He also bade me swear that I would not share the details of our nocturnal exploits with you or anyone else, and so I am torn between two loyalties, Father. Perhaps I shall destroy these pages once I have revisited them, but for now I seek solace in the fact that someday someone with an artist’s eye will ponder the gross discrepancies in the dead man’s hands; will question the gaping absence that mars the composition on the right; will notice that three of the attendant surgeons (when their portraits are completed) are watching the parting back of the preparator, who casts a dark shadow upon the dead man’s feet — sketched by none other than young master Bol! That they will scrutinise the background and realise that this is not the interior of the Theatrum Anatomicum, but that of a nearby brothel. And that their roving eye will ultimately fall upon the master’s initial, marking the dead man’s navel as if to say: in this world I am both the father and mother of Aris Kindt, I am his Creator.
An Experiment in the Formulae of Thought
Simon Guerrier
The titular experiment had its origin in a suggestion by Mr Charles Dickens. This fact might well surprise those that know the author’s work, for, despite his many qualities, he is not renowned for an interest in science. But yet, the first germ of the idea, that essential seed, had been born from his pen; and later, when — out of courtesy — his opinion was sought on the project, his one recommendation wholly transformed the enterprise.
I learnt this salient detail at the infamous dinner which took place on the last night of the year Eighteen-fifty-three. In all fidelity — and I shall be completely honest in this account, even when the truth comes at my own expense — I had not been sure whether to attend the dinner, for I am but a popular journalist, and hardly a scholar of the latest geologic theory. Besides, the card had arrived mere days before the event, and I already had made tentative plans. All rational thought said not to attend; but then that is the moral of this story, for the experiment I describe has taught me one thing: we are not a rational species.
So, at a few minutes to five of the clock that cold Saturday evening, my hansom pulled up on a dark street in a south-eastern part of London. I stepped down on to newly lain pavement, hardly impressed by the sight presented to greet me. Plain wooden hoardings lined the street. They concealed the building works beyond, from whence emanated a stink of chalk and new-forged steel. There had surely been some mistake; or I was victim to some prank; for it was not conceivable that I had been invited to dine in the midst of a factory.
I turned to say as much to my driver, sat atop the hansom — and my heart stopped in my throat. Ahead of me, lined right the way down the street, stood a great number more hansoms; the horses with nosebags, the drivers huddled together round mugs of steaming tea. Some hansoms bore impressive coats of arms. At first I felt relief at this clue to my august company, but then came a sudden, cold horror — for I am not often acquainted with those of nobler blood. Thank Heaven, I thought, that Angus had put out my second-best waistcoat and my best gold chain.
With what courage I could muster, I left my driver to ingratiate himself among his peers, and made my way to the gap between the hoardings that allowed entry inside. Lanterns hung from the sparse, young trees, illuminating a tawdry earthworks. Wooden boards had been arranged as a gangway across the mud. Yet a man stood on duty, for all the world as if he stood on the door of the Savoy, touching his hat as I stepped into view.
“Good evening, Mr Quake, sir,” he said with all good cheer — though he had surely never looked on me before. “You’re expected in the marquee.”
“Thank you, my man,” I said, grandly; for though the circumstance was altogether absurd, we are yet creatures of habit, our responses deeply ingrained. I made my way across the boards, and by some miracle did not slip.
I did not see the marquee at first; the boards only directed me toward what appeared to be a barn. Since my only recourse was to turn back — and face, with all embarrassment, the man on duty — I continued my present course. Then I heard laughter from beyond. In short, the barn was not a barn but the studio of Mr Waterhouse Hawkins and the marquee had been erected inside the wooden building. I stepped from the darkness of the night into a dazzling space of white drapery, chandeliers burning overhead.
A group of more than a dozen people stood in their finery, sipping Champagne and exchanging pleasantries. I stared in wonder at my fellow guests: the most unlikely admixture of persons. Some of those present were quick to appraise my costume — and clearly drew conclusions as to my position in society, and the impudence of my wearing that gold chain. But one man broke from the other guests and came to greet me warmly.
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins I had met before, when he exhibited four sculptures at the Royal Academy. He was a keen-eyed, passionate gentleman, and now thanked me again for a small description of his work that I’d penned for the Manchester Guardian. This, of course, had been the motive behind my being invited that night.
“We need good press, Bartholomew,” he told me. “Or they’ll cut us off. They say we’ve spent more than the budget already, and I’ll warrant that thirty thousand pounds amounts to quite a sum! But there’s still so much to do.”
“Of course, I’ll do whatever I can to assist you,” I said, for I had always liked Waterhouse Hawkins. But I could also see the sly smile on his face, and with all the strange business of this dinner in the earthworks, I felt certain he was teasing me. “But come now,” I said, playing the good sport. “Thirty thousand pounds on sculptures?”
“Wait and see,” he said. “But let me introduce you to your fellow diners.”
