Vox Meditantis

3rd September, 1763

The wind doth howl most mournfully through the gaps in these timber’d walls tonight, and I find myself drawn once more to this forgotten chamber beneath the eaves, where none may disturb my contemplations. The draught carries with it the scent of approaching autumn, and with each gust that rattles these casements, I am minded of how the years have blown past like leaves upon a gale.

My hands, once steady as the finest clockwork, now tremble as I set down these words by the flickering light of a single tallow candle. The mechanism before me – my life’s great work – remains as stubbornly silent as it hath these seven years past. ‘Tis a device meant to capture the very essence of the wind’s movement, to harness its power for the turning of wheels and the grinding of grain. Yet for all my calculations and measurements, for all the nights spent in this secret refuge, the Lord hath not seen fit to grant me success.

Tonight, as the Treaty with France settles upon our realm like morning mist, and talk abounds of new territories beyond the western mountains, I am put in mind of my own journeyings. You ask, dear diary, of the furthest I have ever ventured from this humble dwelling? In body, ’twas but to London town in my fortieth year, when I presented my first designs to the learned gentlemen of the Royal Society. Yet how far that seemed then! The great city with its smoke and clamour, its coffee-houses filled with discourse of natural philosophy and mechanical arts.

But in truth, the furthest I have travell’d lies not in leagues measured upon any cartographer’s chart, but in the vast territories of the mind. Here, in this hidden workshop where only the wind knows my secrets, I have journeyed to realms where air itself might be made servant to man’s necessity. Through countless nights of calculation and contemplation, I have wandered paths of brass and steel, of springs and pendulums, seeking that divine harmony which might unlock the mysteries of perpetual motion.

The draught stirs my papers now, and I fancy I hear in its voice the whisper of Providence – perhaps chiding me for my presumption, or mayhap urging me forward still. For what is invention but a form of prayer, a reaching toward that creative power which first breathed life into Adam’s clay?

The years grow short, and my sight dims, yet still the wind calls to me through these weathered boards. Tomorrow I shall return to my calculations, for though my earthly journey may be nearing its end, the territories of human ingenuity remain boundless as the very air that sustains us.

The candle gutters low, and I must to my rest.

I. Mortimer

The diary is set in the late Seven Years’ War aftermath, as the 1763 Treaty of Paris reshaped imperial power in North America and beyond. Britain gained Canada and Florida, while France ceded vast claims west of the Appalachians, intensifying frontier tensions with Indigenous nations. In the same year, Pontiac’s War erupted against British forts and settlers, leading to the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which sought to regulate westward expansion and reserve territory beyond the Proclamation Line. The period also fostered scientific societies and mechanical experimentation in Britain, prefiguring industrial advances that would accelerate in the ensuing decades and transform work, trade, and society.

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