Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous Part 6

The "Deserted Village" was published five years later, Goldsmith having spent two whole years in reviewing it after it was written, so careful was he that every word should be the best that could be chosen. This was translated at once into German by Goethe, who was also a great admirer of the "Vicar of Wakefield." He also wrote an English History, a Roman, a Grecian, several dramas, of which "She Stoops to Conquer" was the most popular, and eight volumes of the "History of the Earth and Animated Nature," for which he received five hundred dollars a volume, leaving this unfinished.

Still in debt, overworked, laboring sometimes far into the morning hours, not leaving his desk for weeks together, even for exercise, Goldsmith died at forty-five, broken with the struggle of life, but with undying fame. When he was buried, one April day, 1774, Brick Court and the stairs of the building were filled with the poor and the forsaken whom he had befriended. His monument is in the Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey, the greatest honor England could offer. True, she let him nearly starve, but she crowned him at the last. He conquered the world by hard work, kindness, and a gentleness as beautiful as his genius was great.

MICHAEL FARADAY.

In the heart of busy London, over a stable, lived James and Margaret Faraday, with their four little children. The father was a blacksmith, in feeble health, unable to work for a whole day at a time, a kind, good man to his household; the mother, like himself, was uneducated, but neat and industrious, and devoted to her family. The children learned the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic at school, and then, of course, were obliged to earn their living.

Michael, the third child, born 1791, became, at thirteen years of age, an errand-boy in a bookseller's shop. His first duty was to carry newspapers in the morning to customers, who read them for an hour or two for a trifle, a penny probably, and then gave them to the newsboy to be re-loaned. Often on Sunday morning the patrons would say, "You must call again," forgetting that the next place might be a mile away, and that the young boy was quite as desirous as they, to go to church with his parents. Years after this, when he had become famous the world over, he said, "I always feel a tenderness for those boys, because I once carried newspapers myself."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MICHAEL FARADAY.]

The following year, 1805, he was apprenticed to a bookseller for seven years, to learn the trade of binding and selling books. Here was hard work before him till he was twenty-one; not a cheerful prospect for one who loved play as well as other boys. Whenever he had a spare moment, he was looking inside the books he was binding. Mrs. Marcet's "Conversations in Chemistry" delighted him; and when he was given the "Encyclopedia Britannica" to bind, the article on Electricity seemed a treasure-house of wonders. He soon made an electrical machine,--not an expensive one,--simply a gla.s.s vial, and other apparatus of a similar kind; and afterwards with a real cylinder. These cost only a few pence a week, but they gave a vast amount of pleasure to the blacksmith's son.

One day he saw in a shop-window a notice that a Mr. Tatum was to give at his own house some lectures on Natural Philosophy. The charge for each was twenty-five cents. No bookseller's apprentice would have such an amount of money to spend weekly as that. However, his brother Robert, three years older, himself a blacksmith, with some pride, perhaps, that Michael was interested in such weighty matters, furnished the money, and a lodger at the home of the bookseller taught him drawing, so that he might be able, in taking notes, to ill.u.s.trate the experiments. He attended the lectures, wrote them out carefully in a clear hand, bound them in four volumes, and dedicated them to his employer.

A customer at the shop had become interested in a boy who cared so much for science, and took him to hear four lectures given by Sir Humphry Davy at the Royal Inst.i.tution. This was an unexpected pleasure. He was beginning to sigh for something beyond book-binding. "Oh, if I could only help in some scientific work, no matter how humble!" he thought to himself. He says in his journal, "In my ignorance of the world, and simplicity of my mind, I wrote to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society." No answer was ever returned to the request for a situation. Could the president have realized that some day ten thousand people would know the name of Michael Faraday where one knew the name of Sir Joseph Banks, probably he would have answered the boy's letter.

Blessings on the great man or woman who takes time, however briefly, to answer every letter received! Such a man was Garfield, and such is Whittier. A civil question demands a civil answer, whether the person addressed be king or peasant.

