Chapter XVIII: Part III: ‘The Chemistry of the Arts.’ Div. 1, of Agriculture; Div (3)

‘Valde miserabilis’ is not an unfrequent expression at this time, commonly accompanied with mention of diminished power of limbs and general feebleness, with pain and numbness. Sometimes he was in despair of recovery and resigned to his fate, at other times indulging in hope, thankful for feeling better, and expressing thanks (and he does it very often) by the use of letters; as G. G. D. (Thanks and glory to God); O. O. O.; or more fully thus, G. O. O. O. D.

On July 1 he wrote to his friend Mr. Davies Gilbert, who was on the council of the Royal Society. He says that the expectations of his complete and rapid recovery have not been realised.

Under these circumstances I feel it would be highly imprudent,
and perhaps fatal, for me to return and to attempt to perform the
official duties of President of the Royal Society; and as I had
no other feeling for that high and honourable situation except
the hope of being useful to the society, so I would not keep it
a moment without the security of being able to devote myself to
the labour and attention it demands. I beg, therefore, you will
be so good as to communicate my resignation to the council and
to the Society at their first meeting in November, stating the
circumstances of my severe and long-continued illness as the cause.
At the same time I beg you will express to them how grateful I
feel for the high honour they have done me in placing me in the
chair for so many successive years. Assure them that I shall
always take the same interest in the progress of the grand objects
of the Society, and throughout the whole of my life endeavour to
contribute to their advancement and to the prosperity of the body.

He continued his notes thus:

‘_September 2._--I took my exercise well with less fatigue, and certainly feel better. Offered up my thanksgiving to the O. O. O. with tears of gratitude and feelings of intense adoration,

‘_September 27_, ST. GOAR.--A very beautiful and glorious evening. I thought I was going to be quite well, as the weakness of the left wrist, which put an end to my shooting at Spiers, is quite gone; but I found my stiff leg as bad as ever. Yet I can hardly be lower or live lower. Dubito fortissime restaurationem meam.

‘As I have so often alluded to the possibility of my dying suddenly, I think it right to mention that I am too intense a believer in the Supreme Intelligence, and have too strong a faith in the optimism of the system of the universe, ever to accelerate my dissolution. The laurel-water and laudanum and opium that are in my dressing-case are medicines. I have been and am taking a care of my health which I fear it is not worth, but which, hoping it may please Providence to preserve me for wise purposes, I think my duty. G. O. O. O.’

He arrived in London on October 6. Not finding his health improve, on March 29, 1828, he left England again. Before he went he sent a paper on Volcanoes to the Royal Society.

In his ‘Consolations in Travel’ he says, ‘I was desirous of again passing some time in Southern Austria and Italy, in the hope of re-establishing a broken constitution, and though this hope was a feeble one, yet at least I expected to spend a few of the last days of life more tranquilly and more agreeably than in the metropolis of my own country. Nature never deceives us. The rocks, the mountains, the streams, always speak the same language. A shower of snow may hide the verdant woods in spring, a thunder-storm may render the blue, limpid streams foul and turbulent; but these effects are rare and transient; in a few hours, or at least days, all the sources of beauty are renovated; and Nature affords no continued trains of misfortunes and miseries, such as depend upon the constitution of humanity, no hopes for ever blighted in the bud, no beings full of life, beauty, and promise taken from us in the prime of youth. Her fruits are all balmy, bright, and sweet; she affords none of those blighted ones so common in the life of man and so like the fabled apples of the Dead Sea, fresh and beautiful to the sight, but when tasted full of bitterness and ashes.’

On May 22 he writes, ‘To my old haunt, Wurzen, which is sublime in the majesty of Alpine grandeur. The snowy peaks of the Noric Alps rising above thunder-clouds, whilst spring in all its bloom and beauty blooms below, its buds and blossoms adorning the face of nature under a frowning canopy of dark clouds, like some Judith beauty of Italy--a Transteverene brow and eye and a mouth of Venus and the Graces.’

On June 3 he wrote to his brother, Dr. Davy:

Aussee, in Styria.

Notwithstanding the long, severe, and depressing malady under
which I still labour I am not entirely without hope of ultimate
recovery, and the few pleasures which I retain in this my state of
earthly purgatory have principally reference to the enjoyments and
prospects of my friends; and I indulge in the idea that you are
well and happy and enjoying a life which I can say I only support,
supposing that it pleases Omniscience to preserve me for some ends
which I cannot understand, but which I trust belong to the great
plan of goodness and mercy belonging to the Divine mind.

It suits me better to write away my days in this solitary state of
existence in the contemplation of nature than to attempt to enter
into London society, where recollections call up the idea of what
I was, and the want of bodily power teaches me what a shadow I am.
I make notes in natural history, fish, and prepare for another
edition of my ‘Salmonia;’ ride amongst the lakes and mountains; and
attach the loose fringe of hope as much as possible to my tattered
garments. I am now going to Ischel, where there are warm salt
baths, to try if they will renovate the muscular power of my leg
and arm.

