Chapter 5 - A Mathematical Interlude
richardal...@googlemail.com
Imbued by the creator with the virtues of chastity, tolerance and
forgiveness, given the gift of providing comfort for their men folk,
their providers and protectors, their fathers, husbands and sons, and
bringing forth that great gift of the creator, the children which
allow mankind to prosper and spread their dominion over God's
creation.
Science has shown us that their small brains lack the capacity for
that higher thought in which men excel. Their brains are made to cope
with the demands of domesticity, the rearing of children, cooking,
cleaning and comforting their men. This is a noble calling , lacking
perhaps the intellectual challenges of the manly arts, but suited to
their capacity.
But every so often the creator, inspired by some purpose beyond our
ken, brings forth a sport. A woman whose mind turns not to matters
domestic, but to science, to mathematics, to manly pursuits. One the
softness of whose femininity is coarsened by the pressure of
intellectual matters unnaturally present in her mind. And this
pressure leads to inevitable downfall and corruption.
"She is her father's daughter" they said.
Wilful, headstrong, determined to have her way.
"She has all his vices"
The arrogant swagger as she walked, the tossing mane of black hair,
the gypsy glint in her dark eye.
"No good will come of it."
But her beauty seduced the minds of weaker men, and they allowed her
to take her place in their pursuit of the unknowable.
"She has a natural gift for mathematics" they said.
Perhaps. But that gift, given by God, perhaps, or, perhaps from a more
sinister master sowed the seeds of her descent into the abyss.
The grotesque figure of Darwin presided over the meeting. Bent by the
excesses to which he submitted his ravaged body, but the mind still
possessing an evil clarity.
"Science is not enough" his deep voice rumbled "we must capture the
soul as well."
"But how?" the speaker, a slender young man entranced by this
magisterial figure. "your doctrine denies the existence of the soul.
Are we not just animals?"
"We are animals, but the common people will not wish to hear that." He
smiled. "Yet. We need to sow the seeds of doubt first. We will reap
the harvest in good time."
She laughed, a high note in the darkness of that room, that pit of
damned souls.
"What amuses you so?"
"The monstrous trick we will play. The souls we will capture. The
damnation we will bring."
"Did you not read the draft of my book? I thought that I presented a
case so carefully constructed that few would uncover it's deceits."
"Then I am one of those few." Her eyes glinted in light of myriad
candles. "Do not forget that I am a master - yes, a master, for my
mind is not that of a woman - of mathamatics."
She leaned forward into the light from the candelabrum, the evidences
of her womanly form thrust against the white of her bodice, every eye
on her, the licentious instincts of that fell company aroused.
"Leave us, " Darwin roared, sweeping the denizens of that place away
with a gesture of his arm.
There were murmurings of dissent, but he repeated the injunction in a
quiet, deadly voice which sent a chill of fear through weak spines and
addled brains.
They faced each other over the polished table.
"Mathematics" she repeated "proves you false"
"I know that my doctrine is false. But how does mathematics prove
that."
She leaned forward, her breasts heaving under thin silk, but his eyes
remained fixed on hers.
"Show me." He demanded.
"Think of beginnings" she said "think of how it all started. Think of
how the whole of your doctrine rests on the beginnings of all living
things."
She reached into the deep valley between her breasts, pulled out a
sheaf of papers, and spread them on the table between them.
"Think of possibilities. You understand gaming, the throw of a dice,
the nature of randomness?"
"I lost a fortune on dice before I realised that I could not beat the
mathematics."
"Think of that place, that warm pond perhaps, where life started."
"Warm pond? An interesting conceit."
"The atoms and molecules in rapid motion, joining and parting in their
myriads. How can such combinations create a living organism in a
single instant? How can such a thing happen? It would be as unlikely
as throwing a six a million million times, with no other number
appearing, in a million million throws. The mathematics prove it so,
and so it must be, or your doctrine is founded on sand."
"You have written all this down?" he asked.
"Only here."
"Why are you not afraid of me?"
She came round the table, and stood close to him
"I am afraid of no man" she breathed. She leaned forward, but his eyes
remained on hers, not on the pulchritudinous flesh quivering before
him.
"Give me those papers." His voice was hoarse but steady. He held out
his hand. She dropped her head.
He held them in the flame of a candle, held them while the flames
consumed them, and dropped the last burning fragments onto the table.
There was a strong smell of charred wood, then the fire fizzled away.
He brought his hand down onto the black fragments, crushing them into
dust, sweeping them away.
"Gone forever" he rumbled, "gone forever."
Her breathing was fast and shallow.
"You are my master. " she spoke in a low voice. "no man has mastered
me before."
She clasped her hands at her throat. Then she gripped the cloth of her
bodice, and in a single motion tore it apart.
"I am yours."
He grasped her, drew her to him, his hands busied themselves,
divesting her of her clothing.
The coupled like animals, oblivious to anything but the satiation of
their lusts.
"Animals" she cried in the height of her passion "we are animals.
There is no morality. We must sacrifice all to the gratification of
desire."
While he yet slept in the dark, she slipped away from him, gathering
her clothing, seeking to clothe herself in the semblance of
respectability. Returning to her loveless marriage. Yet as she walked
the streets respectable men and women drew away from her, sensing the
corruption she carried in her which no fair clothing could conceal.
Darwin was done with her. She had been used and cast aside. She turned
her mind to other things.
"Babbage" she mused "his engines have ....potential"
Lovelace, loveless. Beyond Aid.
