Enchantress of Numbers

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  When I was not advocating for Hester, I filled my hours with mathematics and science and with renewed interest in music, as well as a new passion for the theatre. My love for music and drama rose to such heights that William began to complain that I had come under the influence of a violent mania, and he feared that I would abandon mathematics and science for what he considered more frivolous pursuits. I vehemently disagreed with his evaluation of the arts, and his use of the irksome term “mania,” so long a favorite of my mother and Dr. King, exasperated me. I had no intention of allowing any new pursuit to eclipse the guiding passions of my life, so my increasingly intractable husband had no need to worry. Even so, I was obliged to write him a great many letters assuring him of this truth before he would accept it.

  How could I even contemplate relinquishing science and mathematics when so many new, thrilling discoveries and inventions were announced almost every day? There was the fascinating electrical telegraph, of course, which I had first seen on exhibit at Exeter Hall, which sent messages to distant regions with nearly the speed of thought. The rapidly expanding steam railway system, with its awe-inspiring, thunderous, powerful locomotives, carried passengers to more places more swiftly than ever before, making travel easier and more comfortable even as it became more exciting. Not everyone shared my opinion. Whereas I considered the railway a grand and marvelous invention, my dear friend Mr. Dickens saw it as a menace bringing terror and destruction in its wake, and as it spread throughout the formerly serene countryside, he began referring to it grimly as a “triumphant monster.”

  But even the ingenious steam locomotive faced the possibility of being surpassed by newer technology when the Samuda brothers introduced the “traction piping” railway based on the principle of atmospheric propulsion, employing a system of vacuums, tubes, pistons, and pumps to propel rail carriages along the track at an astonishing twenty-five miles per hour. Its advantages over the steam locomotive, including its superior performance when traversing slopes, impressed me greatly, and the ride itself was so thrilling that I took not one but two trips at the public demonstration.

  Discoveries from the natural world were as astonishing as these technological marvels. Mr. Babbage’s friend Charles Darwin had returned from a five-year voyage around the world, studying geology and natural history, making remarkable observations and collecting astonishing samples. At Mr. Babbage’s soirées, he spoke of a theory he was developing based upon his observations, something he called “natural selection.” I found it fascinating and utterly revolutionary, but privately Mr. Babbage and I agreed that when he published his results, scores of detractors would surely denounce him as a heretic.

  Perhaps even more intriguing to me were Michael Faraday’s experiments in electricity and magnetism. We would eventually become very good friends, as my growing fascination with electricity compelled me to re-create some of his experiments, but he confessed to me that he was not very interested in mathematics, and so he could not express the same interest in my work as I did in his. I used to tease him mercilessly about that, to our mutual enjoyment.

  Mr. Faraday and I were to disagree cordially regarding the enchantment of mathematics, for as ever, it held me in its thrall. Once, as I reflected upon the curious transformations many formulae could undergo, I suddenly found them strangely reminiscent of the stories Miss Thorne had told me long ago. “I am often reminded of certain sprites and fairies one reads of,” I mused in a letter to Mr. De Morgan, “who are at one’s elbows in one shape now, and the next minute in a form most dissimilar; and uncommonly deceptive, troublesome, and tantalizing are the mathematical sprites and fairies sometimes; like the types I have found for them in the world of Fiction.” Sadly, my tutor was no more amused by my fanciful talk than my mother would have been.

  Even when I did not speak of fairies, Mr. De Morgan was sometimes discomfited by subjects that fascinated me. All that summer I had been deeply engrossed in the study of imaginary numbers, mathematical curiosities such as the square root of a negative number. Such creatures were neither positive nor negative, but something different altogether, and although they behaved somewhat differently than ordinary numbers, they could still be manipulated according to the simplest rules of arithmetic. They reminded me of fairies who had emerged from their supernatural realm to flit about an English garden, something not of this world that dwelt among us for a time before disappearing again.

