Small Gods by Terry Pratchett

Source of book: Audiobook borrowed from my brother.

We just finished this book, and my response through most of it was:

O

M

G

OMG. 

This book is a brilliant look at how religion turns evil and destructive. Which means that it is a pretty good explanation for how we ended up with the Inquisition, wahhabist jihads, and the Salem Witch Trials. But also how Evangelicalism went from a movement that drove social justice and spoke truth to power to become the Christ-free shell it is now. Pratchett understood how tribalist politics and the lust for power corrupt religion and make it into something the polar opposite of its supposed meaning. 

 Got to love the camptastic 1980s cover art. :)

Small Gods is a Discworld book, but it doesn’t neatly fit into any of the usual categories. In order of writing, it is number 13. Some have classified it as in the “ancient civilizations” category - which only has Pyramids and Small Gods. However, there are no characters in common with other books (other than Death, of course), so it really stands alone. I wouldn’t recommend it as a first Discworld book, but only because it assumes some knowledge of the cosmology of the Disc. It might be easiest to start with The Colour of Magic to get the basics, then read this one. 

Brutha is a young man, not very bright, but with a literally photographic memory. He was raised by his devout grandmother, and sent to train to become a priest. Although he is illiterate, he has the entire scripture memorized. Okay, I guess it is best to explain the religion, which requires an explanation of how the Discworld works. Central, of course, is that in this reality, the world is literally a disc riding on the backs of four elephants, who stand on a giant turtle, who swims through the cosmos. Gods actually exist on the Discworld, although they do not wield the same sort of power traditionally ascribed to them. Some of the “bigger” gods live in a pantheon - the universal Thunder God, Fertility Goddess, and so on: the gods that every ancient culture seemed to start with. Gods can be small too, however. The very smallest have nobody who believes in them, and they live in the desert in a disembodied state longing for even a single believer. Gods can also change in size, depending on the state of belief. So, an old god like one from the Ancient Near East (Dagon anyone?) can lose power and even be reduced to the status of Small God if everyone stops believing in him. 

The book takes place in Omnia, which is on the Klatchian continent rather than the unnamed main continent that contains Ankh-Morpork and the rest of the usual Discworld places. Omnia worships the god Om in a monotheistic religion, which Pratchett patterned after Christianity and Islam. At the time of Small Gods, Omnism is a cruel and violent religion, ruled by the “Quisition,” which is...well, obviously. In addition to the inquisitors, there are the top dudes, the exquisitors. (Pratchett and his puns…) The unofficial motto of the Quisition is “Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum,” which is based on a saying Charles Colson had on a plaque in his office. (You know, back in the days when he was committing crimes for Nixon, before his jailhouse conversion and so on.) Supposedly, the original quote was from Theodore Roosevelt, but I was unable to find any confirmation. 

The head exquisitor in the book is Vorbis, possibly patterned after the Grand Inquisitor Cisneros. Vorbis is a delicious villain, devoid of conscience, devoted to torturing all who disagree, intent on power and conquest. 

In addition to the usual monotheistic beliefs, Omnism clings to the idea that the earth is a sphere - basically the way our world works - but which is as silly in the Discworld universe as belief in a flat earth is in ours. 

Om has a habit of periodically manifesting to his believers, installing a prophet, then going on about his business for a few hundred more years. The problem for Om, however, is that he seems to have lost his power. The most he can do is manifest as a tortoise, and he nearly gets killed by an eagle. (This is a central theme in the book - the eagle and the tortoise.) By random chance, he lands, not on something hard, but on a bush in the temple’s garden. Brutha, who, as it happens, is literally the only person left who truly believes in Om, is tending the vegetables. Om speaks into his head, and the two begin what has to be one of the most fun friendships in the Discworld universe. 

Vorbis discovers Brutha’s memory gift, and takes him along on a “diplomatic” mission to a neighboring country. (Patterned after ancient Athens.) Vorbis, with Brutha’s inadvertent help, sacks and burns the city. Brutha escapes with a philosopher, his mechanically minded assistant, and an atheist soldier intent on bringing real science to Omnia. Adventures and hijinks ensue. I won’t give away more of the plot than that. 

