Chaos theory: "French truth, Dutch prowess, British policy"

Cassiopeia A, supernova fragment   © NASA

Here are some apposite lines for politicians and voters today,  quoting from a poet writing over 340 years ago:

  "Nothing! thou elder brother even to Shade:
Thou hadst a being ere the world was made,
And well fixed, art alone of ending not afraid.

Ere Time and Place were, Time and Place were not,
When primitive Nothing Something straight begot;
Then all proceeded from the great united What.
……

Is or Is Not, the two great ends of Fate,
And True or False, the subject of debate,
That perfect or destroy the vast designs of state --
…..

But Nothing, why does Something still permit
That sacred monarchs should in council sit
With persons highly thought at best for nothing fit,

While weighty Something modestly abstains
From princes' coffers, and from statesmen's brains,
And Nothing there like stately Nothing reigns?

Nothing! who dwellst with fools in grave disguise,
For whom they reverend shapes and forms devise,
Lawn sleeves and furs and gowns, when they like thee look wise:

French truth, Dutch prowess, British policy,
Hibernian learning, Scotch civility,
Spaniards' dispatch, Danes' wit are mainly seen in thee;

The great man's gratitude to his best friend,
Kings' promises, whores' vows -- towards thee they bend,
Flow swiftly into thee, and in thee ever end."

Upon Nothing,  John Rochester c. 1678

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester  c. 1665-70  © National Portrait Gallery London

On the lending and losing of books: "how many more of your books I daily make use of:"

I have written before about John Locke's long friendship with James Tyrrell from his time at Christ Church, Oxford, who lived at nearby Oakley.    I knew Tyrrell's maternal grandfather was James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh and revered as a biblical scholar, by both King James I and Oliver Cromwell.  He was best known for his Latin history, Annals of the Old and New Testaments, which dated the creation of the world from 4004 BC.  

James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, 1641    Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen

© Jesus College, Oxford

But  I gave Archbishop Ussher no further thought until I was reading about the Book of Kells in Christopher de Hamel's "Meetings with  Remarkable Manuscripts".  It was Ussher who first studied Ireland's world-renowned late 8th century Latin manuscript of the four Gospels as a key historic book, and not just as a monumental religious icon of Ireland.  (It is now on the Unesco Memory of the World Register.)

Illuminated page from the  Book of Kells  

© Trinity College Library, Dublin

His grandson James himself was a respected Whig historian (e.g. Bibliotheca Politica 1694). It is not surprising then that the Tyrrells were a family of serious readers, lending and borrowing books amongst themselves and friends.  

Locke entrusted Tyrrell with the storage of his furniture and books from Christ Church when he had to move abroad in 1683.  Back in England seven years later under William III,  by 1691 he  was moving from London lodgings to a more permanent home with Sir Francis and Lady Masham at Oates in Essex, and asked for his Oxford belongings to be returned to him.  This took a long time,  because of the problems of transporting safely furniture, household goods, and valuable items as well as numerous heavy books.  Much was sent by the newly restored river-barge route between Oxford and London:

 A Victorian photo of the new style pound lock at Culham
Originally built by the 17th century Oxford-Burcot Commission; the first commercial barge from London for centuries reached Oxford in 1635, after work to add gated poundlocks and improve the passage over the many weirs and sluices (i.e. flashlocks). 

Even this was not easy:  

"John could not get a Cart before last week to bring them hither [from Shotover to Oxford], nor was there ever a barge ready to carry them till today….I hope they will come safely to your hands for I have given the bargeman great charge of your chair."  Tyrrell to Locke, 15th October 1691

A week later Tyrrell writes, "Your boxes layn here this fortnight waiting for a passage, for the locks being at fault the barges could not passe till they were mended."

This consignment included six large boxes,  two smaller and a trunk, plus a large bundle of linens, and a cane chair.  Locke's goods from Christ Church included a very large number of books as well as items awkward to pack (two carpets were too big to go in the bundle). 

Christ Church College, Oxford   Frederick Nash 

The other problem was that over the years the Tyrrell family had dipped in to Locke's library and used his trunks and boxes, furniture and other items: "having taken the books; and other things out of it, I lent my wife the box to put some linen in:"  30 June 1691

Tyrrell's difficulties sound familiar to anyone who has moved house and had to store belongings with friends or relatives for a long time, or vice-versa.  He has constant problems finding overlooked items at the family homes at Shotover and Oakley and then packing them for transport.

"I would have sent you your telescope if the box had been long enough….I find since the writing of the Catalogue [of Locke's Oxford books] that I have omitted some books which I left at Oxford: and were among my books there, and so were forgot till now….I have bin forced to take the second part of the 'State of France' out of the box: because it would not hold it and the bottle."  

