Yours
A.L.
P.S. I mean to put A.A.L. to all the Notes, but to leave the translation without.
To Charles Babbage
Tuesday, 5 o ’clock [11 July 1843]
St James’ Square
I find that I do not come up on Friday next. But if you will give me Monday Evening (I shall stay the night), it will be desirable. –
Meanwhile I shall get on with the corrections, & send the papers back to you as early as possible; only hoping that nothing in them will oblige me to have your assistance. I do not think this likely. –
I hope you will attend carefully to my criticisms about the Preface. I think them of consequence. If Lord L – suggests any further ones, you shall hear. Perhaps he may.
Ever yours
A.L.
To Charles Babbage
Thursday, 6 o’clock [13 July 1843]
My Dear Babbage. Will you come at nine on Satdy morning, & stay as long as we find requisite. I name so early an hour, because we shall have much to do I think.– And it certainly must not be later than ten o’clock.
I have been very unwell indeed; partly with distressing indigestion & partly with this most miserable & changed weather. – This is why you have heard nothing more from me. . .
I send you a note from F. K. [Frederick Knight]. It will show you the tone of writing between us; & the sort of footing we are on. Are you not amused at “your Ladyship” which just means, by the way that I am anything but My Ladyship to him!. . .
Am I very naughty to send you such a caller-up of many & dubious speculations and associations? – No.
Ever yours
A.L.
To Charles Babbage
Friday, 4’ o’ clock [July 21]
Ockham
My Dear Babbage. I am in much dismay at having got into so amazing a quagmire & botheration with these Numbers, that I cannot possibly get the thing done today. I have no doubt it will all come out clear enough tomorrow; & I shall send you a parcel up, as early in the day as I can.– So do not be uneasy. (Tho’ at this moment I am in a charming state of confusion; but it is that sort of confusion which is of a very bubble nature).
I am now going out on horseback.
Tant mieux.
Yours puzzle-pate
To Charles Babbage
Saturday, 3 o’clock [22 July 1843]
Ockham
My Dear Babbage. I send you all excepting four pages which I cannot get done today, as they necessitate one or two troublesome alterations. You will perceive therefore that the two parts of what I send do not follow. I shall send the rest by post tomorrow.
You ought to get this tonight & an additional shilling is promised upon immediate delivery. I must now explain one or two things. I am much annoyed at your having altered my Note. You know I am always willing to make any required alterations myself, but that I cannot endure another person to meddle with my sentences. If I disapprove therefore, I hope I may be able to alter in the revise, supposing you have sent away the proofs & notes.
Then I cannot agree to your not having effaced the paragraphs. In one instance, at any rate, if not in all, it is very necessary that the paragraph should be effaced; as it makes a division in the sense where there should be a perfect continuity.
In short I am somewhat disturbed about the matter altogether.
And I must then beg you to deliver to me tout suit plus vête, all the documents I am at present to have in order to commence work upon.
I think much about them & all other scientific matters, and I find that my plans & ideas keep gaining in clearness; & assuming more of the crystalline & less & less of the nebulous form.
Yours
A.A.L.
P.S. I have been very suffering, & more ill than ever yet. But today I have rallied considerably. Hang the whole affair.
Ada had tried to help her mother by hiring the French maid, Nathalie Beaurepaire, for Medora. When the maid and her husband discovered that Medora’s daughter Marie was illegitimate, and that Medora was not a “proper lady,” they were concerned that it might reflect on them. They sought another appointment expecting a character reference from Lady Byron, who paid their salary. Not only did Lady Byron refuse to do that, but she accused the Beaurepaires of embezzlement. At that point, in defense of her mother, Ada became further involved in the situation by going to the French Embassy to protect her mother’s position. This occurred during the very hectic time that she was completing the Notes. I have deleted Ada’s description of the visit to the Embassy and excerpts that show how Lady Byron tried to divert Ada’s attention from the work she was doing with Babbage. Doris Langley Moore in her biography of Ada (see Bibliography) described the situation vividly and accurately.
To Charles Babbage
Tuesday Morning [25 July 1843]
Ockham
My Dear Babbage. The bearer will I hope deliver this by nine this evening. He is to return here as early tomorrow as you can let him have an answer. – What I want to know is this: can you be with me in Town at four on Thursday, in order that I may read over aloud, with you, all the Notes. For I cannot feel satisfied, (on re-perusing them), I find; without going over them with you; before they are finally printed off. . .
Can you afterwards give me Thursday evening, to go to the Opera. If my servant can have a reply from you tonight, he will be off by daylight tomorrow morning. If not, he must come as early as he can tomorrow.
I keep back your Note; wishing to consider it a little more. I think it unobjectionable, as far as I have yet considered it. Pray take care that the printing is so managed as to separate distinctly the translator’s notes, from either your note, or one there is of Menabrea’s own . . .
I shall not put my initials to my Notes. But I wish them to be Translator’s Notes . . .