This being Pratchett, you know you will get a lot of humor, terrible puns, and silliness. But also hard-core discussions of ethics, empathy, tolerance, and Enlightenment values. 

This book in particular shined a light on some parts of my own spiritual journey. I’ve had a lot of deprogramming to do from my Fundamentalist upbringing and cult experience, and Pratchett seems to understand well the dynamics. Here are some examples: 

Like modern-day Evangelicals, the Omniums worship their scripture, take it literally, and fight based on its perceived inerrancy. And, of course, the scripture is used primarily as a weapon by those in power to abuse those who question their authority. But how did the scripture get there? Well, it was written by the prophets, who claimed to receive it directly from Om. But the problem is, Om didn’t actually say any of it. (In this book, Om is more of a spoiled brat used to getting his way, and has to learn how to be a decent person, if that is the right word for a god.) Om appeared to the prophets, and said stuff like “Hey, look what I can do!” The prophets interpreted how they liked, and wrote down what they wanted. Om, being a pretty neglectful deity, never bothered to check back and make sure his worshipers got it right. So he is kind of horrified at what is being done in his name. 

Pratchett puts his finger on the fundamental (sorry) problem with the Evangelical (and wahhabist) approaches to holy books. It is pretty obvious that they were written by humans, from the point of view of those humans, and with all the cultural, geographical, and chronological baggage those humans had. Trying to use scriptures as an instruction book doesn’t really work. And it tends to lead to Quisitions and jihad. It also works as a perfect weapon in the hands of those who crave power. 

Vorbis liked to see properly guilty consciences. That was what consciences were for. Guilt was the grease in which the wheels of the authority turned.

More rules = more guilt. More guilt = more control. Fear of either present Quisition or future Hell works with guilt to produce a harvest of control. The system itself is abusive. And it makes people abusive. 

The figures [on an ancient bowl] looked more or less human. And they were engaged in religion. You could tell by the knives (it's not murder if you do it for a god).

He thought: the worst thing about Vorbis isn’t that he’s evil, but that he makes good people do evil. He turns people into things like himself. You can’t help it. You catch it off him.

And this is the problem: Vorbis is horrid and evil and cruel - but he really believes. He has no idea that he is a bad guy, because he believes he is acting on behalf of the god and also in everyone’s ultimate best interest. This is why C. S. Lewis hated theocracy and said that the worst ruler of all would be an Inquisitor. 

On a related note, Pratchett’s vision of the Discworld afterlife is interesting. Basically, everyone gets the afterlife they believe in. So, for the “pagans,” they go to Valhalla or whatever party place they think exists. As an Omnium observes after he dies:

The Captain frowned. ‘It’s a funny thing,’ he said, ‘but why is it that the heathens and the barbarians seem to have the best places to go when they die?’

‘A bit of a poser, that,’ agreed the mate. ‘I s’pose it makes up for ‘em ... enjoying themselves all the time when they’re alive, too?’  He looked puzzled.  Now that he was dead, the whole thing sounded suspicious. 

For the Omniums, they journey across a desert, then face judgment from their god. This comes as a great surprise to Om, actually, as he wasn’t expecting that kind of work. But see, this is how Hell has been leveraged over the centuries. It is a concept that isn’t really even in the Bible the way we think it is, and was not the belief of the earliest church. It seems to have gained in popularity in lock-step with the rise of political power and the founding of the Roman church. The belief in Purgatory eventually became necessary for a variety of reasons, of course, not least being the way that the Hell doctrine makes God into a real asshole. Protestants resurrected the doctrine, and used it increasingly it seems as their political power (and thus the ability to kill and torture) waned. I have come to believe that the doctrine of Hell is closely related to the doctrine which calls for the murder and torture of infidels. Both are an abusive use of fear to control people. 

