{"id":1158,"date":"2008-11-09T20:32:57","date_gmt":"2008-11-09T20:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etherwave.wordpress.com\/?p=1158"},"modified":"2008-11-09T20:32:57","modified_gmt":"2008-11-09T20:32:57","slug":"origin-and-descents-by-john-mathew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/2008\/11\/09\/origin-and-descents-by-john-mathew\/","title":{"rendered":"Origin and Descents by John Mathew"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is not actually mine but belongs to a colleague here in Paris and one of Will’s former classmates, John Mathew, who is a candidate in the history of science at Harvard University. He has written a fictional novel about to be published based on Charles Darwin, Edward Blyth, and their encounter with India. Most of his material is based on historical archives. I thought this selection of his work reminds us of the quandary that many historians and indeed, many writers of historical fiction inevitably face — can historical novels be capable of good historical study, and can they do justice to their protagonists who are based on real-life scientists? Charles Gillispie in a recent issue of Isis<\/em> advocated for true faithfulness to historical sources, a lively narrative, and a push for less apparatus, more readibility.<\/p>\n

This selection is copyrighted by John Mathew through Apeejay House, Calcutta (Kolkata). Please do not quote or reproduce without permission of the author.<\/p>\n

Chapter 1
\n1.1
\nThey tell you there are stars when it happens. Never mind the intervening elements, like branches and leaves, and yes, headstones looming lofty on the hill alongside if you\u2019re lying supine in context. But I don\u2019t remember the stars from the outset. I do remember the leprechaun, however, pirouetting and whirling like a grinning dervish on the grave of Asa Gray, which, my mind informed me, afforded me a current locus in Mount Auburn Cemetery. Then the clouds parted and the stars appeared, braided into a necklace that gleamed off white and all of a sudden there was a throat and a face besides. I blinked and took in lips widening from apprehension to relief.
\n\u201cYou\u2019re not Asa Gray?\u201d I blurted out, then remarked a silent \u2018daft one, she\u2019s the wrong sex.\u2019
\nShe shook her head. She didn\u2019t resemble the leprechaun either. And I wasn\u2019t in Mount Auburn Cemetery but on a four-poster bed with the covers back and me in pyjamas that were not familiar. Doubtless there had been an undressing, doubtless a\u2026
\nShe shook her head again, and the smile played with the softest touch of mischief. \u201cNot to worry. It\u2019s all very virginal yet.\u201d
\nDamn, I thought. Nice accent. English. Thames side. All the same who the dickens was\u2026
\n\u201cThelma,\u201d she said, anticipating again. \u201cCunningham.\u201d
\n\u201cOh, er\u2026Jo..\u201d
\n\u201cI know your name.\u201d That smile again.
\n\u201cThank you. I\u2019m flattered. Did you look at my license? Where am I?\u201d
\n\u201c271 Clarendon Street. Back Bay. Why did you say Asa Gray? Not that I\u2019m surprised.\u201d
\n\u201cYou\u2019re not?\u201d
\n\u201cWell, considering what you did at O\u2019 Sullivans.
\nThat was it. O\u2019Sullivans was an increasingly yuppie pub in Southie that I visited every year for St. Patty\u2019s. 5 years on the trot and counting. There was a great band this time, lots of Irish fiddle, the inevitable dirge, a call to mind of Danny Boy and progressive inebriation until, until\u2026.
\n\u201c\u2026you stood on the table and declared that you would give your life for three brothers or nine cousins, even if the mathematics was wrong. Then you collapsed and I knew I\u2019d found you.\u201d
\n\u201cI didn\u2019t recall being lost.\u201d I blinked again and my eyes hardened in some suspicion. \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019ve been looking for you,\u201d she said patiently. \u201cThey said you\u2019d gone incommunicado for a bit, that it was natural for you to do so every so often, and that you\u2019d surface eventually with three new papers on punctuated equilibrium. Then your colleague Ahmed Khan, (I grimaced) suggested that I might try O\u2019 Sullivan\u2019s on St. Patrick\u2019s. So I did, and you obliged so magnificently, doing Haldane to the crossed t. I couldn\u2019t have scripted it better. A virtuoso performance, I might add.\u201d
\n\u201cWhy are you looking for me?\u201d
\n\u201cBecause you\u2019re the possible key to the greatest mystery in evolutionary biology, you nitwit.\u201d
\nSuch familiarity! I did a quick mental cost-benefit analysis and realized, not for the first time that in sum, a fetching face was entitled.
\n\u201cPlease elaborate. I gather you\u2019re in the field yourself.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m a populariser of natural science based out of Oxford. You know, school of Dawkins, although I think he\u2019s stuffy. You haven\u2019t heard of me, not yet anyway, I don\u2019t have any nifty attributed concepts like \u2018the selfish gene\u2019 or \u2018the extended phenotype\u2019 but I\u2019m getting there. And you\u2019re going to help me.\u201d
\n\u201cMe?\u201d I blanched, as much as my complexion would allow.
\n\u201cYep.\u201d
\n\u201cHow?\u201d
\nShe looked at me archly. \u201cBlyth.\u201d<\/p>\n

