Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers:Poetical Science
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During August, Henry Phillips, the son of Thomas Phillips, R.A., who had painted two famous portraits of Lord Byron, painted a portrait of Ada seated at the piano. Ada played duets on the pianoforte with Annabella. She was pleased to see Byron home from sea and asked Lady Byron to have Ralph come home from DeFellenberg’s school in Switzerland so that all her children could be together.
Ada told William she wanted to be buried next to her father and asked him to inform Colonel Wildman and make the proper arrangements. Babbage came to visit on 12 August, and Ada, suspecting the doctor’s prognosis of the case that came from the doctors the next day, pushed a letter into his hands.
Babbage later stated that Ada had no control of her house or life from that day forward. I agree with Babbage and have not included any letter after 20 August when Lady Byron moved into Ada’s house.
To Lady Byron
Sunday Night [Early August 1852]
You must be prepared to see a very handsome young man! No longer a Boy! Tall & stout, the voice formed & manly; but really he is so splendidly handsome. I am quite amazed!
He was much agitated at meeting me, & quite upset at alteration which he remarked; altho’ he controlled himself in a very manly way.
No want of feeling in him. Quite the contrary. And indeed he seems to be all one could most desire.
Byron
Annabella
To Byron, Lord Ockham
9 August 1852
My Dear Child. We have had so little conversation of late that I had best write to you in place of Papa. . . I have felt better & stronger all of today than for many weeks, (or indeed months past). . .
I think yr arrival has given me quite a new life – especially as you seem to me to be all I could wish.
I am so thankful to see you again & I feel myself full of hope for the future. I shall be so glad to see your dear face again. . .
Yr Affectionate
Mother
To Charles Babbage
12 August 1852
6 Great Cumberland Place
Dear Babbage. In the event of my sudden decease before the completion of a Will I write you this letter to entreat that you will as my Executor attend to the following directions; 1stly you will apply to my mother for the sum of £600; to be employed by you as I have elsewhere privately directed you. 2ndly you will go to the bankers Messrs Drummond’s and obtain from them my account & Balance (if any) and also all of my old drafts.
3rdly You will dispose of all papers and property deposited by me with you, as you may think proper after full examination.
Any balance in money at my bankers you will add to the £600 above named to be similarly employed.
In the fullest reliance on yr faithful performance of the above, I am Most sincerely & affectionately
yours
Augusta Ada Lovelace
To Mary Wilson
18 August 1852
6 Great Cumberland Place
Wilson: I rely on you to keep all quiet & right for my comfort during the few months or weeks which in all probability remain to me, and you will without delay receive from me a token of this confidence. You have been a faithfull & attached servant to me thro’ Life & I wish to place this upon record while I can.
I hope that God will yet grant me a certain time in order to fulfill all I wish but in case this should not be so, I lose not a moment in writing my present note to you. I hope that whenever your own hour comes you will feel all the trust and gratitude & thankfulness which I do in a Higher Power.
Yrs
Augusta Ada Lovelace
On 19 August Ada requested Charles Dickens to come and read the death scene of the little boy from Dombey and Son: “Now the boat was out at sea, but gliding smoothly on. And now there was a shore before him. . . The golden ripple on the wall came back again, & nothing else stirred in the room. The old, old fashion! The fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion—Death! Oh, thank God, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of Immortality!” Dickens walked out of her room, impressed and touched by Ada’s courage and bravery. He was the last non-family member, other than Lady Byron’s friends and physicians, to see her alive. Lady Byron moved into Great Cumberland Place the next day.
On 1 September at Lady Byron’s prompting, Ada confessed her sins to William. He walked out of the room devastated and remained silent about what was revealed to him until his death. William’s handwriting was normally like a pigeon’s scrawl, and yet, in very clear handwriting he wrote that if he was absent it should be known that “Lady Byron is the Mistress of My House.” Ada was now her mother’s “Bird.”
After she dismissed Mary Wilson, Ada’s personal maid, Lady Byron sat, very virtuously, at Ada’s side believing that Ada’s suffering was a pathway to paradise. Dr King wrote Ada, at Lady Byron’s suggestion, a several-page sermon on the virtue of suffering as a means of absolving sin.
Ada’s suffering continued for almost three more months. She did not die until 27 November 1852 at 9:30 p.m. Ada had asked William to arrange for her burial next to her father. The father she had never known in life would now be her companion in death.
Ada was laid to rest next to her father on 3 December in the small church near Newstead, at Hucknall Torkard. Lady Byron did not attend Ada’s funeral. Ada’s coffin was covered in violet velvet; the handles were solid silver; and at the head and foot of the coffin were massive silver coronets. Upon the lid was an escutcheon of the Earl of Lovelace with the Lovelace motto: LABOR IPSE VOLUPTAS (LABOUR IS ITS OWN REWARD).