I wish to go to Trieste in October, to make the experiments I have
long projected on the torpedo. God bless you, my dear John!

Your affectionate Friend and Brother,
H. DAVY.

On June 24 he says:

I have used the baths. I have nearly recovered the flexibility of
the affected limbs, but not their former strength, and this I can
hardly hope to do as long as I am obliged to live so low and to use
so much medicine; but I shall go on. Speranza!

In November he sent his last paper to the Royal Society. It was on the Torpedo.

On December 21 he wrote to his brother:

Rome.

Perhaps in the spring you could see me in Illyria. I would then
show you my kind little nurse, to whom I owe most of the little
happiness I have enjoyed since my illness.

He had stopped his treatment for four months and had lived rather more freely, but in ‘every respect I have continued extremely temperate.’

On January 30, 1829, he was still at Rome. He said, ‘The palpitation of the heart has increased almost alarmingly, and I do not think I have gained any strength in the weak limbs.’

On February 1 he wrote in his journal, ‘Finished the dialogues fifth and sixth’ (these ended the ‘Consolations in Travel’). ‘Si moro, spero che ho fatto il mio dovere, e che la mia vita non e stata vana ed inutile.’

On February 6 he wrote to his friend Poole from Rome:

Would I were better, I would then write to you an agreeable letter
from this curious city; but I am here wearing away the winter, a
ruin amongst ruins.

I write and philosophise a good deal, and have nearly finished a
work with a higher aim than the little ‘Salmonia,’ which I shall
dedicate to you. It contains the essence of my philosophical
opinions and some of my poetical reveries. I sometimes think of the
lines of Waller:

The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.

I have, notwithstanding my infirmities, attended to scientific
objects whenever it was in my power, and I have sent to the
Royal Society a paper, which they will publish, on the ‘Peculiar
Electricity of the Torpedo,’ which I think bears remotely on the
functions of life. I attend a good deal to natural history.

I fight against sickness and fate, believing I have still duties to
perform, and that even my illness is connected in some way with my
being made useful to my fellow-creatures. I have this conviction
full on my mind, that intellectual beings spring from the same
breath of Infinite Intelligence, and return to it again, but by
different courses, like rivers born amidst the clouds of heaven
and lost in the deep and eternal ocean; some in youth rapid and
short-lived torrents, some in manhood powerful and copious rivers,
and some in age by a winding and slow course, half lost in their
career and making their exit by many sandy and shallow mouths. [And
then he asks him if he will come and travel with him.] But I write
as if I were a strong man, when I am like a pendulum, as it were,
swinging between death and life. God bless you, my dear Poole!

Your grateful and affectionate Friend,
H. DAVY.

A fortnight afterwards he had another severe attack of paralysis of the right side.

On February 23, three days after the attack, he dictated a letter to his brother.

MY DEAR JOHN,--Notwithstanding all my care and discipline and
ascetic living I am dying from a severe attack of palsy, which has
seized the whole of the body with the exception of the intellectual
organ. I am under the usual severe discipline of bleeding and
blistering, but the weakness increases, and a few hours or days
will finish my mortal existence. I shall leave my bones in the
Eternal City. I bless God that I have been able to finish all my
philosophical labours....

God bless you, my dear brother! may you be happy and prosperous!

Your affectionate Friend and Brother,
H. DAVY.

The 25th he dictated another letter, chiefly on the torpedo; it ends:

Pray do not neglect this subject, which I leave to you as another
legacy. God bless you, my dear brother!

Your affectionate Friend,
H. DAVY.

He tried to write a postscript, and he did write ‘My dear John;’ then he dictated, ‘I am dying; come as quickly as you can. You will not see me alive, I am afraid. God bless you!’

On March 16 Dr. Davy reached him. ‘Never shall I forget,’ he says, ‘the manner in which he received me, the joy which lighted up his pale and emaciated countenance, his cheerful words and extreme kindness, and his endeavours to soothe a grief which I had not the power of controlling on finding him so ill, or rather at hearing him speak as if he were a dying man, who had only a few hours to live, and who wished to use every moment of such precious time. With a most cheerful voice, a smile on his countenance, and most warm pressure of the hand, he bade me not be grieved, but consider the event as a philosopher. He expressed his pleasure at seeing me so soon and in having me with him in his last hours, and firmly rejected all expectation and hope of recovery. He had lost all the irritable feeling to which he was very liable, and which generally accompanies paralytic complaints. His own conviction that he was a dying man almost persuaded me that the brilliancy of his mind was a lightening before death.’

The next day he was not only amused but interested deeply with the dissection of a torpedo made by Dr. Davy in an adjoining room.