And so, as the sculptor’s favoured guest, I was introduced to some of the leading figures of our age: Forbes the naturalist, Prestwick the geologist, Gould, who was an expert on birds, Armstrong the hydraulic engineer. I was introduced to the managing director and his chief acolytes in the Crystal Palace Company, and other important persons. As we shook hands and exchanged curt pleasantries, I detected their discomfort, and thought it a question of my class. But then one man refused to take my hand, gazing at me with the utmost malevolence.
Sir Richard Owen I knew from his image in the Illustrated London News but it was a startling experience to meet him in the flesh. The pronounced cranium gave the strong impression of a head near to bursting with brain; his bulging, staring eyes even served to suggest we were on the brink of an explosion. In short, the famous naturalist was quite a specimen of humanity — he seemed like his own caricature. You will intuit that I did not take to him; but he likewise made no secret of his disdain for my person.
“Um,” said Waterhouse Hawkins, coming to the rescue. “I fear we interrupted Sir Richard in mid-flow. Do forgive us, sir, and continue.”
I, of all people, had upstaged the great man! There would be no forgiveness. Sir Richard still fixed me with that glare.
“There are those of our brethren,” he said, returning to his point, “who would not know the difference between Megaloceros and Megalosaurus.”
The pun is more apparent written down; spoken, I could not discern any difference between the names, as must have been readily evident from my slack-jawed bafflement — I made the other guests laugh. Owen smiled, cruelly, at my discomfort. “This,” he told the group, “is exactly to the heart of it. But let us, pray, not condescend. We must raise up the common man to our own understanding.”
Burning hot with shame, I paid studious attention to the debate that followed, the learned men picking over the conclusions to be drawn from the latest fossil discoveries. “I would not speak ill of the dead,” said Owen, in a tone that suggested quite the contrary, “but Mantell was completely wrong. The class dinosauria — which I, of course, first named — were quadruped.” He smiled again at me. “That is, they went about on all fours.”
I could see that some felt sympathy for my position, but none dared rebuke or interrupt the esteemed professor — for fear he would turn his Wit on them. One, a woman — the only woman in the company — trie
d to change the subject; why, I thought he might even strike her! But he contained his fury, only glaring towards her — while she, to her credit, stood her ground.
She was a fine-looking woman of becoming middle-age, elegant, even dainty, yet with such fire in her eyes. She had us all transfixed as she held Owen’s gaze. To whom, I wondered, of the other men in our company did she belong? Not one of them stepped forward to support her — or to stay her hand. Then, with girlish grace, she bowed her head to Owen. “Professor,” she said, “you were saying...”
It says much of the professor’s character that he thought he had won a victory over her, and continued with his lecture.
At last rescue came and a gong was sounded. We were led into the next section of the marquee for our dinner.
Now, there has been some contention about the practicalities of what followed. The common image of the dinner, a lithograph in the Illustrated London News, is, while accurately drawn from the life, framed in such a way as to deceive the eye. We did not all sit inside the Iguanodon’s belly. Of course not; those readers who have since visited the dinosaur sculptures in the gardens of the Crystal Palace can clearly see there would not have been space for but six of us, let alone twenty. We were not, in fact, inside the beast at all. Rather, there were two tables in a T-arrangement between the two halves of the mould from which Iguanodon was cast. The mould was, of necessity, larger than the cast and in sections. Even so, it was still quite a squeeze to fit twenty-one esteemed persons into the enclosure.
We ascended a few steps to a platform constructed round — and between — the two halves of the creature. A chandelier hung overhead and, as we seated, Waterhouse Hawkins drew attention to the names above our heads: Mantell, Cuvier, Conybeare, Buckland — who, said those who had known him, would have delighted in such a feast. We raised a toast to these men who had laid so much of the ground for the current project. I noted that Owen would not be looked down on by these departed giants: his own name appeared among them.
By good fortune, I was placed next to the lady, and away from Owen. He continued to lecture the company as the first course was brought in. I felt a pang of pity for those sitting at that end of the table; those of us at the other end were able to discourse with one another, albeit in hushed tones so as not to disturb the professor.
We ate well — mock turtle soup, then fillets of whiting followed by raised pigeon pie. The food came from the public house some way up the hill, and the lady and I laughed at the imagined scene of servants in tailcoats, scurrying down through the thick mud with each platter so as to serve it still warm.
It is the method of well-schooled women across Europe: make the man talk and say little of yourself. The lady played her part well, with words and inference to suggest that she really did find the life of a middling scrivener of inordinate fascination. It would have been easy to pour out tales of my tawdry existence, and bask in the glow of her interest — and flirtation, for I flatter myself there was that, as well. But I was just as fascinated by her story; more so, for my interest was genuine. Who was she? Who was she with? She surely wasn’t a geologist?
“Oh no,” she laughed — earning her a stern look from the far end of the table. Suitably cowed, we sat silently until the professor’s lecture had resumed.
“Then your husband...” I suggested, glancing round the table. The lady noticeably cooled.
“My husband,” she said, “does not accompany me this evening.”
“Oh,” I said. “Then what on earth are you...” I thought better than to finish “doing here?” But the lady took my question as I’d asked it.