1.2<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you\u2019re telling me,\u201d I spluttered over the coffee that she had obligingly provided and just as obligingly scalded, \u201cthat when I was out for the count, you lied at O\u2019 Sullivan\u2019s that I was with you, hauled me into your car, drove me to your bed and breakfast place, deposited me in the lift, dragged me to your bed, undressed me, put me into pyjamas and left coffee on the boil until I woke up, and all because you wanted to ask me about Edward Blyth?\u00a0 What in Heaven\u2019s name could have possessed you to go through that rigmarole? Why didn\u2019t you just try the telephone?\u201d
\n\u201cI did,\u201d she said simply. \u201cAnd reached Ahmed Khan. He didn\u2019t have your mobile.\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t have a mobile,\u201d I muttered, then with some lameness, \u201calright, it\u2019s unlisted.\u201d
\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d she said briskly. \u201cThe point is Blyth. What\u2019s the scoop?\u201d
\n\u201cAre you a populariser of evolutionary biology or an investigative journalist?\u201d I asked with some suspicion.
\n\u201cA bit of both,\u201d she said and the necklace seemed to grin. \u201cAre you going to the Black Hole?\u201d
\n\u201cYou mean Calcutta?\u201d
\nShe shrugged.
\n\u201cBecause your history\u2019s wrong. He got there 84 years later.\u201d
\n\u201cFine.\u201d The exasperation was evident. \u201cThis is what is important, though. Did he get it first?
\n\u201cWhat?
\n\u201cNatural selection.\u201d
\n\u201cEiseley would like to believe so.\u201d
\nShe snorted. \u201cOh, come. No one takes Eiseley with any sense of seriousness.\u201d
\n\u201cAre you baiting me? I do.\u201d
\nShe nodded. \u201cI know.\u201d
\n\u201cThat\u2019s why you\u2019re here.\u201d
\n\u201cI read your article.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m surprised. Pleasantly, of course. I thought the Norwich Naturalists\u2019 Newsletter took the cake for obscurity.\u201d
\n\u201cHere\u2019s the thing. Wallace is in South-East Asia. Bates is off to South America. Darwin\u2019s sitting on this mine of information post the Beagle, and rearing pigeons. And all the while, Blyth is curating animals at the Asiatic Society of Bengal and musing on how selection might work. You said it yourself when you mentioned his paper of 1835.\u201d She rummaged through a stack of papers and came up with one that I recognised immediately. She read aloud, \u201c\u2018It is a general law of nature for all creatures to propagate the like of themselves: and this extends even to the most trivial minutiae, to the slightest peculiarities; and thus, among ourselves, we see a family likeness transmitted from generation to generation.\u2019\u201d
\nI raised a hand. \u201cI know what it says. I did quote it after all.\u201d
\nShe stopped me with a glare then continued.
\n\u201cWhen two animals are matched together, each remarkable for a certain peculiarity, no matter how trivial, there is also a decided tendency in nature for that peculiarity to increase; and if the produce of these animals be set apart, and only those in which the same peculiarity is most apparent, be selected to breed from, the next generation will possess it in still more remarkable degree; and so on, till at length the variety I designate a breed is formed, which may be very unlike the original type.\u2019 So there.\u201d
\n\u201cLook, Eiseley himself says this is artificial selection.\u201d I yawned. \u201cHe isn\u2019t making that drastic a leap. Everyone who has ever studied Blyth, including his biographers, to whom you should have spoken first, by the way, knows how conservative he was. He believed in the immutability of species, he believed in God and the effect of the environment and locality, he\u2026\u201d
\n\u201c\u2026paved the way for Darwin\u2019s eventual ideas on sexual selection. You\u2019ve seen the letters, ten in 1855, nine in 1856 and then the dry out. The Mutiny has started and then there is one missive in 1857. Then one in 1858, at which point the colonial is shining through.\u201d
\n\u201cThere you have it. Blyth wasn\u2019t going to do much more than speculate with the greatest circumspection and continue to believe in hierarchies of his time. That\u2019s why he couldn\u2019t be Darwin. Eiseley writes beautifully and he can be persuasive. But so was Arthur Koestler. In \u2018The Case of the Midwife Toad\u2019 he almost converted me to Lamarckism.\u201d
\n\u201cBut I thought you said you believed Eiseley,\u201d she said with some accusation.
\n\u201cMy article suggests Blyth may have something there. Oh, alright, I did say as much to you. Fact is, he even wrote to Darwin in 1855 saying that he thought Wallace was on the money on the question of how races become species \u2013 it may well have been a driving factor in Darwin\u2019s subsequent haste in publishing \u2018The Origin of Species.\u2019 At the very least, what is true is that he had oodles of data, he tried to make some sense of them, and it\u2019s worth an exploration.\u201d
\n\u201cIn the Jewel of the Crown, no less.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s home,\u201d I answered simply.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s more than that,\u201d she challenged. \u201cYou\u2019re obviously not going there simply to make a case for the primacy of India in the history of evolutionary theory, surely.\u201d
\nI paused. This was the moment I was dreading.
\n\u201cDo I have your trust?\u201d
\nShe smiled easily. \u201cSure.\u201d
\nI inhaled and took my chance.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s the other side of the correspondence, see. What Darwin said. No one knows. But there\u2019s just the possibility it\u2019s squirreled away in the confines of the ASB, in some long forgotten cupboard. And if there\u2019s the slightest chance the letters are there, I\u2019m going to find them.\u201d
\n\u201cSweet,\u201d she said and whistled softly.
\nSomething struck me.
\n\u201cHow did you know I was going to Calcutta?\u201d
\nShe laughed.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s obvious, isn\u2019t it?\u201d
\n\u201cHow do you mean?\u201d
\n\u201cYou\u2019ve got half the puzzle. You leave your article with the intriguing quotation from Darwin, \u2018Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.\u2019\u201d What\u2019s the major piece of the puzzle still shrouded? The India connection. Who is likely to do the sleuthing? By your own admission, a home-turning Indian. And besides,\u201d she added carelessly, \u201cit didn\u2019t hurt to have a little heart-to-heart with the editor of the Norwich Naturalist\u2019s Newsletter.\u201d
\n\u201cBlanche is a friend,\u201d I protested.
\n\u201cSilence has its price,\u201d she returned.
\nI sighed. \u201cWhat price yours?\u201d
\nShe considered me for a long moment and then reached into her handbag.
\n\u201cCigarette?\u201d
\n\u201cNo, thank you.\u201d I held my breath.
\nThe mandatory ring of smoke held the silence. Then she said, \u201cWhat if I told you I\u2019d just have to come along?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAh.\u201d I thought for a moment, and the cost-benefit analysis came into play again. \u201cMore coffee?\u201d she enquired.<\/p>\n