Going along with the cruelty - as it always does - is certainty. It is a black and white worldview where we absolutely know the truth and everyone else is wrong and any new information that contradicts the worldview is rank heresy, and why don’t we destroy those who are different. In contrast, Brutha and Om have to learn to accept ambiguity, shades of grey, imperfect knowledge. And they have to learn to act, not as blind followers of rules, but as compassionate, thoughtful people. 

“But is all this true?" said Brutha.

Didactylos shrugged. "Could be. Could be. We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork."

"You mean you don't KNOW it's true?" said Brutha.

"I THINK it might be," said Didactylos. "I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about.” 

Certainty tends to lead to theocracy. (And, since Communism is a religion, it creates its own dogma and theocracy too.) A functional democracy, on the other hand, requires uncertainty, and flexibility to adapt to different needs and circumstances. Pratchett pokes fun at the messiness of democracy, of course, but he has a good point.

“I like the idea of democracy. You have to have someone everyone distrusts," said Brutha. "That way, everyone's happy.”

Pratchett also notes that it takes a long time for evil ideas to die. 

“It takes a long time for people like Vorbis to die. They leave echoes in history.”

Christianity is still haunted by the echoes of Constantine, the Inquisition, the Puritans, and so on. Religion and power do not produce good things when they join forces. Power corrupts the religion, and religion makes power insatiably cruel. Not that power leaves anything uncorrupted, obviously. This next quote has been in my head since I read it, and I think it rather explains a lot about whiteness in the United States, among other things. 

“When you can flatten entire cities at a whim, a tendency towards quiet reflection and seeing-things-from-the-other-fellow's-point- of-view is seldom necessary.” 

So many good things in that one. There are a number of other quotes that are great, but don’t tie in with this thread of discussion. So I’ll shift gears, and look at Pratchett’s treatment of faith. In the Discworld universe, the gods exist. Thus, religious belief is far from crazy or bad. Small Gods is almost the opposite of hostile to religion. Pratchett rather looks at when religion goes wrong, when it gets away from worship of the god and into violence against other humans. 

In this world, however, atheists still exist. They may worry about getting hit by lightning once in a while, but persist in atheism. Pratchett, like G. K. Chesterton (in The Ball and the Cross), notes that atheists and devout believers actually have a lot in common. 

“Gods didn’t mind atheists, if they were deep, hot, fiery, atheists like Simony, who spend their whole life hating gods for not existing. That sort of atheism was a rock. It was nearly belief …

“He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at.” 

That first one perfectly describes a few atheists I know. I recognize the devout nature of their belief as similar to my own. And, if I am right about the existence of God, I suspect that they will turn out to be closer to genuine Christians than those who name the name of Christ but act in the opposite manner. 

Here is another quote that I really liked:

“Fear is strange soil. Mainly it grows obedience like corn, which grows in rows and makes weeding easy. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.”

For Bill Gothard, he found this to be true of his own cult members. In the end, he was brought down by the children of his followers, many of whom, like me, found the fear-based shit he peddled to breed defiance. 

This one doesn’t really fit anywhere else, but it is pretty good. 

“The people who really run organizations are usually found several levels down, where it is still possible to get things done.”

I left my favorite quote to near the end of this post. In Omnia, everyone supposedly worships Om. But only Brutha actually does. How can that be? 

“Belief, he says. Belief shifts. People start out believing in the god and end up believing in the structure.”

And that is what happens with religions all too often. Rather than believe in the god, people want to believe in the structure. They want to believe in the theology, in the rules, in the rituals, in the tribe. In Omnia, they also (for very good reason) believe in the Quisition. The power. The ability to do violence to unbelievers. As Didactylos puts it, the scary thing is the way that the people throwing the stones are certain. They are certain they will be in the pit being stoned if they don’t throw the stones. 

I see so much of this in modern Evangelicalism, unfortunately. It has become a largely Christ-free religion, with little recognizable connection to the teachings or example of Christ. 