I have sent you all your bookes, except…such bookes (he lists over a dozen) as I have made bold to borrow of you for some longer time.…your Telescope is on top of the bookes in one of the boxes;" 
15 October 1691

"I have also sent you up the 2 first Tomes of your French Herodotus; and the last [Volume III] which I lent my daughter, is come as far as Oxford, but I cannot have it to send up this returne, but you shall have it the next week; when I send up some other things to James:" [Tyrrell's son]  November 1691 

His despatches continue into 1692 with an insight into family life at Oakley:  "as for books not medicinal, James had in his keeping unknown to me Oglebyes Japan, and my Father had borrowed Africa of the same Authours but they shall both be sent to you with the boxes". 

  John Ogilby's Africa 1670  (Photo Bauman Rare Books)

"..the little hair trunk  I lent to my daughter into Wales...Besides your Carpets, I have an old terrestrial Globe of yours, which would not go well into the trunk…...  2 pair of [your cases for books] were at Shotover, with some books of mine, and I could not prevail with the carter to go out of the way." [from Oakley to Oxford] 30th January 1692

And in August: he sends a book "which my Sister had borrowed;"  but not  "an old Terrestriall Globe which would not got into the box … . and my son desires the use of it a little longer;   I have allso your weather glasse at Shotover which was too long to goe into any of the boxes",  nor another book and a cushion which his son still had. 

John Patrick's Weatherglass: Directions   (see SIS Bulletin 80)

Tyrell entrusts a friend to send this 'last' consignment  to Locke:  Mr: Thomas … haveing first sent all your things together with his owne to Mr: Rushes barge, which I suppose sets out on Thursday "  9th August 1692

Eventually, in slow succession, Locke's precious boxes of books and other belongings arrived in London and were then transported by carrier  (i.e. horse and cart) via Bishop's Stortford to the Masham's home at Oates, High Laver in Essex.

Several items were still missing or remained 'borrowed' by the Tyrrell family.  In the summer of 1701, Locke makes a last attempt to trace the missing volume III from his French edition of Herodotus, which may have gone with James's daughter Mary to Wales and was said to have been returned in November 1691 - it was she who had irretrievably lost the key to one of Locke's small trunks, which caused everyone a deal of trouble in her absence.  Tyrrell replies, "my daughter assures me she never saw more than those 2 volumes of it….which way the third came to be lost I know not….my son may perhaps have borrowed it unbeknownst to me.." August 1701

Pierre du Ryer's French translation of Herodotus' "Histories"  (Photo Sequitur Books) 

Locke's Herodotus Volume III was never found, so is it perhaps buried in some old Welsh library archive, or given the difficulties of transport then, lost forever in a Thames mill pond?

 The Mill at Mapledurham,  part 15th century, the oldest surviving mill on the Thames

Quotations from The Correspondence of John Locke, ed. E.S. De Beer, Clarendon Press Oxford

Hetty Dorval - " a woman of no reputation"

Let us put all the continuing travails of Brexit and Europe into a wider historical context.
Hetty Dorval, a coming of age story by the Canadian writer Ethel Wilson, published just two years after the end of World War II, has one of the most chilling endings to a novel I have come across.

A young Canadian teenager, Frankie Burnaby just twelve, relates how her quiet family life in rural British Columbia is transformed by her secret friendship with a new arrival from Shanghai:  Hetty Dorval, a glamorous young woman with a mysterious past.  Hetty is to turn up again at  key moments in Frankie's life.

 Frankie is too innocent to realise what Hetty is until her parents explain that this visiting must end, for Mrs Dorval is regarded as "a woman of no reputation", ugly stories having followed her across the Pacific.

"In my mind, seeing Hetty's pure profile and her gentle smile, I said to myself that Father couldn't have believed these things if he had seen her himself. But a sick surprised feeling told me it might be true."

When Frankie is sixteen her mother takes her to England  to complete her education. Among the ship's passengers is Hetty, now engaged  to marry an elderly General, and she appeals to the Burnabys' generosity not to mention rumours of her past and destroy her chance of real security.

Frankie then lives with her uncle and cousins Richard and his young sister Molly in Cornwall for two happy years of growing up.  "As I look back, I  don't know where my liking for Richard began or ended.  I accepted my liking or love for him without question.  It was all natural and completely young and happy. Nothing spoiled the confidence and harmony of our lives together whether we were apart or whether we were all together in Cliff House by the sea."