And I wondered as I nodded as to whether it really was worth taking my chances with the scalding.<\/p>\n

1.3<\/p>\n

Outside, the rain was falling in sheets. Blyth looked disconsolately through the window upon a road with little traffic. Behind him, the room, small, dark and dank with the steady drip of water through the roof, offered little relief. There was a mouldering carpet on a wooden floor, a small table bearing a multitude of books and papers with a fortitude befitting a beast of burden, and all illumined by a single large candle, casting long shadows along lines and interstices and a row of mounted birds, wide-eyed to the stuffing. Blyth considered one of them – a Himalayan Mountain Quail, and thought about the expedition to China for which he had just been passed over. A cloud of censure from the Asiatic Society of Bengal, made known in 1847 continued to hang and drift over the periphery of his thinking nearly a decade later, and more practically, stood in the way of a raise in his honorarium. Times were decidedly bleak for Edward Blyth in Calcutta.
\nTurning from his thoughts, he walked to his desk and sat down heavily. He closed his eyes for a moment then opening them, looked at the letter he was composing, already seven pages long. It was one of his chief joys, framing letters to the estimable Mr. Darwin and responding at length to his questions on breeding and domestication. He had met Mr. Darwin before his departure to Calcutta in 1841 and was delighted to hear from him at a time when his immediate circumstances were less than salubrious. Mr. Darwin had taken the long trip with Captain FitzRoy around the world on the Beagle and was possessed of the most wonderful insights on natural history as a consequence. Oh, and his speculations on origins. Delicious. It was a matter of considerable pride to be associating with men of his ilk. \u201cFodder for the intellect,\u201d he often thought. He missed being in the company of clubbable men.
\n\u201cMy Dear Sir,\u201d he read aloud. A slight smile played about his lips as he skimmed the pages he had penned, and when he came to the end, dipped his quill in ink and resumed his writing.<\/p>\n

