Professor Tyndall has given us a fine picture of the character of
Faraday, and of his self-denying labours in the cause of science--
exhibiting him as a man of strong, original, and even fiery
nature, and yet of extreme tenderness and sensibility.
"Underneath his sweetness and gentleness," he says, "was the heat
of a volcano. He was a man of excitable and fiery nature; but,
through high self-discipline, he had converted the fire into a
central glow and motive power of life, instead of permitting it to
waste itself in useless passion."
There was one fine feature in Faraday's character which is worthy
of notice--one closely akin to self-control: it was his self-
denial. By devoting himself to analytical chemistry, he might
have speedily realised a large fortune; but he nobly resisted the
temptation, and preferred to follow the path of pure science.
"Taking the duration of his life into account," says Mr. Tyndall,
"this son of a blacksmith and apprentice to a bookbinder had to
decide between a fortune of ?150,000 on the one side, and his
undowered science on the other. He chose the latter, and
died a poor man. But his was the glory of holding aloft
among the nations the scientific name of England for a
period of forty years." (7)
Take a like instance of the self-denial of a Frenchman. The
historian Anquetil was one of the small number of literary men in
France who refused to bow to the Napoleonic yoke.
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