“Maybe one could use this new allpurpose stuff, this electricity, in combination with a lens made out of diamond,” O’Brien went on.
“Look at what the railroad has done to this country, already, linking distant places,” Whelpley said. “Why, there’s a state in the southwest as big as five New Yorks, and one clear on the other coast less than a decade old, with fields of gold sufficient to satisfy everyone’s greed. And in another decade we may be able to travel to both of those states by railroad. Distance will be annihilated. And one day we’ll fill up all that empty space with people.”
“But how would some innocent experimenter find out about such a process?” O’Brien mused.
“Look at what has happened in electricity,” Whelpley said. “Every decade, beginning in 1800, has come a new development: the storage battery, the electric motor, the electric generator… What will come next? Electric lights? The harnessing of sound, voice communication over long distances?”
“Perhaps a medium might put him in touch with some long-dead micro-scopist,” O’Brien said.
“And basic science. Like the nature of matter or chemical combination, or the origin of life. There’s a French scientist trying to figure out why wine turns sour. Who knows what may come of that?”
“I could write a story about someone building a fantastic microscope using a lens made of diamond,” O’Brien said.
“What the world needs,” Whelpley said, “is a better understanding of science and how it is changing the world for the better. Or the worse. Of course invention has been applied to warfare as well—rifle bullets for instance, and the firearm magazine, and the revolver. Ways to kill more peo-ple faster.”
“But where would he get a diamond big enough to use as a lens?” O’Brien said.
She swept out from between the rainbow-curtains of the cloud-trees into the broad sea of light that lay beyond. Her motions were those of some graceful Naiad, cleaving, by a mere effort of her will, the clear, unruffled waters that fill the chambers of the sea. She floated forth with the serene grace of a frail bubble ascending through the still atmosphere of a fune day. The perfect roundness of her limbs formed suave and enchanting curves. It was like listening to the most spiritual symphony of Beethoven the divine, to watch the harmonious flow of lines.
“Look at that,” Whelpley said, gesturing at a drawing hanging on the far wall. O’Brien turned to look at it. The drawing displayed the human body, with the skin removed to reveal the muscles and the internal organs. “The part that distinguishes us from the animals, the brain, is so small compared to our oversized genitals. Our lusts, our emotions, are more important to us than our rational processes.”
“My microscopist would have to fall in love with something,” O’Brien said. “Maybe a beautiful female creature living in a world far beyond his reach, beyond even the ability to hear or understand his hopeless passion.”
“People fear thought when they ought to fear uncontrolled emotion,” Whelpley said. “You and your friends, these men of genius, could help explain and dramatize the issues, the prospects for the future, could give readers a sense of what the future will bring and how their own humanity may be enhanced by it.”
“Of course it would be futile,” O’Brien said.
“Because if we don’t do something, the passions accumulating in the world will find expression that may shatter every hope. Revolution is epidemic in Europe, and in this country events move us toward civil war.”
“War? Here?” O’Brien said. At last Whelpley had claimed his attention.
Whelpley reached into the shelf behind him and removed a book that he pushed across the desk toward O’Brien. “Have you read this?”
O’Brien picked up the book and looked at its title. “Dear Sentimental Mistress Stowe,” he said ironically. “One doesn’t read a book like this, one browses through it.”
“Thousands of people have read it, and it has inflamed their imaginations. I believe in the abolition of slavery and the freeing of the slaves, but rationally—not through bloodshed and anger. ”
“Surely it will not come to that,” O’Brien said.
“Perhaps not for slavery alone, but for political reasons dividing the northern and southern states. The fighting in Kansas is only the prelude to a larger battle. Already a senatorial candidate in Illinois has told his state convention that ‘a house divided against itself cannot stand.’ If someone like that gets elected president, what do you think the southern states will do?”
“Why, they will work like hell at the next election, of course,” O’Brien said.
“If they behaved rationally,” Whelpley said. “But fear and hatred are powerful emotions, and I foresee great tragedies ahead unless thinking men and women work together to quench the flames of passion with the cool waters of reason.”
“A sort of volunteer fire-fighting company of the mind, eh, Dr. Whelpley?” O’Brien said.
“You joke,” Whelpley said. “Yet I am perfectly serious. A war between the states would shatter this nation for generations and create hatreds that would last for a century. If war should start after the next presidential election, you yourself would be one of the first to volunteer, and being the romantic Irish gentleman that you are, you would seek the heat of the battle and be killed within the first year along with hundreds of thousands of young men north and south.”
“You may be right,” O’Brien said. He did not seem disturbed at the prospect. “To die in the service of one’s adopted country would not be so terrible a fate.” He reflected upon the matter for a moment. “It would, at least, settle my debts once and for all. My microscopist would have to die, of course. Or perhaps go mad.”
“If you insist on writing a story about a microscopist,” Whelpley said, “then make him a scientist, discovering the causes of disease, perhaps ministering to dying soldiers and discovering the causes and treatments of putrefaction.”
O’Brien smiled knowingly. “You may understand microscopes, but you don’t understand human nature. To make a perfect microscope is an act of hubris, and it must be punished by Nemesis.”
“It’s you, my dear O’Brien, who do not understand science. To explore more deeply is not an act of hubris but a use of those faculties that distinguish mankind from the brutes, and to discover the ways in which the Universe works is to free oneself from Nature’s tyranny rather than to invoke the wrath of the Gods. And that is the vision I would hope you would help make available broadly before it is too late.”
“It wouldn’t work,” O’Brien said, lifting his glass and draining its contents. He looked longingly at the decanter and then rose to his feet, no longer unsteady. “I don’t have the power. None of us has the power. And not a person is changed by poetry or literature except those who don’t need changing. The people you want to reach don’t read Harper’s or The Atlantic. But I want to thank you for a good claret, a stimulating conversation, and a wonderful idea for a story which, if I deal with it properly, may make my reputation—or at least a hundred dollars.
“And so good night to you, Dr. Whelpley. If I may, I would like to call upon your expertise again to assist me with the details of my story which I think I shall call ‘The Diamond Lens.’ ”
O’Brien bowed and made his way to the door and down the broad stairs into the night while Whelpley stared, his glass forgotten in his hand, at the drawing of the flayed human body on the far wall.