Newton had been dragged here; this was plain enough. But once he saw Eliza in the flesh, and she became something concrete to him, his reluctance was forgotten. Then it was a simple matter of remembering why he had been brought here.
They sat around a table, like students, all in the same sorts of chairs, with no thought given to rank. Newton fixed his gaze on a small burn-mark on the tabletop, and collected his thoughts for a minute or two. Eliza and Fatio filled the silence with chit-chat. But each kept an eye on Newton. Finally Newton’s eyes flicked up to a nearby window, and he got a look on his face as if he were ready to unburden his mind of something. Fatio broke off in mid-sentence and half turned toward him.
“I shall speak as if everything Nicolas has said of your wit and erudition is true,” Newton began, “which means that I shall not limp along with half-truths, nor circle back to proffer tedious explanations, as I might do when speaking to certain other Duchesses.”
“Then I shall strive to be worthy of Fatio’s compliments and of your respect, sir,” Eliza answered.
Which seemed to be just the sort of thing Newton had been hoping to hear, for he gave a little nod, and almost smiled, before going on. “I would address in a straightforward way the question of Alchemy, and why I esteem it. For you will think me addled in the mind, that I devote so much time to it. You will think this because all of the Alchemists you have talked to are mountebanks or their fools. This will have given you a low opinion of the Art and its practitioners.
“You are a friend of Daniel Waterhouse, who does not love Alchemy, and who looks on my time spent in the laboratory as time lost to Natural Philosophy. You know, he went so far as to set fire to my laboratory in 1677. I have forgiven him. He has not, however, forgiven me for continuing to study Alchemy. Perhaps he has, by words or gestures, communicated his views to you, my lady.
“You are also a friend of Leibniz. Now, there are those who would have me believe that Leibniz is, to me, some sort of adversary. I do not think so.” Newton’s eyes strayed towards Fatio as he said this. Fatio turned red, and would not meet his gaze. “I say that the product of mass and velocity is conserved; Leibniz says that the product of mass and the square of velocity is conserved; it seems that both of us are correct, and that by applying both of these principles we may build a science of Dynamics—to borrow Leibniz’s term—that is more than the sum of these two parts. So in this Leibniz has not detracted from my work, but added to it.
“Likewise, he would not detract from Principia Mathematica but rather add to it what is plainly wanting: namely, an account of the seats and causes of Force. In this, Leibniz and I are comrades-in-arms. I, too, would unlock the riddle of Force: Force at a distance, such as joins gravitating bodies, and Forces in and among bodies, as when they collide. Or as here.”