Here's a quotation from the Great Grampa of my Grampa, who was such a jerk he left my Grandma a few days after Mom was born.
He was the world's first glue sniffer. There are statues of him in England.
I existed in a world of newly connected and newly modified ideas. I theorised—I imagined that I made discoveries. When I was awakened from this semi-delirious trance by Dr. Kinglake, who took the bag from my mouth, indignation and pride were the first feelings produced by the sight of the persons about me. My emotions were enthusiastic and sublime; and for a minute I walked round the room, perfectly regardless of what was said to me. As I recovered my former state of mind, I felt an inclination to communicate the discoveries I had made during the experiment. I endeavoured to recall the ideas, they were feeble and indistinct; one collection of terms, however, presented itself: and with the most intense belief and prophetic manner, I exclaimed to Dr Kinglake, 'Nothing exists but thoughts!-the universe is composed of impressions, ideas, pleasures and pains!'
— Sir Humphry Davy
Researches, Chemical and Philosophical (1800), in J. Davy (ed.), The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy (1839-40), Vol 3, 289-9
Sir Humphry had a long list of admirers, including the King of England, who knighted him. He consorted with Mary Shelly, S.T. Coleridge, Robert Burns, and William Wordsworth, who wrote this:
Davy's gone. Surely these [the storyteller, the poet and the scientist] are men of power, not to be replaced should they disappear, as one alas has done.
— William Wordsworth
Quoted in Raymond Lamont-Brown, Humphry Davy: Life Beyond The Lamp, 168.
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