About the time his apprenticeship ended, in 1812, he summoned courage to write directly to the great Sir Humphry Davy, sending the full notes he had made at that gentleman's lectures. Sir Humphry, possibly remembering that he, too, had been a poor boy, the son of a widowed milliner, wrote a polite note, saying, that "Science was a harsh mistress, and, in a pecuniary point of view, but poorly rewarding those who devoted themselves to her service;" that he was going out of town, but would see if he could some time aid him.

Meantime Michael was making crude galvanic experiments. He bought some malleable zinc, cut out seven plates, each the size of a half-penny, covered these with the copper half-pennies, placing between them six pieces of paper soaked in a solution of muriate of soda, and with this simple battery, decomposed sulphate of magnesia. So pleased was he that he wrote a letter to one of his boy friends, telling of the experiment, and adding, "Time is all I require. Oh, that I could purchase at a cheap rate some of our modern gent's spare hours, nay, days! I think it would be a good bargain, both for them and for me." The youth had learned the first secret of success,--not to waste time; not to throw it away on useless persons or useless subjects.

He had learned another secret, that of choosing right companions. To this same young friend, Abbott, he wrote, "A companion cannot be a good one, unless he is morally so. I have met a good companion in the lowest path of life, and I have found such as I despised in a rank far superior to mine.... I keep regular hours, and enter not intentionally into pleasures productive of evil." London's highest circles possessed no purer spirit than this young mechanic.

Faraday now began work at his trade of book-binding for a Frenchman in London, who, having no children, promised him the business, if he would remain with him always; but the employer's temper was so hasty that the position became almost unbearable. The young man was growing depressed in spirits, when one night, just as he was preparing for bed, a loud knock on the door startled him. On looking out of the window, he espied a grand carriage, with a footman in livery, who left a note. This was a request from Sir Humphry Davy to see him in the morning. Was there, then, the possibility of a place in the Royal Inst.i.tution? Between conflicting hopes and fears, he went to sleep, and in the morning hastened to see the great chemist. The result was an engagement at six dollars a week, with two rooms at the top of the house! He was to clean the instruments, move them to and from the lecture-room, and in all ways to make himself useful. Now he could say good-by to book-binding; and, though six dollars a week was not a munificent sum, yet he could actually handle beautiful instruments,--not copper half-pence and bits of zinc,--and could listen to stimulating lectures.

And now work began in earnest. He joined the City Philosophical Society, an a.s.sociation of thirty or forty persons in moderate circ.u.mstances, who met each Wednesday evening, one of their number giving a lecture. Then a half dozen friends came together once a week to read, criticise, and correct each other in p.r.o.nunciation and conversation. How eagerly would such a young man have attended college! There was no opportunity to hear polished talk in elegant drawing-rooms, no chance to improve manners in so-called "best society." He did what is in the power of everybody,--he educated himself. Did he not need recreation after the hard day's work?

Every person has to make his choice. Amus.e.m.e.nts do not make scholars: pleasure and knowledge do not go hand in hand. Faraday chose the topmost story of the Royal Inst.i.tution, and books for companions, and immortal fame was the result.

The experiments with Davy soon became absorbing, and often dangerous.

Now they extracted sugar from beet-root; now they treated chloride of nitrogen, wearing masks of gla.s.s upon their faces, which, notwithstanding, were sometimes badly cut by the explosions. Seven months after this, Sir Humphry decided to travel upon the Continent, and asked Faraday to be his amanuensis. This was a rare opportunity for the young a.s.sistant. For a year and a half they visited France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany, climbing Vesuvius, enjoying art-galleries, and meeting the learned and famous of the age. The journey had its disagreeable side; for Faraday was made more or less a servant by Davy and his sometimes inconsiderate wife; but it had great and lasting advantages for one who had never been but twelve miles from London.

