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swallowed up there! And then, I do not know you and I find it very indiscreet
of myself to act as if I have known you for a long time! But above the earth
that trembles and thanks to it, there are affinities. . . . Perhaps it is in this zone,
elevated and profound, that the gods decreed for us to meet by post.
With all my respect and my best wishes,
Marie Bel Perrin
107
over the following months, Bel-Perrin continued to supply Schardt with
her observations and speculations. “If all the thoughts I have had for you
were 'seismic sensations,'” she wrote, “I assure you that you would be sat-
isfied and that science would perhaps benefit. one must believe that our
thoughts encountered each other just the same, without, however, producing
the expected tremor. Pardon my irreverence.”
108
The following fall she was
able to mail Schardt a completed questionnaire on a weak tremor. Charac-
teristically, she managed to answer the most seemingly mundane questions
with an air of cosmic mystery. Asked about sounds accompanying the shak-
ing, she noted, “I
felt
more than heard the rumbling, however I discerned
quite well the underground rumbling and the wind blowing outdoors.”
Asked for “external observations,” she reported, “Every perception of shock
produces inevitably (in me at least) a strange and real impression. It is an
agitation that suspends all functions of the body, even respiration. It's very
brief, but very clear. one remains breathless.”
109
Would the breathless Ma-
dame Bel-Perrin have been pleased or disappointed to learn that her letters
to Schardt were filed as research, rather than as personal correspondence?
Bel-Perrin's letters to Schardt illustrate how earthquake reporting could
evolve into an intimate discourse of “sensations” and private thoughts. for
the “sake of science,” a presumably respectable woman could adopt a remark-
ably confidential tone with a distinguished man of science, to whom she
was a complete stranger. This correspondence also shows how easily expert-
lay communication about earthquakes could shift between a scientific and
a moral register. ultimately, Bel-Perrin subverted the Kantian opposition
between the “scientific” and the “human” perspectives on earthquakes. She
sought spiritual elevation in the union of science and humanitarianism. To-
gether, naturalism and sympathy promised to lift Madame Bel-Perrin above
the “lowly,” “bestial” outlook of personal interest.
In these aspirations, Bel-Perrin was seeking a common point of view
between her “ignorant” self and Schardt, the man of science. With her off-
handed contempt for “good Christians” (presumably Catholics) and her
