Re: dickens

Charles Dickens (cdickens@RMPLC.CO.UK)
Thu, 23 Jan 1997 16:02:34 -0100 

My dear Miss Krimmel,

  Your information is a stunner!  You render the
Inimitable positively drunk with data.  I am reminded
of nothing so much as Swift's misguided savants, seeking
to distil moonbeams from cucumbers.
  A sense of justice prompts me to refrain from accusing
Mr Newman of wasting his talents.  I cling to the notion
of his having a justification.  But it is hard not to
take offence at the apparent lack of practical purpose.
Surely science should be man's handmaiden, not a will-
o'-the-wisp luring us into uncharted bogs and fens?
  The Inimitable feet, though, step on more solid ground
when you ask me, why the first page of "A Tale of Two
Cities?"  This, experience tells me, has to do with the
American system of education.  A blush mantles the
downy cheek as I reflect on how many young American persons
have been called upon to read that book of mine, how many
contrive to remember the opening paragraphs.  I am with
you when you suggest more appropriate or edifying books
might have been chosen.
  More than that I cannot say.  The rest is silence -
stunned, exhausted, bewildered silence.

Faithfully yours,



Charles Dickens
________________________________________________________________________________
>January 22, 1997
>
>Dear Mr. Dickens,
>
>Reading the biography "Genius: the life and science of Richard Feynman" by
>James Gleick, I recently learned that in 1985 a Stanford University graduate
>student, Thomas H. Newman, spent a month shrinking the first page of "A Tale of
>Two Cities" 25,000 times in each direction onto silicon with such marvelous
>technique that it was still microscope-readable (pp 355-6).
>
>Did you know this? Do you know any more about his choice of your famous opening
>for this feat? Its very fame could have been his reason, of course, or perhaps
>he just looked on his bookshelves and saw that the page size and print clarity
>were appropriate for his project (I hope and believe not that alone, surely.) I
>like to think that he had a more compelling reason, perhaps personal, and that
>I could learn it from him or someone interested who has asked him. I have your
>address, so you are my first addressee. Also I want to be sure you know about
>this, in case you hadn't already heard it.
>
>Fond as I am of your work, if this had been my project a page from Newton or
>Einstein would have struck me as appropriate, or something more recent
>concerning transistors or silicon chips, or even the first chapter of Genesis.
>With so many new discoveries at hand I hardly see how a physicist could think
>1985 a bad time, let alone the worst.
>
>Please let me know your thoughts about this. I intend to pursue my question.
>You see how widespread is your fame; now even the teeniest literate organism
>can read Dickens without having to travel endless microbe-miles to cover one
>page!
>
>Mary Krimmel
>mary.krimmel@sdcs.org
>
>

======================
Charles Dickens
charles_dickens@rmplc.co.uk
Author