His heart turned longingly back to the poor ones he had left behind. He wrote to his mother, "The first and last thing in my mind is England, home, and friends. When sick, when cold, when tired, the thoughts of those at home are a warm and refreshing balm to my heart.... These are the first and greatest sweetness in the life of man.... I am almost contented except with my ignorance, which becomes more visible to me every day." And again, "I have several times been more than half decided to return hastily home: I am only restrained by the wish of improvement." To his sister he wrote, "Give my love with a kiss to mother, the first thing you do on reading this letter, and tell her how much I think of her." To Abbott he wrote something intended for his eyes only, but headed, "I do not wish that my mother should remain ignorant of it. I _have no secrets from her_." His heart bounded with joy at the prospect of meeting them again, and "enjoying the pleasure of their conversation, from which he had been excluded." No absorption in science could make him outgrow his parents and his humble home.

On his return to England his salary was increased to $500 yearly, and he was promoted to Laboratory a.s.sistant. He was now twenty-four. He had noted carefully Davy's researches in iodine and chlorine, had seen him develop his safety-lamp, which has proved an untold blessing to miners, had made many experiments from his own thinking; and now he too was to give his first course of six lectures before his friends in the City Philosophical Society, on Chemical Affinity, and kindred topics. He wrote them out with great care; for whatever he did was well done. This year he published his first paper in the "Quarterly Journal of Science"

on caustic lime. Encouraged by the approving words of Sir Humphry, the following year he wrote six papers for the "Quarterly," giving his experiments with gases and minerals, and gave another course of lectures before the Philosophical Society. To improve himself in delivering these, he attended lectures on oratory, taking copious notes.

Seven years had now gone by in his apprenticeship to Science. He had published thirty-seven papers in the "Quarterly," had a book ready for the press, on the alloys of steel, and had read a paper before the Royal Society itself, on two new compounds of chlorine and carbon, and a new compound of iodine, carbon, and hydrogen. But the young and now brilliant student had other weighty matters in hand. Five years before this, he had written in his diary:

"What is't that comes in false, deceitful guise, Making dull fools of those that 'fore were wise?

'Tis love.

What's that the wise man always strives to shun, Though still it ever o'er the world has run?

'Tis love."

But now, whether he tried to shun it or no, he became thoroughly in love with Sarah Barnard, an intelligent and sweet-tempered girl, the daughter of a silversmith. Distracted by fears lest he might not win her, he wrote her. "In whatever way I can best minister to your happiness, either by a.s.siduity or by absence, it shall be done. Do not injure me by withdrawing your friendship, or punish me for aiming to be more than a friend by making me less."

The girl showed this to her father, who replied that love made philosophers say very foolish things. She hesitated about accepting him, and went away to the seaside to consider it; but the ardent lover followed, determined to learn the worst if need be. They walked on the cliffs overhanging the ocean, and Faraday wrote in his journal as the day drew near its close, "My thoughts saddened and fell, from the fear I should never enjoy such happiness again. I could not master my feelings, or prevent them from sinking, and I actually at last shamed myself by moist eyes." He blamed himself because he did not know "the best means to secure the heart he wished to gain." He knew how to fathom the depths of chemical combinations, but he could not fathom the depths of Sarah Barnard's heart.

At last the hour of her decision came; and both were made supremely happy by it. A week later he wrote her, "Every moment offers me fresh proof of the power you have over me. I could not at one time have thought it possible that I, that any man, could have been under the dominion of feelings so undivided and so intense: now I think that no other man can have felt or feel as I do." A year later they were married very quietly, he desiring their wedding day to be "just like any other day." Twenty-eight years later he wrote among the important dates and discoveries of his life, "June 12, 1821, he married,--an event which, more than any other, contributed to his earthly happiness and healthful state of mind. The union has nowise changed, except in the depth and strength of its character."