The belief is no longer in Christ, but in the structure. There is a belief in the theological superstructure. And a belief in The Rules™. There is a belief in the Tribe, in the politics, in the doctrines and political theories. A belief in the culture of a mythical past golden age. And, let us not forget, the power of fear. I think the number one reason that Evangelicals so doggedly cling to homophobia, and seek to use political power to persecute LGBTQ folks is that they cannot let go of their stones for fear of being in the pit. In Hell. I believe they feel that if they give in on this issue, they will be tortured for eternity. Best throw that stone, or stones will be thrown at you. It’s sad. But it is also dangerous, because it is the way otherwise decent people become violent. It is sad to see that when it comes to a religion that could be such an inspiration. But Christianity without Christ is...basically Donald Trump. Or Vorbis. 

I think it appropriate to end with this one. Vorbis has died, under the most poetic circumstances ever, and is faced with the desert, and Death, who is about to ride off to continue his job elsewhere. Vorbis has a mind, as Pratchett puts it, like an iron ball. Nothing gets in or out, and he hears nothing but his own thoughts bouncing around over and over. So Vorbis is truly the most alone person in the world. He is surrounded by other souls on the journey across the desert, but he cannot see or sense them. 

“Death paused. YOU HAVE PERHAPS HEARD THE PHRASE, he said, THAT HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE?

‘Yes. Yes, of course.’

Death nodded. IN TIME, he said, YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG.”

When Brutha finally dies at a ripe old age, having become Omnia’s greatest ruler and reformer, he finds that Vorbis is still sitting there curled into himself. And, being the truly compassionate person he is, he leads Vorbis across the desert, hinting at the possibility of future self-knowledge and redemption even for him. 

It is a fantastic ending to a great book. As always, Pratchett is the compassionate and hopeful writer who genuinely hopes to see everything redeemed. Even for Vorbis, he wishes that the afterlife will be less cruel than Vorbis wished on others. I have to admire that. 

Small Gods is a bit more serious than the average Discworld book, but that isn’t a bad thing. I firmly believe that between Terry Pratchett and Alexander McCall Smith, my kids are getting a pretty advanced education in ethical thinking. And why not have some fun and bad puns along that journey?  

***

The Terry Pratchett list:

Rincewind:

The Colour of Magic

The Light Fantastic

Sourcery

Faust Eric

Unseen Academicals

Tiffany Aching:

The Wee Free Men

A Hat Full of Sky

Wintersmith

I Shall Wear Midnight

Witches:

Equal Rites

Watch:

Guards! Guards! (Stupid abridged edition, which is an abomination.)

Non-Discworld:

The Carpet People

Dodger

Dragons at Crumbling Castle

Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

Source of book: Borrowed from my son (who is a serious tinkerer too).

This was this month’s selection for our “Literary Lush” book club. One of the things I enjoy about this club is that I end up reading interesting books that I never would have discovered on my own. The club has usually read along with the “One Book, One Bakersfield” project sponsored by our local library. Some years, this has been a bit boring - one theory is that books have been selected partly on the basis of which authors were willing to come out and speak at an event. This one, however, was not. I was unable to attend the event, but did read the book and discuss it at our club meeting. 

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from this book. I was familiar with the rough outline of the story, but was worried it might fall into either the “isn’t Africa backward” genre or the “see, everyone can succeed if they just try” category. But this book didn’t go either of those directions. Rather, despite the use of a ghost writer (more or less), it really did tell a fascinating story - William Kamkwamba’s story. 

Kamkwamba came to fame after he built his own windmill generator – at age 14 - to bring electricity to his home. But that isn’t all that there is to the story. In fact, in some ways, it is just an incident in the broader arc. 

William starts the story with his earliest memories. He grew up in Malawi, the son of subsistence farmers. His parents had an interesting courtship story, which he tells in the first chapter. From there, they worked hard to survive and build a decent life. 

Disaster struck, however, in the form of a terrible drought and famine. This section of the book was horrifying and difficult to read. The descriptions of hunger and hopelessness, of people dying in the road, of children who starved to death and never returned to school, are the things of nightmares. It is almost surprising that William even survived it. 

