Sometimes the very thinking of you, and what you may be about,
wearies me with fears, and then the cogitations pause and change,
but without giving me rest. I know that much of this depends upon
my own worn-out nature, and I do not know why I write it, save that
when I write to you I cannot help thinking it, and the thoughts
stand in the way of other matter.
* * * * * * *
'See what a strange desultory epistle I am writing to you, and yet I
feel so weary that I long to leave my desk and go to the couch.
'My dear wife and Jane desire their kindest remembrances: I hear
them in the next room:... I forget--but not you, my dear Tyndall,
for I am
'Ever yours,
'M. Faraday.'
This weariness subsided when he relinquished his work, and I have a
cheerful letter from him, written in the autumn of 1865. But
towards the close of that year he had an attack of illness, from
which he never completely rallied. He continued to attend the
Friday Evening Meetings, but the advance of infirmity was apparent
to us all. Complete rest became finally essential to him, and he
ceased to appear among us. There was no pain in his decline to
trouble the memory of those who loved him. Slowly and peacefully he
sank towards his final rest, and when it came, his death was a
falling asleep. In the fulness of his honours and of his age he
quitted us; the good fight fought, the work of duty--shall I not say
of glory?--done. The 'Jane' referred to in the foregoing letter is
Faraday's niece, Miss Jane Barnard, who with an affection raised
almost to religious devotion watched him and tended him to the end.
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