Yours ever
A.L.
To Charles Babbage
Wednesday Evening, 10 o’clock [26 July 1843]
I send you what I have done of Note E, which is not nearly all. So you must not judge of it, as it is. I am becoming sadly over-worked, & have scarcely brains left for anything. –
I wonder how you will like my further addition to the upper indices. I half fear not. But I can cancel it, if you disapprove. No more tonight, for I can neither talk, write, nor think, common sense. And yet I feel more like a fairy than ever. (But I suppose that idea is uncommon, & not common, sense).
Yours
Addle pate
To Charles Babbage
Thursday Morning, 27 July [1843]
Ockham
My Dear Babbage. I cannot get on satisfactorily with either the proofs or the revise, unless I have my own manuscripts for the former, & the corrected proofs for the latter... .I am happy to find that the Notes will require very little correction indeed. – To say the truth, I am rather amazed at them, & cannot help being struck quite malgrè moi, with the really masterly nature of the style, & its superiority to that of the Memoir itself.
I have made Lord L – laugh much, by the dryness with which I remarked, “Well, I am very much satisfied with this first child of mine. He is an uncommonly fine baby, & will grow to be a man of the first magnitude & power.”
I approve your alteration in the preface, excepting that I think the word “so” comes in both awkwardly & superfluously. Pray efface it, & let it stand, “of the money to be expended.” That little word spoils it. – . . .
Lord L – seems pleased beyond measure, with the very learned & knowing aspect of my baby’s physiognomy, which he has glanced at.
Yours
A.L.
To Charles Babbage
Friday, 5’ o’clock [28 July 1843]
St James’ Square
The beginning of Note G (by which I mean the Table & all that precedes it) never has been returned into my hands; a small part of the remainder was, but that I speedily gave you back, & there it is, now printed. –
The missing part must be either at your house or at th
e printer’s; & it seems to me very unlikely that you should have retained it. So altogether I would wager almost anything that it is at the office; or that if lost, it has been lost there. –
At the same time, I have always fancied you were a little harum- scarum & inaccurate now & then about the exact order & arrangement of sheets, pages, & paragraphs &c; (witness that paragraph which you so carelessly pasted over!)
I suppose that I must set to work to write something better, if I can, as a substitute. The same precisely I could not recall. I think I should be able in a couple of days to do something. However I should be deucedly inclined to swear at you, I will allow.
I desire my messenger to wait; as it is possible you may have something to communicate more agreeable.
I go soon after seven. I believe I shall not be in Town myself on Monday as I expected.
Yours
A.L
To Lady Byron
Thursday Morning [August 1843]
Ockham
. . . I certainly feel some relief & satisfaction in turning to the packet of clear, forcible & logical documents now before me for my final revision; after the tortuous & nefarious documents & affairs which have recently so painfully engaged much of our energy & attention. My first born is characterized chiefly by a strong sense & union of the most minute & laborious accuracy, in particulars, with a colouring & undercurrent (rather hinted at & suggested than definitely expressed) of large, general, & metaphysical views. He is not eloquent or brilliant, but he shows indication of much latent power, & of a most indomitable industry which despises no even apparently trivial minutia.
He will make an excellent head of (I hope) a large family of brothers & sisters; to whom he will impart a certain staid & solid character, for which they will be much indebted to him, (tho’ probably no one may ever perceive or acknowledge his quiet & insensible influence). . .
To Charles Babbage
Monday Afternoon [Undated]
There is not much correction for Note A; (I send you the whole of it); And of these the chief part I think are merely paragraphs to be effaced, & stops to be inserted or altered. I cannot refrain from expressing my amazement at my own child. The pithy & vigorous nature of the style seem to me to be most striking; and there is at times a half-satirical & humorous dryness, which would I suspect make me a most formidable reviewer. I am quite thunder-struck at the power of the writing. It is especially unlike a woman’s style surely; but neither can I compare it with any man’s exactly. . .
Likewise the Notes should have A. A. L. appended to them. I do not mean the Foot-notes; only Notes A, B, C, D, E, F, G; the illustrious seven! –
You have now the whole of the Revise. I trust that all of Note G was found. There is but a very little bit of it indeed, yet sent to me. I can correct the proof of it in an hour or two, when I get it.
Expect a parcel from me tomorrow, with the remaining proofs of the Notes. A.A.L.
To Charles Babbage
Sunday, 30 July [1843]
Ockham
I am beyond measure vexed to find that instead of inserting my corrected Table in the Revise . . . they have left it exactly as it was before. Pray see about it immediately. It is exceedingly careless & annoying.
Out of several corrections made, not one is inserted; neither are the Upper Indices added; nor the little Foot-Note. I send you back all the latter part of the Revise, & the corresponding proofs, that you may look to the matter forthwith. I cannot account for such negligence. . .
I do not think you possess half my forethought, & power of foreseeing all possible contingencies (probable & improbable, just alike). –
I am glad to see the sheets I return you so clean on the whole.
