The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World

by Neal Stephenson

True beauty is to be found in natural forms. The more we magnify, and the closer we examine, the works of Artifice, the grosser and stupider they seem. But if we magnify the natural world it only becomes more intricate and excellent.”

“You need to tend to your own faults, young fellow—excessive sobriety, e.g…” “A tendency to fret—” Pepys put in. “Undue chastity—let’s back to the tavern!”

Puritans came frequently to Vagabond-camps bearing the information that at the time of the creation of the Universe—thousands of years ago!—certain of those present had been predestined by God to experience salvation. The rest of them were doomed to spend eternity burning in hellfire. This intelligence was called, by the Puritans, the Good News.

Then the Doctor distracted her with: “In order to blend in with that crowd, Eliza, we shall only have to find some way to make you seem half as intelligent as you really are, and to dim your natural radiance so that they’ll not be blinded by awe or jealousy.” “Oh, Doctor,” Eliza said, “why is it that men who desire women can never speak such words?” “You’ve only been in the presence of men who are in the presence of you, Eliza,” Jack said, “and how can they pronounce fine words when the heads of their yards are lodged in their mouths?” The Doctor laughed, much as he’d been doing earlier. “What’s your excuse, Jack?” Eliza responded, eliciting some sort of violent thoracic Incident in the Doctor. Tears of joy came to Jack’s eyes.

he explained: “It was Sluys’s box. Therefore, he was the host. Therefore, it was his responsibility to make a formal introduction of Étienne d’Arcachon to you, mademoiselle. But he was too Dutch, drunk, and distracted to perform his proper rôle. I never cleared my throat so many times—but to no avail. Monsieur d’Arcachon was placed in an impossible situation!” “So he tried to take his own life?” “It was the only honourable course,” d’Avaux said simply. “He is the politest man in France,” Monmouth added. “You saved the day,” d’Avaux said. “Oh, that—’twas Mr. Sluys’s suggestion.” D’Avaux looked vaguely nauseated at the mere mention of Sluys. “He has much to answer for. This soirée had better be charmante.”

“You wish to know where the sun is at noon—?” “You have it precisely backwards. Noon is when the sun is in a particular place. Noon has no meaning otherwise.” “So, you wish to know when noon is.” “It is now!” Huygens said, and glanced quickly at his watch. “Then all of the clocks in the Hague are wrong.” “Yes, including all of mine. Even a well-made clock drifts, and must be re-set from time to time. I do it here whenever the sun shines. Flamsteed will be doing it in a few minutes on top of a hill in Greenwich.” “It is unfortunate that a person may not be calibrated so easily,” Eliza said. Huygens looked at her, no less intensely than he had been peering at his instrument a moment earlier. “Obviously you have some specific person in mind,” he said. “Of persons I will say this: it is difficult to tell when they are running aright but easy to see when something has gone awry.” “Obviously you have someone in mind, Monsieur Huygens,” Eliza said, “and I fear it is I.” “You were referred to me by Leibniz,” Huygens said. “A shrewd judge of intellects. Perhaps a bit less shrewd about character, for he always wants to think the best of everyone. I made some inquiries around the Hague. I was assured by persons of the very best quality that you would not be a political liability. From this I presumed that you would know how to behave.” Suddenly feeling very high and exposed, she took a step back, and reached out with a hand to steady herself against a heavy telescope-tripod. “I am so...

Only small minds want always to be right. —LOUIS XIV

you trust my judgment, the slender Puritan is the one to watch,” Eliza said. “But he has no vast territories in America, no money, no followers!” “That is why. I would wager he had a father who was very strong, probably older brothers, too. That he has been checked and baffled many times, never married, never enjoyed even the small homely success of having a child, and has come to that time in his life when he must make his mark, or fail. This has become all confused, in his thinking, with the coming rebellion against the English King. He has decided to gamble his life on it—not in the sense of living or dying, but in the sense of making something of his life, or not.” William winced. “I pray you never see that deep into me.” “Why? Perhaps ‘twould do you good.” “Nay, nay, you are like some Fellow of the Royal Society, dissecting a living dog—there is a placid cruelty about you.” “About me? What of you? To fight wars is kindness?” “Most men would rather be shot through with a broad-headed arrow than be described by you.”