There are certainly some things to understand about how the drought played out. First, it is a reminder of how fragile human existence can be. We forget that in modern first-world nations. We have the infrastructure to transport food, and the wealth to purchase it. For those who have neither, starvation is a real risk. Second, there is a contrast between the first drought (the bad one) and the second - and the difference was in the response of the government. In the first, a corrupt system denied the famine existed, sold food to other countries so the leaders could pocket the proceeds, and brutally punished those who complained. A change in leadership made a difference for the second drought. By proactively directing resources to the most vulnerable areas, a famine was avoided. It seems weird to have to say this, but humans are at their strongest when they look out for the weakest. A society or nation is only as strong as its most vulnerable point. Malawi lost tremendous ground during the first drought because of its failure to ensure that the victims of the famine survived. It literally took years - a decade even - for the communities affected to bounce back. And the promising lives lost were gone forever. 

The toll wasn’t just from deaths. The financial cost was enormous, as families sold everything they had, including seed corn, to avoid starvation. The resources of the whole community were devastated and took years to rebuild. 

Likewise, the cost to the children was incalculable. In the case of William, his chance at an education was lost for years. Honestly, had he not been “discovered” by someone with a global platform, he likely would never have finished his education. This was true for thousands of others who were not fortunate enough to get publicity. They just quietly were relegated to subsistence farming, with no chance at social mobility. 

This was another distressing reality brought to light in the book. Without the public infrastructure to provide a free public education, most children do not finish school. The entire country then suffers from a lack of educated leaders and innovators, and cannot advance. The cycle then feeds on itself. 

I was struck by some similarities to the effects of educational segregation here in the United States, as described in White Rage by Carol Anderson. (I read that concurrently with this book.) The United States lags other first world countries in education, in significant part because of its obsession with maintaining racial hierarchies and refusal to fund and support minority students. (Take a look at, say, Alabama, if you want to see true third-world education and poverty.) The US continues to shoot itself in the foot, too. As higher education costs have soared, many (most?) of my parents’ generation - who got free or very affordable college themselves - keep blaming my kids’ generation for student debt. The refusal to actually invest in education (and cull the exploding numbers of administrators) will increasingly lead to an under-educated population. And the US will fall further and further behind. (Also, keeping educated immigrants out - as in Stephen Miller’s push to severely cut back H-2B visas - will further cause educated and innovative immigrants to look elsewhere.) Hatred and xenophobia and racism hurt everyone. 

If I were to give my immediate impressions of the book, I would start with the compelling story of William’s life. Even if he had never come to unexpected fame, his story would be a good one. He is clearly an intelligent young man, with an ability to find solutions on a shoestring. How many more Williams are there in Malawi? In Africa? In America? How many of them will never have the chance to get an education, to survive childhood, or have access to the resources to make a better world? It is something worth considering. William Kawkwamba is above average, but not a once-in-a-lifetime genius. He’s someone who should, in all justice, have the chance to use his talents. And there are millions like him. We as a society and as a human race should be focused on ensuring that all of us have that chance. 

I rather enjoyed reading this one, and also the discussion we had regarding it. It is my understanding that there is a kids version too, which leaves out some of the more disturbing stuff, like William’s mom nearly dying of malaria and the dead bodies in the road. We have the full version, and I think it is fine for most kids, honestly. Kids don’t need to be protected from death and illness - they sure wouldn’t have been able to avoid it in an earlier era. I could see it making a good starting point for discussing a bunch of issues - from the importance of investment in the public sector, to the mechanics of making a generator. 

How to Create the Perfect Wife by Wendy Moore

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

It seems like every so often, I end up reading a group of books that all connect somehow. I’m not sure how much is coincidence, serendipity, or some subconscious part of me that picks stuff. In this case, this book has a direct connection to another book - Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope - and a musical - My Fair Lady - which I have reviewed recently. I experienced all three simultaneously to a degree, so the connections were obvious.

All of these center around the idea of creating the perfect woman. In other words, the Pygmalion and Galatea myth.