  My contemplation of imaginary numbers, the complex equations they yielded, and the new form of two-dimensional geometry these equations created led me to wonder if this could not be extended further, into a geometry of three dimensions, and that again to a further extension into some unknown region, and so on, ad infinitum. When I posed this matter to Mr. De Morgan, he replied rather curtly that he had already struggled with this question and had gotten nowhere with it. Implicit in his statement was that if a solution had eluded a man of his intellect, no solution existed, but secretly I disagreed, and I continued to ponder the matter on my own.

  It was a summer of wonders for me, but my mathematical and scientific revelry halted, or at least paused for a somber moment, at the end of August. Earlier that month, Lord Melbourne had received a vote of no confidence in Parliament, and on 30 August, he submitted his resignation. The Tory government returned to power, and Sir Robert Peel once again became prime minister. I felt sympathy for my mother’s cousin, whom I imagined must have been very disappointed by the outcome of the vote, but I felt no regret for my own family’s sake, for Lord Melbourne had already done so much for us that I expected nothing more. For Mr. Babbage, however, I was apprehensive, as I knew he would consider Sir Robert Peel’s elevation as another strike against his engines.

  The next time we met, I was relieved to find Mr. Babbage nonetheless in good spirits. “I still have a few irons in the fire,” he assured me, and at his regular soirée the following week, I discovered the most important of them: The Duke of Wellington and Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, were in attendance. Prince Albert’s vast intellect was well-known, and my heart was full of happiness and hope as I observed Mr. Babbage at his most courteous and engaging as he escorted his honored guests to the drawing room to view the Silver Lady, and on to the exhibition room to observe the demonstration model of the Difference Engine, and then out back to his workshop to examine the partially complete full-size version and his plans and notes for the Analytical Engine. Perhaps this interview would at last bring Mr. Babbage the funding he and his engines so deserved and so badly needed.

  In October, another promising development raised my hopes even higher. Signore Luigi Federico Menabrea, a professor of mechanics and construction at the University of Turin whom Mr. Babbage had met at the conference of Italian scientists two years before, published a treatise on the Analytical Engine in the renowned Swiss journal Bibliothèque Universelle de Genève. William and I attended the dinner party Mr. Babbage hosted to celebrate the publication, and his dearest friends raised one toast after another in his honor, congratulating him and declaring that surely the British government would now take notice of his work. “Your biggest problem will be adding on another room to your workshop to accommodate the Analytical Engine,” Mr. Faraday remarked.

  “I was thinking that instead I would remove the wall between the drawing room and the dining room and construct it right here,” Mr. Babbage quipped, and we all burst out laughing. It was a merry evening, full of hope and expectation, bright with promise. William and I returned home that night contemplating how the country would be transformed by his marvelous machine, and for the first time, it seemed much more than fanciful speculation.

  Soon thereafter, Mr. Babbage wrote me with delightful news: The Duke of Wellington and Prince Albert had learned about the treatise. The approbation of the scientific community coupled with their own observations of Mr. Babbage’s work convinced them to arrange a meeting between Mr. Babbage and Prime Minister Peel.

  �
�This is his chance,” I exulted, fairly dancing into William’s study and giving him the letter. “He has the support of the prince and the duke. If he can convince the prime minister—why, construction on the Analytical Engine could begin within days! It could be completed within a year!”

  “Babbage should take care to be on his best behavior,” William said, scanning the letter. “This is not an ideal time to petition Peel for anything. I’ve seen him recently, and it’s obvious that he’s exhausted and burdened with care. The people are struggling, not just in the cities but in the villages and on the farms as well. With widespread hunger and rioting to sort out, I cannot imagine that a very expensive machine would be high on his list of priorities, especially since he’s not particularly fond of Mr. Babbage.”

  “Mr. Babbage understands that everything depends upon winning over the prime minister,” I said, but even as I spoke, doubt crept in. “Surely he’ll use the utmost tact and respect. He can be so warm and engaging and congenial when he wants to.”

