MDDM Ch. 75 Messages

[Dave Monroe]

   "'You receive Messages from us, by way of your
Magnetic Compasses.  What you call the "Secular Change
of Declination" is whatever dim'd and muffl'd remnant
may reach you above, of all the lives of us Below,--
being less liv'd than waged, at a level of Passion
that would seem, to you, quite intense.  We have
learn'd to use the Tellurick Forces, including that of
Magnetism,-- which you oddly seem to consider the only
one.'
   "'There are others?' Mason perking up." (M&D, Ch.
75, p. 740)

Cf. not only ...

"'These Data arriv'd but this Instant, by the German
Packet,-- the latest Declination Figures.  Our
easterly movement, in Pennsylvania, as it's been doing
in latter Years, decelerates, yet,-- here, 'tis four
point five minutes east,' as Dixon attentively gazes
over her shoulder, 'when in the year 'sixty, 'twas
four point six.  If you head South, 'twill be three
point nine at Baltimore.'
   "'Were these measur'd Heights,' her murmurs, 'a
very Precipice.'
   "'What Could be causing it, do you imagine?'
   "'Something underground, moving Westward...?'"
   "'Hush.'  Her Eyes rapidly sweep the Vicinity.  'No
one ever speaks of that aloud here,-- what sort of
incautious Lad are you, exactly?'" (M&D, Ch. 30, p.
299)

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But also ...

"'These Data arriv'd but this Instant, by the German
Packet,-- the latest Declination Figures.  Our
easterly movement, in Pennsylvania, as it's been doing
in latter Years, decelerates, yet,-- here, 'tis four
point five minutes east,' as Dixon attentivel gazes
over her shoulder, 'when in the year 'sixty, 'twas
four point six.  If you head South, 'twill be three
point nine at Baltimore.'
   "'Were these measur'd Heights,' her murmurs, 'a
very Precipice.'
   "'What Could be causing it, do you imagine?'
   "'Something underground, moving Westward...?'"
   "'Hush.'  Her Eyes rapidly sweep the Vicinity.  'No
one ever speaks of that aloud here,-- what sort of
incautious Lad are you, exactly?'" (M&D, Ch. 30, p.
299)

>From Patricia Fara, Sympathetic Attractions: Magnetic
Practices, Beliefs, and Symbolism in Eighteenth-
Century England (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
UP, 1996), Ch. 6, "God's Mysterious Creation: The
Divine Attraction of Natural Knowledge," pp. 146-70
...

   "Whereas we live in a world shaped by
electromagnetic fields, many educated people of the
eighteenth century perceived a universe permeated with
a divine magnetic power.  Like God himself, magnetic
effects were mysterious....  Ontologies varied .... To
understand magnetic texts, being aware of these
differences in theoretical approach is often less
important than appreciating the cultural implications
of the magnetic vocabulary.  Magnetic terms were laden
with inherited connotations which enriched people's
discussions but can be difficult to retrieve." (p.
147)

   "The words 'magnetic' and 'sympathetic' were used
interchangeably in some contexts, echoing earlier
Neoplatonic beliefes in an animistic, synchronized
universe." (p. 149)

THE MAGNETIC TERRAQUEOUS GLOBE

"Addressing a Royal Society audience steeped in
classical culture, [Edmond] Halley ... quoted Latin
descriptions of the underworld to corroborate his new
magnetic model of the earth.  'I am sure,' he claimed,
'the Poets Virgil and Claudian have gone before me in
this Thought, inlightning their Elysian Fields with
Sun and Stars proper to those infernal, or rather
internal, Regions.'  His infernal pun exemplifies the
religious ramifications of terrestrial magnetism. 
Writers realted the earth's structure to biblical
narratives and to the location of hell; they sought to
reconscile the irregular patterns of terrestrial
magnetism with their conviction of a perfect
creation." (p. 152)

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