***

The Enlightenment was a pretty heady time. New discoveries, new ideas, grand theories, and scientific detail. A combination of a technical revolution and skepticism of authoritarian dogma turned the world on its head. As with every era, there was good and bad. Particularly pernicious was the use of science to fuel racism and eugenics. And the application of Enlightenment reasoning to religion gave us theonomic presuppositional fundamentalism. But much of what we take for granted in our own time - representative government, religious freedom, freedom of speech, science and technology, human rights, and separation of church and state - ALL derive from the Enlightenment.

In retrospect, one of the most influential figures turned out to be Jean-Jacque Rousseau. While many of his ideas seem a bit far out even today, even those who (like the fundies in the homeschool movement) claim to loathe Rousseau have actually adopted many of his assumptions. Our modern idea of education as the nurture of children rather than the beating of wickedness out of them comes from Rousseau. Self-directed learning. Hands on learning rather than rote memorization. Experience of nature as education. All Rousseau. One might even claim that the idea that children are a blank slate is an idea he popularized. Few truly attempt a fully “unschooled” learning plan as laid out in Emile, but the ideas permeate our educational institutions in more modest doses.

But what if one actually tried to follow Rousseau exactly? Well, a few did indeed try back in the 1700s.

***

And what of Pygmalion and Galatea? The story has been around since ancient Greece, and was retold countless times over the intervening thousands of years. Pygmalion creates a statue of the world’s most beautiful woman. He falls in love with the statue...and then it comes to life. The living woman, Galatea, though, turns out to be problematic. She has a mind of her own, and isn’t interested in dedicating her life to making Pygmalion’s dreams come true.

***

 Sir Thomas Day lived during this era. Born into a reasonably big fortune, he nevertheless grew up uncultured and unusual. He dressed like a slob, didn’t powder his hair, and proclaimed radical and astounding ideas at exhausting length. He ran with an interesting group of intellectuals which included Erasmus Darwin, Josiah Wedgwood, Robert Lowell Edgeworth, and Anna Seward. They talked of philosophy and science and invention and discovery. And also about education.

Edgeworth actually tried to raise his oldest son according to the Rousseau method - it didn’t turn out well. But Day took it one step further. He decided that Rousseau’s method might work for a girl as well. (That wasn’t the way Rousseau saw it - he believed in educating women to be docile and servile - and Mary Wollstonecraft took him to task for it.) Day’s motives weren’t exactly purely scientific either. After a series of rejections, he decided he would try to raise and educate a perfect wife for himself.

This was no easy task. Day had a rather specific set of requirements. His ideal woman would have to be pure and virginal, of course. She would need to be highly intelligent and educated. But she would also need to be willing to live in a spartan cottage in the middle of nowhere with him. And to be subservient to him in every way. Day concluded that such a woman didn’t exist in Georgian society, so he would have to create her.

To that end, he adopted two adolescent girls from a local orphanage, with the intention of choosing one to train and create to be his future wife.

Day quickly discarded one of the girls, Lucretia, as too ornery - and apprenticed her to learn a trade. (This actually worked out for her - she married reasonably well, and when she last appears in any traceable record, appeared to have made a good life.) The other, he would go on to train using some bizarre and often abusive (as we would understand it) methods. He got her to withstand pain by dripping hot wax on her arms, and shot guns off near her to teach her to resist becoming startled, to name just two. Eventually, he gave up on the project and sent her to a series of finishing academies and apprenticeships - exactly the opposite of his original plan. But even so, she never really developed into his ideal mate. She married, was quickly widowed with two infants, but was looked after by Charles Burney, one of Day’s friends. Like the other, Sabrina (as she was renamed by Day) ended up living a long and good life, accumulating a modest fortune despite her humble station.

The story is the heart of this book, which follows Day and Sabrina and a few of the other characters over the course of nearly a century. The tale is both fascinating and horrifying. To a degree, that is a good way to describe Day, who was a complex man who defies easy categorization.

