lies, seeks to up-end and Disfigure the very Learning on which he has set his Thoughts. The boy knows that two and two make four – and will prove it too if required – but if by any sort of process he can convert 2 & 2 into five it gives him much greater pleasure.
Edward maintained to the end of his days a great respect for the arts and culture he had neglected at university and a stubborn indifference to the advancing sciences. His American father-in-law, though a stiff-hearted, pious Puritan, was a great believer in the manly and American application of hand and head to any task. He disliked ‘literary affectations’. The Agropolis, the visionary scheme that brought his future son-in-law to Virginia, had he known of it, must have aroused in him the deepest contempt. And the old farmer and schoolmaster took a keen interest in the newgeological work being done in the young country. In the end, the grandfather seems to have won the contest over the direction of the young man’s genius.
Besides which, 1809 saw the publication of William Maclure’s Observations on the Geology of the United States. Maclure, a Scotsman and disciple via Jameson of the theories of Werner, had come to America on business and never left, choosing instead to pursue Wernerian theories across the new continent, ‘hammer in hand’ (Fulton and Thompson). His book proved a sensation, and young Sam, then fifteen years old, was caught in its spell. (It is perhaps worthy of note that Syme’s introduction to the new science was Neptunist in origin.) Exercising a connection to the Silliman family, Willard Barnes secured his grandson a place on the new course in Geology at Yale College, being taught by ‘Sober Ben’.
Accordingly, Samuel set off by coach for New Haven, Connecticut, at the age of seventeen, with a ‘chest of clothes, chemical devices, etc. a writing box, and his portmanteau filled to bursting with my own Shortbread’, as Anne described his departure in a letter to her sister.
He seemed quite affected by the Separation – more than myself, in fact, to our great amusement – though he recovered his spirits in the efforts to shake Bubbles from his leg, who clung there, like a dog with its teeth around a precious bone, it would not part with for its life. Only that evening was I struck for the first time by the great path rolling out before my Son, and the lengths to which his Prospects might remove him from his Home. Our house seemed lonelier than before, less for his Absence than the echoes of his Presence. Bubbles would speak to no one, burying her red eyes in a novel; and even Edward seemed strangely affected and cast-down. No doubt apple-dumplings will cheer them both – I have never known a soul unaffected by apple-dumplings …
A strange mother, loving no doubt, but curiously removed, by the miseries of her family, from her own reflections. She couldnot guess then how quickly her son would return, nor how much of Sam’s career would be spent within a day’s journey of Baltimore.
I’d wager Barnes had not accounted for the ‘visionary’ purposes to which Sam would eventually put his education (in the manner of his father, after all), nor how brief that education would be. Yet in his own volcanic fashion, Sam deployed his new learning to instant and profitable use. America had just caught the craze for ‘natural waters’ that swept Europe at the turn of the century. Priestley had demonstrated as early as 1772 that the ‘blinking bubbles’ in a spring’s gush were nothing other than ‘fixed air’, and manufacturers had struggled to duplicate the effects of mineral water, which had become a fashionable addition to many drinks. Syme perfected his own process, and by the end of his first semester marketed the results in a private way. We find this early letter to his father.
Sir, – I recall that you and Grandfather were in the habit of retaining the bottles, jars, etc. consumed at the schoolhouse; and wondered if I
Edward maintained to the end of his days a great respect for the arts and culture he had neglected at university and a stubborn indifference to the advancing sciences. His American father-in-law, though a stiff-hearted, pious Puritan, was a great believer in the manly and American application of hand and head to any task. He disliked ‘literary affectations’. The Agropolis, the visionary scheme that brought his future son-in-law to Virginia, had he known of it, must have aroused in him the deepest contempt. And the old farmer and schoolmaster took a keen interest in the newgeological work being done in the young country. In the end, the grandfather seems to have won the contest over the direction of the young man’s genius.
Besides which, 1809 saw the publication of William Maclure’s Observations on the Geology of the United States. Maclure, a Scotsman and disciple via Jameson of the theories of Werner, had come to America on business and never left, choosing instead to pursue Wernerian theories across the new continent, ‘hammer in hand’ (Fulton and Thompson). His book proved a sensation, and young Sam, then fifteen years old, was caught in its spell. (It is perhaps worthy of note that Syme’s introduction to the new science was Neptunist in origin.) Exercising a connection to the Silliman family, Willard Barnes secured his grandson a place on the new course in Geology at Yale College, being taught by ‘Sober Ben’.
Accordingly, Samuel set off by coach for New Haven, Connecticut, at the age of seventeen, with a ‘chest of clothes, chemical devices, etc. a writing box, and his portmanteau filled to bursting with my own Shortbread’, as Anne described his departure in a letter to her sister.
He seemed quite affected by the Separation – more than myself, in fact, to our great amusement – though he recovered his spirits in the efforts to shake Bubbles from his leg, who clung there, like a dog with its teeth around a precious bone, it would not part with for its life. Only that evening was I struck for the first time by the great path rolling out before my Son, and the lengths to which his Prospects might remove him from his Home. Our house seemed lonelier than before, less for his Absence than the echoes of his Presence. Bubbles would speak to no one, burying her red eyes in a novel; and even Edward seemed strangely affected and cast-down. No doubt apple-dumplings will cheer them both – I have never known a soul unaffected by apple-dumplings …
A strange mother, loving no doubt, but curiously removed, by the miseries of her family, from her own reflections. She couldnot guess then how quickly her son would return, nor how much of Sam’s career would be spent within a day’s journey of Baltimore.
I’d wager Barnes had not accounted for the ‘visionary’ purposes to which Sam would eventually put his education (in the manner of his father, after all), nor how brief that education would be. Yet in his own volcanic fashion, Sam deployed his new learning to instant and profitable use. America had just caught the craze for ‘natural waters’ that swept Europe at the turn of the century. Priestley had demonstrated as early as 1772 that the ‘blinking bubbles’ in a spring’s gush were nothing other than ‘fixed air’, and manufacturers had struggled to duplicate the effects of mineral water, which had become a fashionable addition to many drinks. Syme perfected his own process, and by the end of his first semester marketed the results in a private way. We find this early letter to his father.
Sir, – I recall that you and Grandfather were in the habit of retaining the bottles, jars, etc. consumed at the schoolhouse; and wondered if I
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