The theme of this book is “Poetical Science” and it is fitting that Ada asked that this sonnet that she wrote be inscribed on her tombstone. It was not, but Lady Byron later built a memorial to Ada on which is found this poem.
The Rainbow
Bow down in hope, in thanks, all ye who mourn
Where’en that peerless arch of radiant hues
Surpassing earthly tints,—the storm subdued,
Of nature’s strife and tears ‘tis heaven-born
To soothe the sad, the sinning and the forlorn;
A lovely loving token; to infuse;
The hope, the faith, that Pow’r divine endures
With latent good the woes by which we’re torn.
‘Tis like sweet repentance of the skies,
To beckon all but the sense of sin opprest,
Revealing harmony from tears and sighs;
A pledge,—that deep implanted in the breast
A hidden light may burn that never dies,
But burst thro’ storms in purest hues exprest.
Poetical Science
In this book I have emphasized the integration of poetical skills, imagination, and scientific or digital skills. Having an intuitive “whole sight” experience is essential but never enough. That approach often dissolves into romantic images that are as far from the truth as the concept that everything is digital or just a computer program. We get closer to the truth when we integrate these views.
It is always important to keep basic numerical skills in your mind, or as Ada wrote, “make it part of your mind.” Her understanding allowed her to write a table that could teach the machine how to calculate Bernoulli numbers. Ada’s greatest power was the ability to integrate poetry and science, which enabled her to see things “before the fact.” Instead of feeling that we are a hopeless cog in a digital world, we can use her strategy to give us the power to integrate this great technology, the concept of the computer, with our personal humanity.
Final Activity: Build a Kaleidoscope
Ada’s close friend was Sir David Brewster, the inventor of the kaleidoscope. The last thing Ada bought was a kaleidoscope. Just as Ada loved kaleidoscopes, so do I because they integrate imagination and science. Just as I finished this book I went off to the Brewster Society Conference and learned how to build a simple kaleidoscope. Here is a little
more information and a simple pattern.
WARNING:
Cutting the mirrors may be dangerous, so if that is a concern just buy a kaleidoscope kit.
“Kaleidoscope” is derived from Greek words meaning “an instrument with which we can see things of beautiful form.” These instructions are for its simplest form, which consists of three mirrors taped together to form a hollow triangle. Placing these mirrors inside a hollow tube and rotating allows you to see changing patterns.
A picture of an original Brewster Kaleidoscope
Instructions:
You will need some clear plastic, cardboard, bits of colored translucent glass or plastic (craft beads) and some glue. You first start with the “Viewing Tube.”
1. Cut tubing to desired length and smooth any rough edges.
2. Trim the mirrors so that their length is the same as that of the tubing and their width is less than its diameter. Make a cardboard model of the mirror before cutting the mirror itself to be sure your mirrors will fit in the tube.
3. Arrange the mirrors, reflective sides in, to form an equilateral triangle and wrap duct tape around the outside to hold them together.
4. Insert the mirrors into the tubing. Pack them in place with foam rubber or foam peanuts, if necessary.
5. Make a cardboard disk the same diameter as the tubing and poke a hole in its center. Glue this to one end of the tubing.
The Object Chamber
6. Cut two lenses of clear plastic the same diameter as the tubing.
7. Make a one-inch wide strip of cardboard slightly longer than the circumference of the tubing. Glue the ends together.
8. Glue the cardboard ring to one of the lenses.
9. Place the objects to be viewed on the lens with the ring attached, enough to cover the bottom, but not enough to prevent them from tumbling around after the other lens is glued to the ring.
10. Affix the other lens to the cardboard ring.
Final Assembly and Use
Attach the object chamber to the open end of the tubing.
Hold the assembled kaleidoscope to the light to view the patterns created by the mirrors.
(KALEIODOSCOPE instructions, adapted from http://www.ehow_2070230_make-kaleiodoscope.html)
Appendix I
This is the 2nd revision of my book Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers: A Selection from the Letters of Lord Byron’s Daughter and Her Description of the First Computer, 1992, Strawberry Press. Many of the letters found in that volume are the source for this e-book. Since copyright is a very fuzzy issue today, I would like to clarify as much as I can about what is copyright-free and what is not. When I did my first edition I was not allowed to bring a computer into the British Library or to Oxford University, where most of the letters are found. I therefore hand-transcribed every letter, paid for them to be checked by the late Andrew Nicolson, a great Byron scholar, and shared copyright with the Lovelace-Byron Collection. Both the Lovelace-Byron Collection and the Somerville Collection are found at the Department of Special Collections, Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford.