On the one hand, he was a noble guy: he opposed slavery (writing “The Dying Negro,” a poem about an escaped and recaptured slave), was generous to the poor - he died having given away much of his fortune, and sought positive reform in many areas of society. On the other hand, he was deeply sexist, and didn’t seem to be willing to extend human rights and dignity to women. In this, he was of his time, to be sure. But he was also pretty cruel and callous to Sabrina and Lucretia. He could be a great friend - and a total boor. Perhaps we can say that he, like most of us, was a mix of good and bad - and that the bad hasn’t aged well as the world has changed.

There is some evidence that he may have been on the autism spectrum, based on his difficulties in picking up on social cues and the feelings of others. One example of this is his beliefs about love. He didn’t believe romantic love was real. There are a number of quotes to that effect in his letters and diaries, but this one will suffice:

“Love I am firmly convinc’d is the Effect of Prejudice & Imagination; a rational Mind is incapable of it, at least in any great Degree.”

His tendency to say things like this while courting may have been a factor in his rejection by a number of women. But it might also have been his expectations. When courting Honoria Sneyd, he drew up a long and detailed summary of his expectations and requirements in a wife, along with his play to live off the grid.

Honoria rejected Day, with a polite but badass explanation. She said she “would not admit the unqualified control of a husband over all her actions” and she did not feel that “seclusion from society was indispensably necessary to preserve female virtue, or to secure domestic happiness.” Finally, she refused to believe that marital happiness could ever exist without “terms of reasonable equality.” I thoroughly agree with all of the above.

It is interesting that Day finally did find a woman who would marry him. Esther Milnes saw something in him, and did her best to be the subservient wife he expected. During the decade of their marriage (which produced no children), they had a tempestuous relationship - nobody could possibly live up to Day’s standards - but after he died, she was heartbroken, and died soon thereafter.

Another interesting fact about the marriage was this: Esther came with a fortune of her own. At the time, when a woman married, her property went straight to her husband. She essentially ceased to exist as a separate person. Day, whatever his personal beliefs about women may have been, did not agree with this idea. He proposed a prenup that allowed Esther to retain control and possession of her property. This was both unusual, and generous on his part, given the law at the time.

As I noted, this book is about a lot more than just the story of Day and Sabrina. Wendy Moore extensively researched the various people in Day’s orbit - she even tracked down Lucretia and Sabrina’s history at the orphanage - including their original names. The back stories on many of the characters make it into the story as well. Moore presents an entire world, not just a narrow view of one particular incident.

One of the interesting things about reading this book was hearing mention of the only famous people in my ancestry. I have German Mennonites on both sides of my family, while my last name comes from Sweden. Those branches are all poor but respectable farmers who immigrated to the US in the 1880s. But, on the other branch, I am related to Josiah Wedgwood, the famous potter who appears in this story. My mom actually got a few hundred bucks as an inheritance when some later scion of the Wedgwood family died without issue. Wedgwood was also related to the Darwins, and there was later intermarriage. Thus, I can claim to be a relation (although not a direct descendent) of both Erasmus and Charles Darwin.

Another thing that stood out was Rousseau’s response when he found out that people were taking Emile literally as an instruction book. He never intended it to be a practical manual for child rearing. “I cannot believe that you took the book which bears this name for a real treatise on education. You are quite right to say it is impossible to create an Emile.” I can’t help but think that far too many works - particularly the bible - have been misunderstood and misused in the same way - with similarly harmful results.

I have to mention one incident from Day’s college days. Apparently, Voltaire’s Dictionnaire Philosphique was one book that Day read - and defended. “I cannot say I think it calculated to do so much Harm, as to deserve a public Execution.” He overheard a fellow student applauding the rumor that it would be banned. Day challenged him, and discovered that the student hadn’t even read the book. Which is pretty much how would-be censors tend to be, isn’t it?

Perhaps the most troubling part of the book, though, deals with the orphanage. The Foundling Hospital was founded by Thomas Coram, a retired sea captain who was appalled at the poverty he found in 18th Century London. The worst was the sight of dozens of abandoned babies, dead and alive, on rubbish heaps beside the road. Coram didn’t have much of his own money, but tirelessly raised both public funds and private charity. The idea was that orphans and unwanted babies could be dropped off, no questions asked.