For forty-seven years "his dear Sarah" made life a joy to him. He rarely left home; but if so, as at the great gathering of British Scientists at Birmingham, he wrote back, "After all, there is no pleasure like the tranquil pleasure of home; and here, even here, the moment I leave the table, I wish I were with you IN QUIET. Oh, what happiness is ours! My runs into the world in this way only serve to make me esteem that happiness the more."

And now came twenty years in science that made Faraday the wonder and ornament of his age. Elected an F.R.S., he began at once twelve lectures in Chemical Manipulation before the London Inst.i.tution, six on Chemical Philosophy before the Royal Society, published six papers on electromagnetism, and began a course of juvenile lectures which continued for nineteen years. This was one of the beautiful things of Faraday's life,--a great man living in a whirl of work, yet taking time to make science plain to the young. When asked at what age he would teach science, he replied that he had never found a child too young to understand him. For twenty years he lectured at the Royal Academy at Woolwich, became scientific adviser to the government with regard to lighthouses and buoys, not for gain, but for the public good, drew all London to his eloquent lectures with his brilliant experiments, Prince Albert attending with his sons; and published one hundred and fifty-eight scientific essays and thirty series of "Experimental Researches in Electricity," which latter, says Dr. Gladstone, "form one of the most marvellous monuments of intellectual work; one of the rarest treasure-houses of newly-discovered knowledge, with which the world has ever been enriched."

He not only gathered into his vast brain what other men had learned of science, but he tested every step to prove the facts, and became, says Professor Tyndall, "the greatest experimental philosopher the world has ever seen." He loved science as he loved his family and his G.o.d, and played with Nature as with a petted child. When he lectured, "there was a gleaming in his eyes which no painter could copy, and which no poet could describe. His audience took fire with him, and every face was flushed."

In his earlier discoveries in compressing gases into liquids, he obtained from one thousand cubic feet of coal gas one gallon of fluid from which he distilled benzine. In 1845 the chemist Hofman found this same substance in coal-tar, from which come our beautiful aniline dyes.

After eighteen years of studying the wonderful results of Galvani's discovery at the University of Bologna, that the legs of a dead frog contract under the electric current; and of Volta, in 1799, with his voltaic pile of copper, zinc, and leather, in salt-water; and of Christian Oersted at the University of Copenhagen; and Ampere and Arago, that electricity will produce magnets, Faraday made the great discovery of magneto-electricity,--that magnets will produce electricity. At once magneto-electric machines were made for generating electricity for the electric light, electro-plating, etc. This discovery, says Professor Tyndall, "is the greatest experimental result ever attained by an investigator, the Mont Blanc of Faraday's achievements."

Soon after he made another great discovery, that of electric induction, or that one electric current will induce another current in an adjoining wire. Others had suspected this, but had sought in vain to prove it. The Bell telephone, which Sir William Thompson calls "the wonder of wonders," depends upon this principle. Here no battery is required; for the vibration of a thin iron plate is made to generate the currents.

After this, Faraday proved that the various kinds of electricity are identical; and that the electricity of the Voltaic pile is produced by chemical action, and not by contact of metals, as Volta had supposed.

The world meantime had showered honors upon the great scientist. Great Britain had made him her idol. The Cambridge Philosophical Society, the Inst.i.tution of Civil Engineers, of British Architects, of Philosophy and of Medicine, and the leading a.s.sociations of Scotland had made him an honorary member. Paris had elected him corresponding member of all her great societies. St. Petersburg, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berlin, Palermo, Modena, Lisbon, Heidelberg, Frankfort, and our own Boston and Philadelphia had sent tokens of admiration. Eminent men from all the world came to see him.

How proud his mother must have felt at this wonderful success! She was not able to enter into her son's pursuits from lack of early education; but she talked much about him, calling him ever, "my Michael"; and would do nothing whatever without his advice. He supported her in her declining years; and she seemed perfectly happy. His father had died in his boyhood; but Faraday ever honored his occupation. He used to say, "I love a smith-shop, and anything relating to smithing. My father was a blacksmith."

