The Confusion

Masham led him on to a study that was obviously Locke’s. He had published his Essay Concerning Human Understanding four years before. To judge from the storm of letters on his desk, angry criticism was still rushing in, and Locke was at work on a sort of apologia for the next edition: “...searches after truth are a sort of hawking and hunting, wherein the very pursuit makes a great part of the pleasure.”

 

 

Locke’s study had French doors that led out into a little rose-garden. The wind blew up now for a few moments and got under the edge of one of those doors, which was hanging ajar, and blew it open, letting cool air curl into the room and blow Locke’s papers around. It felt and smelt of autumn. Masham scurried around chasing the blown pages, which was amusing because they had been in utmost disorder to being with. Daniel stepped to the open door to get out of Masham’s way and to hide the smile on his face. The gust waned and Daniel heard Locke’s voice from the garden, saying things long-winded and soothing and reasonable, interrupted by sharp objections from Isaac Newton.

 

Daniel stepped out into the garden just in time to be wrapped up in another wind-gust. This weather was stripping browned and withered petals from thousands of shaggy rose-blossoms that dangled like bruised apples from bowers and trellises all around, and they were storming down to earth and scuttling round the place in whorls.

 

Isaac had not failed to notice him. He was seated in a garden-chaise with his feet up, and he was wrapped in blankets, which did not prevent him from shivering all the time, though the day was only beginning to turn cool. He looked near death: even gaunter than usual, and sunk in on himself, and so devoid of color that one might suppose the blood had been drawn out of his veins and replaced with quicksilver.

 

“Daniel, it is well that your friend and mine Mr. John Locke foretold your coming, or I should take it the wrong way.”

 

“How so, Isaac?”

 

“I have got into an odd turn of mind of late. The world seemeth benign enough, as I sit here in a bright garden among friends. But when night falls, as it does earlier and earlier, darkness stretches over my mind, and I phant’sy long menacing shadows cast by everyone and everything I saw during the day-time, which shades are interconnected in plots and conspiracies.”

 

“Everyone, save mad-men in Bedlam, has a Plot. Everyone belongs to a conspiracy or two. What is the Royal Society, besides a conspiracy? I shall not claim I am innocent. But the conspiracy I represent wants only good things for you.”

 

“I shall be the judge of that! How could you possibly know what is good for me?”

 

“If you could see yourself as I see you, Isaac, you would confess in an instant that I know much more of it than you do. How long has it been since you have slept?”

 

“Five nights I have sat up by the fire, tending a work.”

 

“The Great Work?”

 

“You have known me almost as long as I have known myself, Daniel, why do you waste breath asking? For you know that I will not answer you straight out. And you already know the answer. So your question is idle twice over.”

 

“Five nights…then I have come haply on this day, as I may be a match for you, Isaac, if you have gone a week without sleep beforehand.”

 

“In what wise do you seek to be my match, Daniel?”

 

Behind him Masham started to say something and was quickly shushed. Daniel turned halfway round and discovered that Fatio had followed him as far as Locke’s study; having now been discovered, he emerged into the garden, moving in an odd diagonal gait like a startled dog, acknowledging Daniel with a little bow. But he would not look Daniel in the eye.

 

“In what wise? Not as Fatio would be—this was settled between you and me on Whitsunday of the year 1662, unless I read the signs wrong.” A slow assenting blink of Newton’s bloodshot eyes told him he hadn’t. “And certainly not as Leibniz seeks to be.”

 

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