“I have decomposed and recomposed the fixed alkalies, and discovered their bases to be two new inflammable substances very like metals; but one of them lighter than ether, and infinitely combustible. So that there are two bodies decomposed, and two new elementary bodies found.”
The stories told by Paris of his habits at this period, and of his various expedients to gain time--of his rushing off to dinner with persons of the highest rank with no fewer than five shirts on, and as many pairs of stockings, because in his haste he could not put on fresh linen without removing that which was underneath; of his continuing his chemical labours on his return to the laboratory until three or four in the morning; and of his then being up before the servants, are certainly much exaggerated, if not wholly apocryphal. He was, it is true, not very systematic in the disposal of his time, but he seldom entered the laboratory before ten or eleven in the morning, and rarely left it later than four, and he was scarcely ever known to visit it after he had dressed for dinner. Except when preparing a lecture, he seldom dined in his rooms at the Institution: his brother tells us that his invitations to dinner were so numerous that he was, or might have been, constantly engaged; and after dinner he was much in the habit of attending evening parties, and devoting the evening to amusement, “so that to the mere frequenters of such parties he must have appeared a votary of fashion rather than of science.”
It was characteristic of him, that on the very eve of the announcement of the discovery which raised him to the summit of his scientific fame, he could unbend the strung bow and thus write to his youngest sister:--
“MY DEAR SISTER, ... I looked last week at the pattern of the gown that my sister put into my hands, and found it so worn and tattered that nothing can be made of it; I cannot therefore get your gowns made till you send me another. The best way will be to give me measure of the waist, shoulders, length &c., in this way, and there can then be no difficulties: thus waist, 15 inches, or whatever it may be; between shoulders: length from waist to skirt or train.
“I do not wish to send gowns you cannot wear, and in this way they can be well made. By a piece of tape you can easily measure and then try the length by a carpenter’s rule, and give me the results for yourself, and for Kitty, and Grace, and I shall then be able to send your gowns a few days after I receive your letter....