On the night of March 31, having gradually got worse, he told Dr. Davy he was sure he should die. ‘He took leave of me most tenderly, kissed my cheek, and bade God bless me. I believed that now indeed I was about to lose him and that I should never again hear his voice of kindness. During the night when I went to him he still breathed. The following morning, when I drew back his curtains, he expressed great astonishment at being alive. He said that he had gone through the whole process of dying, and that when he awoke he had difficulty in convincing himself by experiments that he was in his earthly existence. He added that his being alive was quite miraculous, and that he now began to think his recovery not impossible, and that it might be intended by Divine Providence that his life should be prolonged for purposes of usefulness.

‘From this day he pretty rapidly improved; as he mended the sentiment of gratitude to Divine Providence was overflowing.’ On April 20 he wrote his last note at the end of a letter of Dr. Davy’s.

‘MY DEAR SISTER,--I am very ill, but, thanks to my dearest John, still alive. God bless you all!--H. DAVY.’ ‘He would have said more, but his feeble hand failed him.’

On April 30 he was able to leave Rome for Switzerland. He stayed a week at Genoa and on May 28 he reached Geneva, and there first heard of the death of Dr. Young, ‘which affected him in a manner almost unaccountable.’ He dined early and was read to afterwards; at half-past nine he wished to be left alone, ‘and I took leave of him,’ says Dr. Davy, ‘for the night. At half-past two his servant called me. He was insensible, and in a few minutes he expired.’

For the last half-century general opinion has been so charmed by the simple greatness of Faraday, that even the genius of Davy with his love of original research has been partially eclipsed. But, as time lessens the effect of the contrast, the reputation of Davy will recover its former brightness, and the picture drawn of him by Mr. Poole will not be looked on as due to the partiality of his oldest and most attached friend.

‘Although the most friendly intercourse existed between us for thirty years, I fear I have little else to communicate than to bear testimony to his general intellectual elevation and to the warmth, sincerity, and simplicity of his heart. I was first introduced to him at the Medical Pneumatic Institution at Clifton in, I think, 1799, where I inhaled his nitrous oxide with the usual extraordinary and transitory sensations; but the interesting conversation, manners, and appearance of the youthful operator were not transitory--nay, riveted my attention--and we soon became friends.

‘From that time to his death no interruption of the most cordial goodwill and affection occurred between us. Neither the importance of his discoveries nor the attentions of the exalted in rank or science, whether as individuals or bodies, nor the honour conferred on him by his sovereign, made the least alteration in his personal demeanour or in the tone of his correspondence. No man was ever less spoiled by the world. The truth is, though he conformed to the world and paid due deference to those men and things which are deferred to by the world, his delight was in his intellectual being. He felt that he had the power of investigating the laws of nature beyond that entrusted to the generality of men, and the success with which he acted on this impulse increased his confidence. During his last visit to me in November 1827, when in a very weak state of health, he more than once said, “I do not wish to live as far as I am personally concerned; but I have views which I could develope, if it please God to save my life, which would be useful to science and to mankind.” Indeed, to be useful to science and to mankind was that in which he gloried, to use a favourite word of his. He was enthusiastically attached to science and to men of science, and his heart yearned to be useful to mankind, and particularly to the humblest of mankind. How often have I heard him express the satisfaction which the discovery of the safety lamp gave him. “I value it,” he said, “more than anything I ever did.”

‘However his circumstances and situation in society altered, his labours and zeal in the pursuit of science were throughout his life undiminished.

‘What from my earliest knowledge of my admirable friend I considered his most striking characteristic was the quickness and truth of his apprehension. It was a power of reasoning so rapid when applied to any subject, that he could hardly himself be conscious of the process, and it must, I think, have been felt by him as it appeared to me pure intuition. I used to say to him, “You understand me before I half understand myself.”

‘If his mind had been given in that direction he would probably have ranked high among our poets. I recollect hearing perhaps the greatest living poetic genius (Coleridge) say, “Had not Davy been the first chemist, he probably would have been the first poet of his age.”

‘No man was less a sectarian, if I may use the expression, in religion, in politics, or in science. He regarded with benevolence the sincere convictions of any class on the subject of religion, however they might vary from his own. In politics he was the ardent friend of rational liberty; he gloried in the institutions of his country and was anxious to see them maintained in their purity by timely and temperate reform. Men of science, wherever situated, he considered fellow-subjects of one great republic spread over the world. As to his amusements he would say, “It is not the sport only, though there is a great pleasure in successful dexterity, but it is the ardour of the pursuit, the pure air, the contemplation of the fine country, the exercise, all which invigorate the body and excite the mind to its best efforts.”

‘When he made his last visit to me in 1827, on his arrival he said, “Here I am, the ruin of what I was.” But nevertheless the same activity and ardour of mind continued, though directed to different objects.

‘He was not only one of the greatest but one of the most benevolent and amiable of men.’