This edition is my copyright, but if you use anything more than a hundred words you should obtain permission from Critical Connection, P.O. Box 452, Sausalito, CA 94966 in writing. Most of Ada’s letters to her family, friends and tutors are in the Lovelace-Byron collection. Some of Ada’s letters to Annabella are in the Wentworth collection at the British Library. All the letters to Mrs Somerville, Woronzow and Agnes Greig, are found in the Somerville Collection. All the letters to Charles Babbage with the exception of one, are found at the British Library, but if quoted from this book should be appropriately acknowledged. The letter dated 6 August from Ada to Babbage was given to me specifically for my book. I consider it perhaps the most important letter, and if you wish to quote from it, please ask for permission and acknowledge it.
The final research about the value of money during Ada’s life did not come till the book was typeset so this insert is meant as a footnote which should have been integrated into the text. Throughout this book money is discussed and it is hard to put those numbers in the proper perspective. More needs to be said about Ada’s resources as she was accused of losing £3000, ten times her income of £300 on a horse race. What did her income represent at the time?
One reader took issue with my writing that Ada’s income of £300 was similar to a teacher’s salary at the time. I wrote William St Clair, a true expert in this subject, and he agreed with my reader. Here is an excerpt from his response: “As for the value of money, this is complex, mainly because the composition of the elements that make up the cost of living were so different from what they are today …Also the disparity between the socio-economic classes was very wide. So all those crude attempts to turn Victorian era prices into modern equivalents by the use of price deflators are seriously insecure. I think your friend is right in suggesting that £300 or £400 is extraordinarily high for the time.”
For further fascinating information, on this topic check out William St Clair’s chapter in Cambridge History of Britain, vol 6, where he discusses actual wages and salaries.
Ada regarded her finances not just in comparison to the finances of people like her tutor De Morgan to whom she was always sending gifts, but to her mother and husband. Her mother’s income was approximately £7000, over 20 times her income and as for her husband she also was trying to get him to give her more money. I believe, despite her income in the context of society being quite good, in relationship to her family she felt a wide economic disparity.
After the footnotes you will find an annotated bibliography, which to me is as important as the footnotes. I have also included some of the many excellent Internet resources as well. I have tried to include the cream of the crop, in all media, but if you do a search you will find thousands of references.
I have edited the footnotes for this e-book. The information I have already given, as well as the Bibliography, will give any reader enough information to find the source. The footnotes are formatted as follows, the page, then the line with a reference or comment.
FOOTNOTES
The history of calculating devices. See Bibliography.
Like Holmes: Holmes, Richard, Coleridge, Early Visions, Viking, 1989, p. 1.
engineering process.:Brooks, F. P. Jr., “No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering.” Computer 20, 4 (April 1987), pp. 10-19.
often. For example: Baggi, Dennis, “Computer–Generated Music.” Computer 24, 7 (July 1991), p. 6.
language very important powers: The immense importance of this capability can be illustrated by imagining the work required to add to a manually maintained and already page-set telephone directory a block of fifty new names beginning with “A”. Such is the task of making changes to software systems if facilities like the Ada language are not used as separate concerns.
Her table further refined: Dubbey, J. M., The Mathematical Work of Charles Babbage, Cambridge University Press, 1978, p. 211.
He summarized his: British Library Add MSS 37197-215, 14 June 1857.
If I survive: Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engines, Selected Writings of Charles Babbage, edited by Phillip and Emily Morrison, Dover Publications, New York, 1961, from the reprint of Passages, p. 68.
It was over seventy: A Computer Perspective, Background to the Computer Age, The Office of Charles Eames, from the Introduction by I. Bernard Cohen, p. 7.
Stanford Beer states: Beer, Stafford, Pebbles to Computers, The Thread, Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 89.
By 1850: the information in this chapter comes from examining the evidence, bank books, and literary remains. Most information about Ada’s gambling comes from Lady Byron, who had an agenda to discolor both Byron’s and Ada’s images. The facts do not support her mind-set. Unfortunately, they have been repeated so often that what is interpretation is taken for fact. Once again, Mark Twain wrote “The truth is easy to kill, but a lie lasts forever.”
On August 19: from
Dombey and Son. Dickens, Charles, Dombey and Son, Everyman Edition, 1997, pp. 220-221.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY AND BIOGRAPHIES
The purpose of this bibliography is to provide a reliable starting place for the reader whose interest might be piqued by some of the characters or the background of the story. The following lists contain only a fraction of the primary and secondary sources I have read. All the letters in this book are from primary sources, unless noted. Specific quotations from published books, secondary sources, are cited in the above footnotes. Anyone wanting to quote the primary sources in this book must cite this book and not the original sources that this book is derived from; that way mistakes can be easily traced. Where quotations of more than 100 words are used, the writer in print or any form of media must apply for permission. For the convenience of scholars who wish to consult the primary sources that I have used, the following information is included:
Primary Sources:
1. Lovelace-Byron Papers, Department of Special Collections, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. All letters in this book are dated and addressed so that they can be easily found in the catalog.