The Signature of All Things

This is a long story. The author is admirable to bring it in a fantastic way.

Alma Whittaker is a brilliant scientific woman. She was born in 1800, and died in 1883. Her father was one of the wealthiest businessmen in America that time. Henry Whittaker gained profits from importing and exporting medicinal plants and pharmacy. Henry was the son of a humble craftsman in the British royal garden-Kew, so he was poor. Thanks to his brave and diligent traits, he endured all the difficulties on sailing and finally earned his numberless fortune and owned his own mansion, White Acre where Alma was given to birth by her mother Beatrix. Beatrix was a clever and strict woman. She taught Alma herself since Alma’s early ages. She encouraged Alma to discover the world and consider things by herself. Hence, Alma was independent and good at studying problems.

Alma had an adopted sister Prudence who was beautiful but lack of emotions. The two sisters had never been close even though Alma tried to be intimate, Prudence refused that. Prudence was impressed by her self-sacrifice to Negros and her sister.

George was a publisher. Alma loved him since childhood. But George loved Prudence. After Prudence refused him and married Arthur, George chose to marry Retta, Alma’s unique friend. Prudence loved George actually, but she made sacrifice for her sister in vain. Retta got mad in her strange marriage and died insane. George felt guilt and died soon.

Ambrose was an artist. He drew orchids precisely and beautifully. Alma fell in love with him at the first sight of his works. Ambrose believed in God and thought himself was an angel. He believed that he could see the signature of God in plants and hear the celestial sounds. He was kind to everyone but loved no one. He married Alma for companion. Therefore, he could not intercourse with Alma, which made Alma felt humiliated. They divorced later and George was sent to Tahiti by Alma. He died there two years later. Since they were married when Alma was 48, Alma was 50 by Ambrose’s death. Henry was very old and died at the age of 93. As the favorite daughter, Alma inherited all the fortune.

Alma had never been abroad or far away from White Acre for 50 years. She gave all the fortune to Prudence, the housekeeper Groot, and Dick Yankey, her father’s loyal employee. She departed to Tahiti in order to find out the truth of Ambrose’s death. Actually, Ambrose died of disappointment for himself and his new companion Tomorrow Morning, a local preacher, who cheated Ambrose to be his spiritual partner. Tomorrow Morning was absorbed by Ambrose’s beauty and took advantage of him. Then Ambrose began to hurt himself and died of blood loss. It took more than one year to find the truth. Alma felt guilty and sorry for her husband.

Alma left Tahiti and sailed to Amsterdam where her uncle Dees Van Devender lived. During sailing, Alma finished a handwriting paper about her theory which she called “the struggle of existence”. It is similar to Darwin’s “natural selection”. Her uncle was impressed with her theory and encouraged her to publish it. Alma refused because she thought she could not explain the human self-sacrifice like Prudence with her theory. Finally, Darwin published his famous “natural selection” theory and Alma lost her opportunity to make claim for her own theory.

Alma began studying mosses since her mother’s death in 1820. She was the first biologist studying mosses. In her opinion, there are three kinds of time: the Divine Time, the Human Time, and the Moss Time. Ambrose wanted to live in the Divine Time but stumbled by the Human Time and finally lost in it. Normal people lived in the Human Time. The Moss Time is very slow since it took decades for mosses to extend a little distance.

It is very sad and frustrated to read this novel because people all like happy endings. Obviously, Alma’s story didn’t end well. She was brilliant but she had no chance to make a claim, nor been known; She was kind but achieved no man’s love; she even didn’t own a child. But it is also an encouraging novel. Alma is as strong as her father, beating all the tragedies and always standing like a tough warrior. As she said: “The natural world was a place of punishing brutality where species large and small competed against each other in order to survive. In this struggle for existence, the strong endured; the weak were eliminated.”

The Signature of All Things