  I left unsaid what William already knew: When Mr. Babbage did not want to, he could be sullen and querulous, turning against him people who otherwise would have become his steadfast friends.

  As the hours ticked by on Friday, 11 November, I imagined what Mr. Babbage was doing as he prepared for the meeting. Now he is in his study organizing his papers, I thought at eleven o’clock; and now he is fortifying himself with a hearty luncheon, I thought at noon. At one o’clock I imagined him climbing into a carriage and riding off to the prime minister’s offices, and then, too anxious to focus on anything else, I paced in my study, hoping and praying that all would go well. It was all I could do not to hurry over to 1 Dorset Street, invite myself into his sitting room, and await his return.

  My first indication that the meeting had not gone as I’d hoped came that evening at dinner, when a guest, my friend Charles Wheatstone, an inventor and physicist who had helped create the first practical application of the telegraph in Europe, mentioned that he had seen Mr. Babbage walking in Westminster in the late afternoon. “He was striding along quite purposefully,” Mr. Wheatstone said, “scowling and giving way to no one, his face a thundercloud.”

  I threw a stricken look to William, who sighed heavily and covered his eyes with his hand.

  My worry grew as another day passed with no word from Mr. Babbage. We heard other rumors from mutual friends that the interview had been a disaster, but I held out hope until I received his letter, a nearly minute-by-minute account of the meeting that confirmed my worst fears.

  Inexplicably, Mr. Babbage had approached the entire discussion as if it were a confrontation, apparently believing that the object was to browbeat the prime minister into submission rather than to rationally and pleasantly persuade him. Instead of clearly and succinctly explaining the difference between his two engines and describing their practical benefits, he spoke of how the jealousy and personal malice of certain men in the government had thwarted him. While he had emphasized that the Analytical Engine was superior to the Difference Engine, he failed to make the case for funding a new project when the Difference Engine had not yet been completed.

  When he had heard enough, the prime minister had interrupted him with the pointed observation that by his own admission, Mr. Babbage had rendered the Difference Engine useless by inventing a better machine. Babbage had fixed him with a hard stare. “I consider myself to have been treated with great injustice by the Government. But as you are of a different opinion, I cannot help myself.” With that, he rose, bade the prime minister a curt good day, and abruptly left the room.

  Mr. Babbage’s letter rendered me entirely speechless, so I could not prepare William for what it said, but only handed him the letter and collapsed into the nearest chair. “Babbage is a fool,” he said when he finished reading. “He did absolutely nothing to ingratiate himself with the most powerful man in Britain, and the only one who could have given him precisely what he needs.”

  “Why did he have to be so defensive and ill-tempered?” I lamented. “And this is his own account of the meeting. I shudder to imagine Sir Robert Peel’s version.”

  Sighing, William folded the letter and handed it back to me. “I regret to say this, but your Mr. Babbage just spoiled his last and best chance to secure funding.”

  I thought of the full-scale Difference Engine gathering dust in his workshop, his notes and sketches for the Analytical Engine yellowing with age, the ink fading, the edges curling, and I wanted to weep. “Perhaps, unless—William, have you ever considered seeking the post of prime minister?”

  William uttered a strangled laugh. “Never. Good Lord, Ada, that is not the answer.”

  “Would you consider it?”

  “Not unless the queen herself personally asked me. Perhaps not even then. Darling, a man who would strive to become prime minister simply to fund his friend’s scientific projects would never deserve the post.”

  “I suppose not,” I said, disconsolate. “I hardly know what to say to him. I’m sure he needs encouragement at this moment, but I’m so exasperated that all I can think of to do is to seize him by the shoulders and give him a good shake. If the meeting had been with Lord Melbourne, I’m certain Mr. Babbage would have been congenial and clever.”

  “He is his own worst enemy,” said William, and I could not disagree. If Mr. Babbage was ever going to complete either of his engines, he would require a great deal of help from steadfast friends capable of advancing his interests far better than he himself could.

