colosseum. To the younger, on the best way of learning French. His diary is full of the Carnival, the foolishness of which afforded him much amusement. He witnessed the horse-races in the Corso, went four times to masked balls, where his boyish love of uproarious fun broke out beyond restraint, for to the last one he went disguised in a night-gown and night-cap. Between gaieties in the evenings and chemical experiments with Davy in the day, his time must have been pretty fully occupied. They had had the intention of going on to Greece and Turkey, but owing to dread of quarantine these projects were abandoned, and at the end of February, 1815, they moved southwards to Naples. Here is a characteristic entry:—

Tuesday, March 7th.—I heard for news that Bonaparte was again at liberty. Being no politician, I did not trouble myself much about it, though I suppose it will have a strong influence on the affairs of Europe.

He went with Sir Humphry to explore Monte Somma, and ventured to make another ascent of the cone of Vesuvius, with the gratification of finding the crater in much greater activity than during the visits of the preceding year.

THE END OF THE TOUR.

Then, for reasons not altogether clear, the tour was suddenly cut short. Naples was left on March 21st, Rome on 24th, Mantua was passed on 30th. Tyrol was recrossed, Germany traversed by Stuttgardt, Heidelberg, and Cologne. Brussels was reached on 16th April, whence London was regained viâ Ostend and Deal. A letter written from Brussels to his mother positively overflows with the joy of expected return. He does not want his mother to be inquiring at Albemarle Street as to when he is expected:—

You may be sure that my first moments will be in your company. If you have opportunities, tell some of my dearest friends, but do not tell everybody—that is, do not trouble yourself to do it. I am of no consequence except to a few, and there are but a few that are of consequence to me, and there are some whom I should like to be the first to tell myself—Mr. Riebau for one. However, let A. know, if you can...

Adieu till I see you, dearest Mother; and believe me ever your affectionate and dutiful son,

M. Faraday.

[P.S.] ’Tis the shortest and (to me) the sweetest letter I ever wrote you.

A fortnight after his return to London, Faraday was re-engaged, at a salary of thirty shillings a week, at the Royal Institution as assistant in the laboratory and mineralogical collection. He returned to the scene of his former labours; but with what widened ideas! He had had eighteen months of daily intercourse with the most brilliant chemist of the age. He had seen and conversed with Ampère, Arago, Gay-Lussac, Chevreul, Dumas, Volta, De la Rive, Biot, Pictet, De Saussure, and De Stael. He had formed a lasting friendship with more than one of these. He had dined with Count Rumford, the founder of the Royal Institution. He had gained a certain mastery over foreign tongues, and had seen the ways of foreign society. Though it was many years before he again quitted England for a foreign tour, he cherished the most lively recollection of many of the incidents that had befallen him.