The Signature of All Things

Whenever Henry Whittaker summoned people, they came—and came gratefully.
    “The more money one has,” Henry explained to Alma, “the better people’s manners become. It is a notable fact.”
    Henry had a quite robust pile of money by this point. In May of 1803, he had secured a contract with a man named Israel Whelen, a government official who was purveying medical supplies for Lewis and Clark’s expedition across western America. Henry had amassed for the expedition potent supplies of mercury, laudanum, rhubarb, opium, columbo root, calomel, ipecac, lead, zinc, sulfate—some of which were actually medically helpful, but all of which were lucrative. In 1804, the drug morphine was first isolated from poppies by German pharmacists, and Henry was an early investor in the manufacture of that useful commodity. The next year, he was granted the contract to supply medical products to the entire U.S. Army. This gave him a certain political power, as well as fiduciary power, and so yes, people came to his dinners.
    These were not society dinners, by any means. The Whittakers were never exactly welcomed into Philadelphia’s small, rarefied circle of high society. Upon first arriving in the city, the Whittakers had been invited only once to dine with Anne and William Bingham, on Third Street and Spruce, but it had not gone well. Over dessert, Mrs. Bingham—who comported herself as though she were in the Court of St. James’s—had asked Henry, “What sort of name is Whittaker? I find it so uncommon.”
    “Midland England,” Henry had replied. “Comes from the word Warwickshire.”
    “Is Warwickshire your family seat?”
    “There, and other places, besides. We Whittakers tend to sit wherever we can find a chair.”
    “But does your father still own property in Warwickshire, sir?”
    “My father, madam, if he is still living, owns two pigs and the privy pot under his bed. I doubt very much he owns the bed.”
    The Whittakers were not invited back to dine with the Binghams again. The Whittakers did not much care. Beatrix disapproved of the conversation and dress of fashionable ladies, anyway, and Henry disliked the tedious manners of fine drawing rooms. Instead, Henry created his own society, across the river from the city, high upon his hill. Dinners at White Acre were not playing fields of gossip, but exercises in intellectual and commercial stimulation. If there was a bold young man out there in the world somewhere accomplishing interesting feats, Henry wanted that young man summoned to his dinner table. If there was a venerable philosopher passing through Philadelphia, or a well-regarded man of science, or a promising new inventor, those men would be invited, also. Women sometimes came to the dinners, too, if they were the wives of respected thinkers, or the translators of important books, or if they were interesting actresses on tour in America.
    Henry’s table was a bit much for some people. The meals themselves were opulent—oysters, beefsteak, pheasant—but it was not altogether relaxing to dine at White Acre. Guests could expect to be interrogated, challenged, provoked. Known adversaries were placed side by side. Precious beliefs were pummeled in conversation that was more athletic than polite. Certain notables left White Acre feeling they had suffered the most impressive indignations. Other guests—more clever, perhaps, or thicker of skin, or more desperate for patronage—left White Acre with lucrative agreements, or beneficial partnerships, or just the right letter of introduction to an important man in Brazil. The dining room at White Acre was a perilous playing field, but a victory there could establish a fellow’s career for life.
    Alma had been welcomed at this combative table from the time she was four years old, and was often seated next to her father. She was allowed to ask questions, so long as her questions were not imbecilic. Some guests were even charmed by the child. An expert in chemical symmetry onceproclaimed, “Why, you’re as clever as a little book to talk to!”—a compliment Alma never forgot. Other great men of science, as it turned out, were not accustomed to being questioned by a little girl. But some great men of science, as Henry pointed out, were unable to defend their theories to a little girl, and if that was the case, they deserved to be exposed as humbugs.
    Henry believed, and Beatrix strongly concurred, that there was no subject too somber, too knotty, or too