As a boy he was impatient, petulant, and perverse; but by constant wrestling against his tendency to wrongheadedness, he gradually gained the requisite strength, so as to entirely overcome it, and to acquire what he so greatly coveted--the gift of patience.
A man may be feeble in organization, but, blessed with a happy temperament, his soul may be great, active, noble, and sovereign.
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 L.150,000 on the one side, and his undowered science on the other.

He chose the latter, and died a poor man.