Act 3 Scene 4

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Act 3 Scene 4

Act 3 Scene 4 Correspondence
Dear Mister Darwin - letters from around the corner and around the world - vignettes - head shots...
matters mundane and progressively religious finally approaching the absurd and grossly superstitious

OTHERS (in sequence)
Dear Mister Darwin,
I am writing to inquire, is there life after death and meaning when we expire?

Dear Mister Darwin
Is there hope for the here-after and when I die, will I sing in the celestial choir?
Shall I water my roses? Can I take toast with my tea?
Will there always be life in the sea?

Dear Mister Darwin
- Listen to me!
Can you give us comfort as we journey from this life?
Can you give us solace as we pass through this world of strife?

Dear Mister Darwin
Can you take away our fear of the dark, of loneliness and even death itself?

Dear Mister Darwin
Can you heal that which grieves us and afflicts our souls with blight?

Dear Mister Darwin
you have studied meticulously all of your life time,
surely you must have reasoned about the first cause.
Don’t let us go into that dark night alone...
Is there a God?

Is there a garden of delight waiting for us? Is there life after death?
Is there reunion with loved ones?
Is there reason to hope and pray, to be decent and faithful?

Can you Give us a word?
Give us a sign. Point out the way, and we will gladly follow...
Please give us comfort as we pass forlorn from life?

DARWIN
I cannot help you. You have created gods in your own image,
sweet dreams of a future without struggle for existence,
lands of plenty and love everlasting.

You have created devils and demons to convince yourselves
of the folly of falling away from a righteous life;
where social cohesion and tribal awareness, empathy, and love flow on forever.

OTHERS
PLEASE give us something to hope for...

DARWIN
Your desire does not make a thing so.

OTHERS
WHY can't you give us comfort as we pass forlorn from life?

DARWIN
Science stops where reason ends and I can go no further...

As I’ve concentrated on amassing facts,
a task for me that is an exquisite drudgery,
I am saddened to report that my love of music and poetry has atrophied.

OTHERS
If there is, as you say, no evidence to sway
an intellectual and scientific mind to a purposeful plan of the Lord,
we forsake your trivial science, your god of nature,
and hold to that God of our tradition and ancestors.

Dear Mister Darwin,
Can you give us insight as we journey through this strife?
Can you give us insight as we pass forlorn from life?

Act 3 subscene 4b Malarial Malthus
carried on simultaneously - Wallace realizes the implications of population pressures on speciation
and writes the essay ‘On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type’
sending it along to Charles Darwin to, if he approves, present to his colleague Charles Lyell

Upon reception of manuscript Darwin laments“I have lost my place in history”
re-examines his choices - I could have listened to my father... I would not be in this mess today - (escapist nostalgic)
While he is ‘out of it’, his colleagues come to an arrangement to ‘make it all better’

From letters to Darwin – hesitate and you are lost
Section verse A             now another man has taken my place in history   ‘lament
Verse B         from a lack of confidence
Bridge              it was all I ever wanted
Chorus             (into the future – what might have been)

And this young man
What’s his name

Alfred Russel Wallace
A commoner
Half a world away
Will be happy to abide with
whatever we decide
To say

‘happy break -> usual break’