But Hetty, now widowed, turns up again in London and charms Frankie's cousins completely, just as she had bedazzled young Frankie.  

"I thought of others in whom goodness was as visible as green, but it was not visible in Hetty."

(Dancing figurine,  Stephan Dakon for Goldscheider Vienna, 1936-7)

Frankie, finally grown up, and learning the truth of the emotional wreckage Hetty caused in Shanghai, confronts her, determined to protect the cousins she loves.  True to form, Hetty simply walks away from an unpleasant "complicated" situation.  When Frankie sends her packing, she goes off to Vienna with a rich admirer.   The ending is quite sudden:

"As I watched with satisfaction Hetty going down the narrow stairs I knew that before she had taken three steps she had forgotten me and she had forgotten Richard.  She was on her way.
Six weeks later the German Army occupied Vienna.
There arose a wall of silence around the city, through which only faint confused sounds were sometimes heard."

Hetty Dorval,   Ethel Wilson 1947  ©  British Columbia University Library, quotations from Persephone Books edition 2005

June beginnings: "to reside In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice…"*

HMS Erebus in the Arctic ice, Sir John Franklin expedition 1846,   Francois E. Musin  © Royal Museums Greenwich

"On the morning of September 4th, 1910, the inhabitants of Enmyn, a settlement spread out on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, heard an unusual clamour.  This was not the cracking of shattered ice, nor the rumble of an avalanche, nor the crashing of stones down the rocky precipices of the Enmyn cape.

Just then Toko was standing in his chottagin  [the outer entrance to his yaranga] pulling on a white kamleika.  He thrust his arms carefully into the wide sleeves, touching his face to the material, inhaling its smell -- had a good airing out in the freezing wind.  Otherwise all he touched - traps, Winchester, snowshoes - everything would be permeated with that smell.

A crashing noise roared in his ears. Toko quickly stuck his head through the neck-hole, and sprang out of the chottagin in a single bound.

Where, only yesterday, there had been the white people's ship, a cloud was spreading.  There were ice splinters under his feet,
People rushed out from all twelve of the yarangas.  They stood in silence looking out toward the ship, and making guesses about the explosion.  Now Armol' came up to him.
' Likely, they were trying to crack the ice…'  'I think so, too', Toko agreed.  'Let's go.'  And the two hunters set off for the ice-bound ship.

The cloud over the ship was dissipated, and in the dawn twilight you could make out a hole in the ice under the bowsprit.  There were more and more chunks of ice underfoot, strewn all about the ship.
The deck rang with agitated voices, long shadows flickering across the portholes.

Toko and Armol' slowed their step.  The others caught up with them.
'Blood!'  Toko exclaimed, bending down to the tracks that led from the hole to the ship. 'Blood!' the people echoed, looking down at the stains on the ice and on deck.

From the frozen-through wooden belly of the ship came a long drawn-out moan, just like the howl of a wounded wolf."

A Dream in Polar Fog  Yuri Rytkheu, 1968.  Eng. trans. I. Y. Chavasse, © 2005

This is the story of a young Canadian, John MacLennan, who sails to the Arctic to seek his fortune and make his name.

The Bering Strait and Chukotka Pensinsula, Eastern Siberia

Trying to sail right round the Chukotka Peninsula of Eastern Siberia, too late in the season, their ship is caught in an ice field and carried to Enmyn.

While dynamiting the ice-field a faulty fuse has blown John's hands apart and the captain (offering rifles) persuades the local Chukchi to carry John to hospital at far distant Anadyr.  To save his life on the journey, a shaman has to operate on his gangrenous stumps, but when the men finally get back to Enmyn, the ice has parted and the ship has sailed without him.

Spring in Chukotka    Photo A. Kutskiy

Stranded in this tiny remote settlement of a dozen families, over eight years, he learns to use his mangled hands, learns to hunt walrus and whale and adopts the Chukchi way of life,  marrying and raising a young family.   But white trappers and whalers arrive, outside elements which will threaten these indigenous people's traditions, with the revolution in Russia and the discovery of gold further north, and finally John is forced to make a far-reaching  decision.

"We believe that we live on the best land in the world.  That's the beauty, that no one wants it except for ourselves."

Yuri Rytkheu was born in 1930, and grew up among the Chukchi people, where his grandfather was a shaman, and whose way of life he celebrates in this novel.  In 1949 he studied at Leningrad University, where he made his name as a writer and journalist, and later settled there.  He died in St Petersburg in May 2008.

A walrus rookery   

Modern bulk carriers trapped in the Arctic ice   © maritime executive

* Measure for Measure, Act III   W. Shakespeare