Tomorrow I expect to send you up the rest of the Revise, & Note A by my governess, in the middle of the day; & more by post.
I will work most diligently; but I wish to revise the Notes myself. You might send some one down here the moment you get them; & I would attend immediately, & send them back by the same or some other special messenger –. . .
How very careless of you to forget that Note; & how much waiting on & service you owe me, to compensate.
I am in good spirits; for I hope another year will make me really something of an Analyst. The more I study, the more irresistible do I feel my genius for it to be.
I do not believe that my father was (or ever could have been) such a Poet as I shall be an Analyst; (& Metaphysician); for with me the two go together indissolubly. –
Yours
A.L.
To Charles Babbage
Tuesday Afternoon [1 August 1843]
Ockham
. . . Note B has plagued me to death; altho’ I have made but little alteration in it. Such alterations as there are however, happen to have been very tiresome & to have demanded minute consideration & very nice adjustments.
It is a very excellent Note.
I wish you were as accurate, & as much to be relied on, as I am myself.
You might often save me much trouble, if you were; whereas you in reality add to my trouble not infrequently; and there is at any rate always the anxiety of doubting if you will not get me into a scrape; even when you don’t.
By the way, I hope you do not take upon yourself to alter any of my corrections.
I must beg you not. They all have some very sufficient reason. And you have made a pretty mess & confusion in one or two places (which I will show you sometime), where you have ventured in my M.S.’s, to insert or alter a phrase or word; & have utterly muddled the sense.
I could not conceive at first in one or two places what had happened to my sentences; tho’ I soon saw they were patch-work & not my own; and found it so, on referring to the M. S. I fear you will think this a very cross letter. Never mind. I am a good little thing, after all.
Yours ever
A. A. L.
Later. P. S. It is impossible to send you anything but Notes B and C; (& this partly owing to some wrong references & blunderations of your own). –
Do not be afraid, for I will work like the Devil early tomorrow morning. –
To Charles Babbage
Wednesday, 4 o’ clock [2 August 1843]
Ockham
After working almost incessantly, since 7 o’clock this morning, until I am forced to give in from sheer inability to apply longer, I find only the sheet I enclose is quite completed. I shall however send a servant up tomorrow morning by a ten o’ clock train, to take you all the rest; so that you will have it almost as soon as this letter.
You cannot conceive the trouble I have had with the trigonometrical Note E. –
In fact no one but me, I really believe, would have doggedly stuck to it, as I have been doing, in all wearing minutiae.
I am very uneasy at not hearing from you, as I have expected to do both yesterday & today; & fear some disaster or other. I hope all of Note G is forthcoming; & I also hope you have received all my communications safely.
I think you had better do the second revise of the translation for me. If you will compare it carefully with my first revise, it can hardly be necessary I think for me to go over it again.
I suppose I ought to take it for granted that no news is good news; but I am in a sad fidget. –
Yours ever
A.L.
Poetical Science
This chapter highlights the importance of integrating different points of view. Today this strategy is called collaboration.
1. What are the steps you can take to make collaboration work well?
2. What was the mission that both Babbage and Ada embarked on?
3. How did Ada move the mission forward?
4. What questions did she ask that were critical?
5. How did Ada keep the mission light and fun?
There are many other questions you can ask to highlight how collaboration works well.
14
Multitudinous Charlatans and the Enchantress of Numbers
[1843]
Ada was plagued by many problems—writing the Notes, her illness, difficulties with the children, and the melodramatic issue of Medora, which was becoming more complicated each day. Ada turned to her cousin, Robert Noel, who was living in Germany, and described the need for a tutor for the children, her hopes for a profession, and speculations on where her future scientific endeavors might lead. In addition to the Notes, Ada wrote many pages about these issues, all carefully thought out and expressed.
Then difficulties arose with Babbage. Ada had asked him to do the second revision, yet it is apparent that she was involved in the final draft with the printers (whether this is the second or third is not clear). The major issue was the preface that Babbage wrote describing the non–support of the British government toward the completion of the Difference Engine and his innovative plans for the Analytical Engine. Babbage wanted the preface printed as part of the Memoir. When Ada read the final draft of the preface, she refused to have it included. She was furious.
Richard Taylor (the publisher) wrote a letter to Babbage at this time confirming that he agreed with Ada’s wish not to have the preface printed. Babbage apparently then asked Ada to withdraw the article and write an entirely new one. Ada did not mince words. According to her, Babbage was acting on principles that were “suicidal.”
Both Ada and Lord Lovelace wanted to take a direct part in helping Babbage transform his innovative ideas for the Analytical Engine into a working model. Because Babbage was considered a poor player at the political game, Ada wanted to take over this function to ensure that the Analytical Engine would become a reality. She wrote Babbage a sixteen–page letter highlighting the very different perceptions that men and women often have. This is the first time that the entire letter has been published.
Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers:Poetical Science Page 11