Inez
nominee. I believe one was Chez Watted already, but I believe they
are more suited for POTM.
alextangent
> I would like to fairly specify these series of posts as a POTM
> nominee. I believe one was Chez Watted already, but I believe they
> are more suited for POTM.
Top posting has made it more difficult to reply...
>
> On Mar 24, 1:05 pm, richardalanforr...@googlemail.com wrote:
>
[snipped]
>
> "Give me those papers." His voice was hoarse but steady. He held out
> his hand. She dropped her head.
>
Presumably he caught her head before it hit the deck.
I'm sorry, a POTM for purple prose? Good as it is, it's not *that*
good.
--
Regards
Alex McDonald
CreateThis
wrote:
>I would like to fairly specify these series of posts as a POTM
>nominee. I believe one was Chez Watted already, but I believe they
>are more suited for POTM.
"Second", he panted, aroused to unimagined heights by the sheer depth
of their depravity.
CT
Perplexed in Peoria
"CreateThis" <Creat...@yippee.con> wrote in message news:br3b03tv793o0qq8a...@4ax.com...
> On 24 Mar 2007 13:17:26 -0700, "Inez" <savagem...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >I would like to fairly specify these series of posts as a POTM
> >nominee. I believe one was Chez Watted already, but I believe they
> >are more suited for POTM.
>
> "Second", he panted, aroused to unimagined heights by the sheer depth
> of their depravity.
>
They definitely deserve a permanent home in the archive, but the whole
series may take more than a month to deliver.
Regarding Chapter 5: Excellent! Ada and her uncle provide an unexpected
twist to the plot - but an inevitable one. Evolution is, after all,
not the only insult to God's plan to arise in the Victorian era. Can
we look forward to a sequel in which Babbage controls the conspiracy
from his headquarters in a Chinese room - directing his operatives by
means of messages concealed in biscuits? Another possible sequel might
involve the God-fearing Lord Kelvin's proof of a young earth being overthrown
by an international conspiracy, including the dastardly Frenchman Becquerel,
abetted by that Polish whore and perhaps the Swiss Jew (who was also
incestuously involved with his cousin). Those conspirators, not content
with destroying Kelvin, even turn their attention to a method of generating
false and ridiculous dates for the antiquity of rocks.
Inez
> On Mar 24, 8:17 pm, "Inez" <savagemouse...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I would like to fairly specify these series of posts as a POTM
> > nominee. I believe one was Chez Watted already, but I believe they
> > are more suited for POTM.
>
> Top posting has made it more difficult to reply...
I don't usually top post but since my reply had no reference to the
post I was replying to, and I didn't want to make people scroll to the
end. I could have snipped all the text instead, but I don't see how
that would have made things better.
>
> > On Mar 24, 1:05 pm, richardalanforr...@googlemail.com wrote:
>
> [snipped]
>
> > "Give me those papers." His voice was hoarse but steady. He held out
> > his hand. She dropped her head.
>
> Presumably he caught her head before it hit the deck.
>
> I'm sorry, a POTM for purple prose? Good as it is, it's not *that*
> good.
>
Well, don't vote for it then.
John Wilkins
> "CreateThis" <Creat...@yippee.con> wrote...
Yeah yeah yeah. But what I want to know is, when does one of them costar
in a film with Kevin Bacon?
--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."
Robert Carnegie
> I would like to fairly specify these series of posts as a POTM
> nominee. I believe one was Chez Watted already, but I believe they
> are more suited for POTM.
But if someone happens to drop in and look at the POTM as the
archetype of what goes on in t.o, the impression...
On the other hand, were they picked up for alt.humor.best-of-usenet ?
Apparently all that you have to do to get in is, be nominated, but the
last time I tried it, tit didn't work.
And there, even more, each post is read in isolation, typically.
Ernest Major
Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> writes
>Inez wrote:
>
>> I would like to fairly specify these series of posts as a POTM
>> nominee. I believe one was Chez Watted already, but I believe they
>> are more suited for POTM.
>
>But if someone happens to drop in and look at the POTM as the
>archetype of what goes on in t.o, the impression...
The series is, I presume, a parody of creationist fantasies about
science. I don't imagine that even creationists could mistake the first
chapter, with William Smith faking the geology of England and the
fossils contained within, as factual. I am not convinced that
creationists are sufficiently rational to recognise the latter chapters,
with an increasing focus on drugs and depravity, as parodies of their
own fantasies. (T*d H****n posted some claims that what not all that
dissimilar, and while perhaps I do him an injustice, I think he meant
them to be taken seriously, even if he did commit chronological
inexactitude.)
>
>On the other hand, were they picked up for alt.humor.best-of-usenet ?
>Apparently all that you have to do to get in is, be nominated, but the
>last time I tried it, tit didn't work.
>
>And there, even more, each post is read in isolation, typically.
>
--
alias Ernest Major
Inez
> Inez wrote:
> > I would like to fairly specify these series of posts as a POTM
> > nominee. I believe one was Chez Watted already, but I believe they
> > are more suited for POTM.
>
> But if someone happens to drop in and look at the POTM as the
> archetype of what goes on in t.o, the impression...
...would cause the sun to darken and earthquakes to ravage the land?
Quite a bit of comedy goes on on T.O. and this is a fine example. I
don't see how it would be especially misleading. If I am sullying
the hallowed tradtion of POTM I certainly will not fuss if whoever
runs it declines to put it on the list for a vote.