Baroque 3 - The System of the World by Neal Stephenson

Author:Neal Stephenson [Stephenson, Neal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, sf_fantasy, Great Britain, Political fiction, Political, Suspense, sf_history, Historical fiction, Historical, Scientists, Kings and rulers - Succession, Criminals, Newton; Isaac, Kings and rulers, Counterfeiters, Great Britain - History - Anne; 1702-1714, Suspense fiction, Scientists - Crimes against
ISBN: 9780060750862
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2005-08-25T06:33:06+00:00

Westminster Palace

25 JUNE 1714

THE HOUSE BEING INFORMED, That the Secretary of the South Sea Company attended;

He was called in; and, at the Bar, presented to the House, a Book containing the Proceedings of the Directors of the South Sea Company, relating to the Assiento Trade; together with all Directions, Letters, and Informations, which the Directors, or any Committee of Directors, have received concerning the same.

And then he withdrew.

The Title of the said Book was read.

Ordered, That the said Book do lie upon the Table, to be perused by the Members of the House.

-JOURNALS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, VENERIS, 25° DIE JULII; ANNO 13° ANN? REGIN?, 1714

Dr. Daniel Waterhouse

c/o the Royal Society

Crane Court

London

Mr. Enoch Root

Thorn Bush Tavern

Boston

25 June 1714

Mr. Root,

Forgive the use of that barbarous convenience, the Pencil. For I write these words over a cup of Java in Waghorn’s Coffee-house, which as you may know is a sort of annex to the lobby of the House of Lords.

From which you may infer that I am pressed in on all sides by that species of bipedal parasite known as the Lobbyer. Indeed, you may even be tugging fretfully at your red beard, wondering whether I have become a Lobbyer. The fact that I am writing a letter-instead of sidling up to well-dressed gentlemen and feigning interest in their children’s welfare-is evidence to the contrary. My sojourn to Westminster today was occasioned by the need to speak to the Longitude Committee, and is being extended by my hope-vain, as it turns out-that Lords shall wind up their deliberations in a timely manner so that I may have a few words with one of their number. So perhaps in the end I am a Lobbyer.

I write to you because I wish to communicate with my son, Godfrey. This might seem a curiously indirect way of doing it. Indeed I often send the lad birthday-greetings and short paternal homilies, addressed to him care of my beloved wife. The little notes that come back to me months later, veering across the page in his deranged, expansive hand, and riddled with ink-bursts, are evidence that Faith is passing my correspondence on to him. Why, then, should I route this letter through the circuitous channel of Mr. Root’s Table at the Thorn Bush Tavern? Because what I wish to convey to my son is not easily set down in phrases that a boy of his age has the wit to parse rightly.

It is known to everyone who has studied the life of my son’s namesake, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, that when he was a boy, he was, for a time, locked out of the library of his dead father. A petty nobleman of Leipzig, learning of this atrocity, intervened on the boy’s behalf, and saw to it that the library-door was unlocked, and little Gottfried was given the run of the place. What is less well known is that the mysterious nobleman was named Egon von Hacklheber-a contemporary of the mighty and orgulous banker, Lothar, who made the House of Hacklheber what it is, and is not, today.

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