from working or reading on science for the last two years.' This,
at one period or another of their lives, seems to be the fate of
most great investigators. They do not know the limits of their
constitutional strength until they have transgressed them. It is,
perhaps, right that they should transgress them, in order to
ascertain where they lie. Faraday, however, though he went far
towards it, did not push his transgression beyond his power of
restitution. In 1841 Mrs. Faraday and he went to Switzerland, under
the affectionate charge of her brother, Mr. George Barnard, the artist.
This time of suffering throws fresh light upon his character.
I have said that sweetness and gentleness were not its only
constituents; that he was also fiery and strong. At the time now
referred to, his fire was low and his strength distilled away; but
the residue of his life was neither irritability nor discontent.
He was unfit to mingle in society, for conversation was a pain to him;
but let us observe the great Man-child when alone. He is at the
village of Interlaken, enjoying Jungfrau sunsets, and at times
watching the Swiss nailers making their nails. He keeps a little
journal, in which he describes the process of nailmaking, and
incidentally throws a luminous beam upon himself.

'August 2, 1841.--Clout nailmaking goes on here rather considerably,
and is a very neat and pretty operation to observe. I love a
smith's shop and anything relating to smithery. My father was a
smith.'

From Interlaken he went to the Falls of the Giessbach, on the
pleasant lake of Brientz. And here we have him watching the shoot
of the cataract down its series of precipices. It is shattered into
foam at the base of each, and tossed by its own recoil as water-dust