The first night it was open, thirty babies were accepted, with more turned away. In a four year period, nearly fifteen thousand were processed. The cost, as you might expect, was pretty substantial, even though the children were apprenticed out at ages ten through twelve.

Moore briefly explores the factors at work. The Georgian era - the whole century actually - was dubbed “the century of illegitimacy,” but this isn’t quite accurate. It wasn’t that morals somehow went missing. Rather, economic and political conditions caused an upsurge. In common practice - even among the Puritans - couples would become intimate, marrying formally if and when a child was conceived. Many of these intended marriages, however, stopped taking place. Contributing factors were military conscription (dad gets drafted, so no marriage), rising cost of living, a change in the law making weddings more expensive, and rising adult mortality. It wasn’t just illegitimacy, though. Plenty of families simply couldn’t support another child. A new baby literally meant someone starved.

The Religious Right likes to pretend that somehow, before Roe v. Wade that everything was nice and rosy, and it was just the evil liberals that created a holocaust. Historically, that wasn’t even close to true. Leaving aside the fact that abortion has existed as long as recorded history, unwanted or unaffordable children have always perished - and infanticide was shockingly common throughout the Georgian and Victorian eras. On a related note, the Religious Right is delusional if it thinks that abortion will magically go away once criminalized. Doubly so since they are hostile toward contraception and efforts to alleviate poverty. What is more likely is that we will get some combination of increased mass incarceration - this time of low income and minority women - and widespread abandonment of babies. (And also, like other countries which have criminalized abortion, high abortion rates - higher than those countries in which it is legal…)

Also disturbing about this story was the ease with which Day (and Edgeworth, who as a married man was the official guardian of the girls) was able to essentially purchase a couple of children. He concealed his intent - lied - to get them, and then changed their names to cover his tracks. As the author puts it:

“At a time when women were commodities, to be exchanged in marriage for vast fortunes and land or bought in a dark alley for sixpence, Day had purchased two girls as easily as he might buy two shoe buckles.”

This was all fairly well known to many in Day’s acquaintance. And yet, because he was male, wealthy, and eccentric, people just looked the other way.

The idea of the expendability of women is also seen in the number of women in this story who give birth to a child a year (or more!) for a decade, then expire of exhaustion in their early 30s. It’s not an era I would prefer to return to, and I am a man. I cannot imagine many women would be so eager to go back to those days - even as an aristocrat - if they really understood what it was like.

After Day’s death, his story was told. Chief among those responsible was Maria Edgeworth, Richard’s eldest daughter. A novelist famous in her time, she grew up around Sabrina, and incorporated the story into one of her bestselling novels. While she didn’t specifically reveal identities, and changed a few things, people knew who she was talking about. For Sabrina, the revelation of her history was a bit embarrassing. After all, she was a respectable woman by then, and her likely illegitimacy did lower her social standing. But worse was Sabrina’s elder son John, who had no idea of his mother’s history, and was furious at Maria for exposing it.

The story was also told in various forms in other books, and entered into the popular consciousness. A century after Sabrina’s adoption, Anthony Trollope used it in Orley Farm, which I recently read. A young man more or less adopts a young ward with the understanding that he would marry her eventually. Unique to this story is that there is a father - a drunken, belligerent father.

Not too long after that, Trollope’s version was mined by George Bernard Shaw, who retained the problematic father for his play Pygmalion, which eventually became the musical My Fair Lady. And thus, the three are connected. Two of them imaginative stories - and the other a shockingly true event.

In all of them, as in the original myth, it turns out that you really can’t create your perfect wife. Humans have a way of being uncooperative in matters of the heart. Even Day, the quintessential utopian thinker, failed at his task, only to find that his soulmate was someone he wasn’t expecting. As Trollope puts it, “On the whole I think that the ordinary plan is the better, and even the safer.”