1.4<\/p>\n

\u201cPoor Blyth,\u201d Darwin murmured. He was standing by the hearth, his back to the fire, and reading a letter aloud to his friend Joseph Hooker, botanist and son of the Keeper of Kew Gardens, Sir William. \u201cYou remember what I said to you of him when you went to India?\u201d
\nHooker smiled, \u201cAlmost verbatim.\u201d
\nDarwin raised an eyebrow then permitted himself a delicate, \u201coh?\u201d
\n\u201cDid you see Mr. Blyth in Calcutta; he would be a capital man to tell you what is known about Indian zoology, at least in the Vertebrata; he is a very clever, odd, wild fellow who will never do, what he could do, from not sticking to any one subject.\u201d
\nDarwin clapped, very slowly. \u201cMy dear Hooker, you never cease to amaze. However did you remember that so well?
\n\u201cOn account of the fact that I was struck by an assessment that proved to be accurate in the extreme. When we met, I could not but remark to myself what a nervous bundle of energy he was, writing papers on a host of organisms, now cranes, now dogs, now reptiles, and directing field naturalists of no mean stature themselves, guiding, cajoling, even arguing. The arguing is really\u2026\u201d
\n\u201cwhat is and will be his undoing,\u201d said Darwin, then stopped in some embarrassment. To interrupt someone else\u2019s train of thought was uncharacteristic for him, even impolite. \u201cForgive me. I spoke out of turn. You were saying.\u201d
\nHooker shook his head and smiled. \u201cAs Blyth might put it, n\u2019importe.\u201d
\nThe men laughed. \u201cIt\u2019s true,\u201d Darwin mused, \u201che does enjoy peppering his efforts with French, does he not?\u201d A shadow passed over his face. \u201cOh, but his altercations with the establishment can only be to his misfortune. Listen to this:
\n\u201cIf I meet with any more unworthy opposition from the old quarter (that medical clique who have uniformly opposed me always), I certainly shall not mince matters at all; but republish and circulate widely, to the discredit of the Asiatic Society, a correspondence on the subject which passed about 10 years ago, respecting which our present Secretary who has just read it, writes me word that he thinks the conduct of the Council then to me was \u2018most illiberal and narrow-minded.\u2019\u201d
\n\u201cAh,\u201d said Hooker.
\n\u201cThis was approximately at the time when you met, I recall.\u201d
\n\u201cThere were rumblings then, yes. Is he merely seeking a sympathetic ear now, or is there aught else.\u201d
\n\u201cHe has sent me a copy of the letter he has circulated. I gather he seeks my assistance.\u201d
\n\u201cTo gain an increase in his pension?\u201d
\n\u201cAmong other things. The good man is obviously in dire need of like-minds. I wish for his sake he could benefit from such company as we enjoy at the Royal Society, but I cannot but confess that his presence in India is fundamental to the explication of the race question. It is altogether vexing.
\n\u201cWhat will you do?\u201d Hooker enquired.
\nDarwin regarded his friend, then turned to the fire as he considered the question. \u201cI shall do whatever is in my power to help, Hooker. Edward Blyth has been invaluable. He deserves nothing less.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is not actually mine but belongs to a colleague here in Paris and one of Will’s former classmates, John Mathew, who is a candidate in the history of science at Harvard University. He has written a fictional novel about to be published based on Charles Darwin, Edward Blyth, and their encounter with India.<\/p>\n

Continue Reading… Origin and Descents by John Mathew<\/span>Continue Reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[225,228,369,826],"class_list":["post-1158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ewp-book-club","tag-charles-darwin","tag-charles-gillispie","tag-edward-blyth","tag-john-mathew"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}