Once one of those girls has found a position in some household at Versailles, she has only a few years to make arrangements for the remainder of her life. She is like a plucked rose in a vase. Every day at dawn she looks out the window to see a gardener driving a wagon loaded with wilted flowers that are taken out to the countryside to be used for mulch, and the similitude to her own future is clear. In a few years she will be outshined, at all the parties, by younger girls. Her brothers will inherit any assets the family might have. If she can marry well, as Sophie did, she may have a life to look forward to; if not, she will be shipped off to some convent, as two of Sophie’s beautiful and brilliant sisters were. When that desperation is combined with the heedless irresponsible nature of young persons generally, cruelty becomes mundane.

“I’ll raise a monument in London,” Bob promised, and got up slowly. He did not pass out. “To me? They wouldn’t have it!” “To Upnor,” Bob said, staggering past the Earl’s smashed corpse, and kicking the rapier aside into the watercourse. “A fine statue of him, looking just as he does now, and an inscription: ‘In Memoriam, Louis Anglesey, Earl of Upnor, finest swordsman in England, beaten to death with a stick by an Irishman.’ ”

“If Leibniz cuts down your theory of gravitation, Monsieur Fatio, it only means he has the courage and forthrightness to set down in ink what Huygens and Halley and Hooke and Wren have all said amongst themselves ever since you presented it to the Royal Society. And I mean to emulate Leibniz now. Stay, Fatio, no show of indignation, please, I cannot abide it. I see three faces in this garden: Fatio, who has just been attacked, and is ready to respond very hotly; Newton, who is strangely ambivalent, as if he agrees with me in secret; Locke, who perhaps wishes I had never come to disturb your colloquium. But disturb it I have, and now I shall disturb it some more. For as I reflect on my career I believe I could have accomplished more if I had not cared so much what people thought of me. Natural Philosophy cannot advance without attacking theories that are old, and beating back new ones that are wrong, neither of which may be accomplished without doing some injury to their professors. I have been a mediocre Natural Philosopher not because I was stupid but because I was, after a fashion, cowardly. Today I shall try boldness for once, and be a better Natural Philosopher for it, and probably get you all hating me by the time I am done. Then it’s off to Boston on the next boat. Therefore, Fatio, do not defend your theory or attack that of Leibniz with some tedious outburst, but, prithee, shut up and hate me instead. Isaac, this is what I mean when I say that I shall try to be a m...

On one Lawn, while he dozed, sheep came up all around him, and the sound of them grazing became a sort of continuo-line to his dreams. He opened his eyes to see a set of blunt yellow sheep-teeth tearing at the grass, inches from his face. Those teeth, and the mass of winter wool that had turned the animal into a waddling, greasy bale, struck him as most remarkable. That solely by gnawing at the turf and lapping up water, an animal could generate matter like teeth and wool! How many sheep in England? And not just in January 1714 but in all the millennia before? Why had the island not sunk into the sea under the weight of sheep-bones and sheep-teeth? Possibly because their wool was exported—mostly to Holland—which was in fact sinking into the sea! Q.E.D.

But with the one exception of being cut for the stone, every fear that had ever tormented Daniel in his bed had turned out, in the light of day, to be not all that bad really.

“It’s a bit of a shame,” said the Earl. Which Daniel found most irritating, until he recollected that the Earl was a man of breeding, and tended to understate things to the point where they were nearly subliminal. He was trying to let Daniel know that he was very sorry. Daniel tried to respond in kind. “It must have been awkward for you.” “Not at all,” said the Earl, meaning it has been a living hell. “The thing became complicated, didn’t it,” Daniel went on. “Your responsibilities as Captain of the King’s Messengers, of course, supersede all other considerations. I see you have discharged them well.” “God save the King,” said the Earl, which, Daniel guessed, was a way of saying you have got it right and thank you for not being cross with me.