  Soon thereafter, we withdrew to Ockham Park for the Christmas holidays, so I was spared an uncomfortable encounter with Mr. Babbage. I did write him a sympathetic, encouraging letter, and I had William and Hester read it over before I sent it, to make sure that I had not allowed a single note of recrimination to creep in. I was so profoundly disappointed that I frequently had to remind myself that it was not my funding that had been cut, not my engines that would not be constructed. I was merely a very interested onlooker and friend. Mr. Babbage owed me no apology for what he had done, but as his friend I did owe him my loyalty and support.

  Two days after my twenty-seventh birthday, a letter came from Charles Wheatstone wishing me felicitations and inquiring if he might call on me at my earliest convenience regarding a matter of utmost scientific interest. I wrote back inviting him to call, and by the time he arrived the following week, I was brimming over with curiosity.

  Mr. Wheatstone was a small, quiet man about two years older than William, with a round face, thinning blond hair, and bright blue eyes. He had grown up in Gloucester as the son of a music seller, and most of his early experiments and inventions had involved musical instruments. He had been the first to recognize that sound traveled as invisible waves. He was quite reserved in public, but an eager and attentive conversationalist in smaller groups. We had become friends through our mutual love of music, and we could talk happily for hours about the science of sound and the relationship between music and mathematics.

  “Have you seen our friend Mr. Babbage recently?” I asked after William and I had shown him his bedchamber and we had settled in the library to await supper.

  “Not since that afternoon in Westminster,” Mr. Wheatstone replied. “However, the matter that prompted my request to visit you does concern him.”

  Somehow I had known it would. “I’m happy to help him however I can.”

  “Do you know Richard Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs?” he asked. “It’s a rather new publication, dedicated to printing translations of the most significant scientific papers published in foreign journals.”

  “Yes, I’ve read it, on occasion.”

  “Mr. Taylor has engaged me to solicit pieces for his journal,” he said. “Menabrea’s treatise on Mr. Babbage’s Analytical Engine is exactly the sort of work he wants to publish. Knowing that you are not only perfectly fluent in French, but also that you’re second only to Mr. Babbage
in understanding the Analytical Engine, I concluded that you are the most qualified person to translate it into English.”

  “My goodness,” I said, a bit breathless.

  “Lady Lovelace, if you accept, you would have my gratitude, as well as Mr. Taylor’s, but you would also be providing a great service to Mr. Babbage,” he said earnestly. “Many of our countrymen who might support funding his work if they understood it cannot read Menabrea’s excellent treatise. If a version in English is provided to them, it could influence a great many people in his favor.”

  “Of course I’ll do it,” I declared. How could I possibly decline, when I had been longing for an opportunity such as this for so long? “I’m flattered that you thought of me.”

  “Yours was the first and only name I considered.”

  “A testament to your keen insight as an editor,” I teased. “Give me all the particulars, when you need the manuscript and so on, and I’ll commence work immediately.” I glanced at William, who gratified me with a proud smile. “Or perhaps I shall wait until after supper.”

  I waited a trifle longer than that, but as soon as Mr. Wheatstone departed, I set myself to the task. Although Signor Menabrea’s prose was usually clear and eloquent, I did not want to simply provide a flat, word-for-word translation, but rather to capture the poetry of Signor Menabrea’s explanations, and to add clarity where he had left obscurity. I certainly do not mean to slight the original author, but Mr. Wheatstone was quite correct to say that only Mr. Babbage knew more about the Analytical Engine than I, and there were certain technical details that consequently I understood better than did Signor Menabrea.

  I set my work aside somewhat reluctantly for the Christmas holidays, and, of course, my usual duties as wife, mother, and countess prevented me from working as steadily as I might have wished, but by February I had composed a faithful, poetic, and polished translation of Menabrea’s treatise. I was quite proud of the result, and when I traveled to London to deliver the manuscript to Mr. Wheatstone, I encouraged him to let me know if he ever again required my services.