“I don’t know what I am,” she said. “Only what I would escape. You want to know why I’m here tonight. I have an interest, Mr Quake. You might say I was born to have an interest. For the class dinosauria, the hulking brutes who once walked our Earth... Do they not horrify you? Such power and menace and rage. And yet, in them I see my salvation...”
I confess I did not understand her allusion for I did not know who she was. But I saw the distress I had evidently caused with my question so, over our entrées and game, we spoke of other things: how we’d marked Christmas, and how much the feast day had altered in recent years.
“That too,” she said, “is down to Mr Dickens.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand you,” I said.
She explained without condescension. “His story, with Scrooge and the ghosts.”
“No,” I said quickly. “I mean, yes: Dickens breathed new life into Christmas. But you said ‘that too’. What else is the man to be blamed for?”
“Oh,” she said. “All this.” She gestured round the room. “Us being here — myself in particular. It all stems from his Bleak House; the first chapter — the very first paragraph. Don’t you recall? He describes London in November, the awful rain and mud. As if, he says, the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth. So that you might well imagine a Megalosaurus, climbing Holborn Hill.”
The man to the far side of the lady butted in. “But Dickens got it wrong: Megalosaurus never measured forty feet.”
The lady only smiled. “It was not his task to be accurate,” she told him — and the rest of the table. “It is ours.”
The men around us murmured their agreement. Owen, glowering at the end of the table, even conceded the point. Then he got to his feet, pulling a thick sheaf of papers from his inside pocket. His speeches so far that evening had been merely an appetiser for the full ordeal.
“Gentlemen,” he said — he did not include the lady. “What might Cuvier have made of our achievements?” I shall spare the reader what followed — a florid account of Owen’s own accomplishment in deducing the shape and character of ancient creatures from scant fossil evidence; how he’d led Waterhouse Hawkins and his team to create full-size replicas of the dinosaurs in iron, brick and clay; how these sculptures would transform public understanding of the pre-Adamite age.
Owen talked at considerable length, and continued on as our next course arrived, was consumed and the plates withdrawn. I fortified myself with wine and endeavoured to maintain an expression of keen interest. Yet, no one else round the table seemed the least bit fatigued: indeed, they became increasingly enthralled.
Of course, they did not sit forward in their seats because Owen spoke; rather, it was that the longer he spoke, the nearer he approached his end. They were keen to move on to whatever was the next piece of business. At last the moment came.
“We are explorers in more than the field of geology,” he said. “Our efforts open doors on to biology and ancient history, perhaps philosophy, too, in the more modern understanding of that word. But we are also making inroads into mathematics — and more, into the workings of the animal mind. Is that not right, Lady Lovelace?”
I started, as if touched by lightning, while the other guests politely applauded. Owen took his seat, raising his glass to hide the sour look on his face at having to surrender the stage. Only I saw that fact; all other eyes were on the lady beside me.
She got to her feet with that same lightness of movement I had observed before, colouring at the attention, a sweet smile on her face. I could not help gawping at her, for I did not know her as the men around me did. To them, she was a pioneering analyst and metaphysician, with a rare and practical insight into computational method. To me, her name spoke only of scandal, for she was the daughter of the late Lord Byron.
She spoke. For all her nervousness before the crowd, her words were succinct and clear. There were profuse thanks to all of us round the table for our indulgence. Then she began to discuss how she had become involved in the “sculpture project” — as she called it. As Owen and Waterhouse Hawkins had progressed with their great work of deduction in moulding full figures of dinosaurs from scant fossil specimens, they had needed some advice. Mr Dickens, whose latest novel had inspired the work in the first place, had suggested her Ladyship.
“Yet I could hardly see why I should be involved,” she
admitted to the table. “Oh, I saw a bold enterprise with a welcome, public purpose. But what was I to contribute? Professor Owen and his colleagues had already established a method of comparative anatomy, deducing the shape and size of a dinosaur by comparing the fossils to specimens of known creatures. Thus, famously, the fossilised teeth found in Sussex by Mantell were shown to resemble those of the much smaller iguana, a specimen of which was held in the Royal College of Surgeons. It was a matter of scale, not mathematics. I am afraid to say that at our first interview, I tried to insist they would be mistaken to employ me.”
This occasioned some laughter. Professor Owen did not laugh — I doubt he ever did. But even Waterhouse Hawkins sat demurely. He had joked about his own work; he did not joke about whatever it was that the lady had done.
She started to explain: at least that was her intent. But after some initial words on the new, abstract science of operations and how a loom might be instructed through a series of punchcards to weave a complicated pattern in a carpet, I found myself at sea. The lady quoted a considerable number of mathematical formulae, lightly and easily as though they had been favourite verses. The deltas, cosigns and powers of V left me so baffled that I started to wonder if I was the one to have madness in the family. My only solace was that I was clearly not alone in being so lost; and her Ladyship clearly saw that.
“Well, gentleman,” she concluded, a teasing look in her eye. “That is all perfectly simple. But how might such expressions be applied?”
She left the question hanging. For a long moment there was silence, just the wail of the wintry breeze outside.
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