He was now forty-nine. The overtaxed brain refused to work longer.

Memory was losing her grasp, and but for the sweet and careful presence of Sarah Faraday, the life-work would doubtless have been finished at this time. She took him to Switzerland, where he walked beside the lakes and over the mountains with "my companion, dear wife, and partner in all things." For four years he made scarcely any experiments in original research, and then the tired brain seemed to regain its wonted power, and go on to other discoveries.

An Italian philosopher, Morichini, was the first to announce the magnetizing power of the solar rays. Mrs. Somerville covered one-half of a sewing-needle with paper, and exposed the other half to the violet rays. In two hours the exposed end had acquired magnetism. Faraday, by long and difficult experiments, showed the converse of this: he magnetized a ray of light,--an experiment "high, beautiful, and alone,"

says Mr. Tyndall. He also showed the magnetic condition of all matter.

He was always at work. He entered the laboratory in the morning, and often worked till eleven at night, hardly stopping for his meals. He seldom went into society, for time was too precious. If he needed a change, he read aloud Shakspeare, Byron, or Macaulay to his wife in the evening, or corresponded with Herschel, Humboldt, and other great men.

In the midst of exhausting labors he often preached on the Sabbath, believing more earnestly in the word of G.o.d the more he studied science.

When he was sixty-four the great brain began to show signs of decline.

Belgium, Munich, Vienna, Madrid, Rome, Naples, Turin, Rotterdam, Upsala, Lombardy, and Moscow had sent him medals, or made him a member of their famous societies. Napoleon III. made him commander of the Legion of Honor, a rare t.i.tle; and the French exhibition awarded him the grand medal of honor. The Queen asked him to dine with her at Windsor Castle, and, at the request of Prince Albert her husband, she presented him with a lovely home at Hampton Court.

At seventy-one he wrote to Mrs. Faraday from Glasgow, "My head is full, and my heart also; but my recollection rapidly fails. You will have to resume your old function of being a pillow to my mind, and a rest,--a happy-making wife." Still he continued to make able reports to the government on lighthouses, electric machines, steam-engines, and the like.

And then for two years the memory grew weaker, the body feebler, and he was, as he told a friend, "just waiting." He died in his chair in his study, August 25th, 1867, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery.

Westminster Abbey would have opened her doors to him, but he requested to be buried "in the simplest earthly place, with a gravestone of the most ordinary kind." On a plain marble slab in the midst of cl.u.s.tering ivy are his name and the dates of his birth and death. One feels a strange tenderness of heart as he stands beside this sacred spot where rests one, who, though elected to seventy societies, and offered nearly one hundred t.i.tles and tokens of honor, said he "would remain plain Michael Faraday to the last."

Wonderful man! great in mind, n.o.ble in heart, and gentle in manner, having brought a strong nature under the most complete discipline. His energy, his devotion to a single object, his untiring work, and his beautiful character carried the blacksmith's son to the highest success.

SIR HENRY BESSEMER.

A little way from London, England, at Denmark Hill, looking toward the Crystal Palace, is a mansion which is fit for royalty. The grounds, covering from thirty to forty acres, are beautifully terraced, dotted here and there with lakelets, fountains, and artificial caverns, while the great clumps of red rhododendron, yellow laburnum, pink hawthorne, and white laurel make an exquisitely colored picture. The home itself is s.p.a.cious and inviting, with its elegant conservatory and rare works of art. The owner of this house, Sir Henry Bessemer, is cordial and gracious; and from his genial face and manner, no one would imagine that his life had been one long struggle with obstacles.

Born in Charlton, a little county town in Hertfordshire, Jan. 19, 1813, he received the rudiments of an education like other boys in the neighborhood. His father, Anthony Bessemer, an inventor, seeing that his son was inclined to mechanics, bought him, in London, a five-inch foot-lathe, and a book which described the art of turning. Day after day, in the quiet of his country home, he studied and practised turning, and modelling in clay.