In regard to the lectureship at Woolwich, Mr. Abel, his successor, writes thus:--"Faraday appears to have enjoyed his weekly trips to Woolwich, which he continued for so many years, as a source of relaxation. He was in the habit of going to Woolwich in the afternoon or evening preceding his lecture at the Military Academy, then preparing at once for his experiments, and afterwards generally taking a country ramble. The lecture was delivered early the following morning. No man was so respected, admired, and beloved as a teacher at the Military Academy in former days as Faraday. Many are the little incidents which have been communicated to me by his pupils illustrative of his charms as a lecturer, and of his kindly feelings for the youths to whom he endeavoured to impart a taste for, if not a knowledge of, science. But for some not ill-meant, though scarcely judicious, proposal to dictate modifications in his course of instruction, Faraday would probably have continued for some years longer to lecture at Woolwich. In May 1852, soon after I had been appointed his successor, Faraday wrote to me requesting the return of some tubes of condensed gases which he left at the Academy. This letter ends thus:--'I hope you feel yourself happy and comfortable in your arrangements at the Academy, and have cause to be pleased with the change. I was ever very kindly received there, and that portion of regret which one must ever feel in concluding a long engagement would be in some degree lessened with me by hearing that you had reason to be satisfied with your duties and their acceptance.--Ever very truly yours, M. FARADAY.'"
For year after year the life of Faraday afforded no adventure and little variety, only an ever-growing skill in his favourite pursuit, higher and higher success, and ever-widening fame. But simple as were his mind and his habits, no one picture can present him as the complete man; we must try to make sketches from various points of view, and leave it to the reader's imagination to combine them.
Let us watch him on an ordinary day. After eight hours' sleep, he rises in time to breakfast at eight o'clock, goes round the Institution to see that all is in order, and descends into the laboratory, puts on a large white apron, the stains and holes in which tell of previous service, and is busy among his pieces of apparatus. The faithful Anderson, an old soldier, who always did exactly what he was told, and nothing more,[5] is waiting upon him; and as thought flashes after thought through his eager--perhaps impatient--brain, he twists his wires into new shapes, and re-arranges his magnets and batteries. Then some conclusion is arrived at which lights up his face with a gleam of satisfaction, but the next minute a doubt comes across that expressive brow--may the results not be due to something else yet imperfectly conceived?--and a new experiment must be devised to answer that. In the meantime perhaps one of his little nieces has been left in his charge. She sits as quiet as a mouse with her needlework; but now and then he gives her a nod, or a kind word, and throwing a little piece of potassium on to a basin of water for her amusement, he shows her the metal bursting into purple flame, floating about in fiery eddies, and the crack of the fused globule of potash at the end. Presently there is handed to him the card of some foreign _savant_, who makes his pilgrimage to the famous Institution and its presiding genius; he puts down his last result on a slate, comes upstairs, and, disregarding the interruption, chats with his visitor with all cordiality and openness. Then to work again till dinner-time, at half-past two. In the afternoon he retires to his study with its plain furniture and the india-rubber tree in the window, and writes a letter full of affection to some friend, after which he goes off to the council meeting of one of the learned bodies. Then back again to the laboratory, but as evening approaches he goes upstairs to his wife and niece, and then there is a game at bagatelle or acting charades; and afterwards he will read aloud from Shakspeare or Macaulay till it is time for supper and the simple family worship which now is not liable to the interruptions that generally prevent it in the morning. And so the day closes.