Here are some details of Frank's life in the Nineteenth Century. You can see that he certainly gets around.
The Isolation Hospital
It took hardly a week for Frank to convince himself that he was incarcerated in the isolation hospital as part of an elegant plan of his own devising. He had, in this relatively early part of his career, the habit of writing down his thoughts; observations, strategies, even random musings. His notes made on the first Sunday of his imprisonment read as follows:
Megalomaniacs will inevitably render all to me because they are obsessed with attaining an objective goal, whereas I care nothing for their goal, only for supremacy over their minds.
I flatter them by even bothering to make use of them.
There is no amount of power as there is no amount of money that is ever enough. Power and money are irrelevant in themselves. Genius is the ability to have them both in unlimited quantities by right.
Physical appetite is starvation of the intellect.
Above all else Browne’s flatulence condemned him to his appalling death.
I can see an application for considering roots of negative numbers as themselves being infinite yet countable, leading me to conceive of operations in them as taking place in dimensional spaces which must in number extend beyond four and which may be likewise infinite.
Dirrane’s cheeks have an elegant line and hue. I found it necessary to discharge after observing him in the communal latrines.
He realised that such documents could be used against him soon after his time in the hospital, and later Franks were much more taciturn, although he could never silence the press and he continued to keep almost childish scrap books of clippings whenever he was mentioned or photographed throughout the coming century.
In a sense it was true that Frank had chosen to make use of the isolation hospital, although not using it would have led him to the gallows in double-quick time. This temporary embarrassment was due to the fallout from the Browne affair.
He had been contacted by Browne whilst still living in Paris, making a good living by supplying ether and other intoxicating gasses to the decayed aristocracy of the Belle Epoque. Browne had heard a rumour concerning a particular effect that Frank had created for a very exclusive club in the 13th arrondissement. This club epitomised the decadence of the time and place and so was frequented by the cream of society and the criminally insane. Frank considered himself to encompass both extremes and was therefore amenable to a request from someone not very far removed from the highest political office to produce a gas that would have an unforgettable effect on all who would witness its demonstration. Mummification was a topic which the five year old Frank had found fascinating; he would go so far as to credit it as a major influence upon his later work, so therefore the idea of aiding in the production of a tableau vivant in which a subject would be rapidly but effectively mummified was irresistible. The fact that it would all happen during a pageant of the most disgusting pornography was utterly irrelevant to him.
Of course it was the pornography that had led to Browne. He lived in Ireland in the Victorian era. The authorities found Catholicism and Irish-speaking far more offensive than the acts carried out by Frank and his colleagues in the backstreets of Paris, so Browne, who publicly denounced the native Irish as degenerate and demonstrated his beliefs by treating his tenants in a similar fashion to his pigs, was regarded as a model citizen. Someone in Browne’s circle had been present at that spectacle in Paris, and in the withdrawing room had mentioned it as being the highpoint of his trip to France.
Browne seized upon this new information. His sense of utter superiority to the local population and his ritualised cruelty had led him to regard the Empress herself as foreign, weak and far too liberal. The government in England were throwing loans at Irish tenant farmers to allow them to buy their land. It was obvious to Browne that these ‘people’ had only one use for money, and that was to drink it. He resolved to carry out a coup that would purge the Empire of the corruption at its head, but he needed a weapon that would dismay any opposition. Frank’s gas was to be that weapon.
The Isolation Hospital
It took hardly a week for Frank to convince himself that he was incarcerated in the isolation hospital as part of an elegant plan of his own devising. He had, in this relatively early part of his career, the habit of writing down his thoughts; observations, strategies, even random musings. His notes made on the first Sunday of his imprisonment read as follows:
Megalomaniacs will inevitably render all to me because they are obsessed with attaining an objective goal, whereas I care nothing for their goal, only for supremacy over their minds.
I flatter them by even bothering to make use of them.
There is no amount of power as there is no amount of money that is ever enough. Power and money are irrelevant in themselves. Genius is the ability to have them both in unlimited quantities by right.
Physical appetite is starvation of the intellect.
Above all else Browne’s flatulence condemned him to his appalling death.
I can see an application for considering roots of negative numbers as themselves being infinite yet countable, leading me to conceive of operations in them as taking place in dimensional spaces which must in number extend beyond four and which may be likewise infinite.
Dirrane’s cheeks have an elegant line and hue. I found it necessary to discharge after observing him in the communal latrines.
He realised that such documents could be used against him soon after his time in the hospital, and later Franks were much more taciturn, although he could never silence the press and he continued to keep almost childish scrap books of clippings whenever he was mentioned or photographed throughout the coming century.
In a sense it was true that Frank had chosen to make use of the isolation hospital, although not using it would have led him to the gallows in double-quick time. This temporary embarrassment was due to the fallout from the Browne affair.
He had been contacted by Browne whilst still living in Paris, making a good living by supplying ether and other intoxicating gasses to the decayed aristocracy of the Belle Epoque. Browne had heard a rumour concerning a particular effect that Frank had created for a very exclusive club in the 13th arrondissement. This club epitomised the decadence of the time and place and so was frequented by the cream of society and the criminally insane. Frank considered himself to encompass both extremes and was therefore amenable to a request from someone not very far removed from the highest political office to produce a gas that would have an unforgettable effect on all who would witness its demonstration. Mummification was a topic which the five year old Frank had found fascinating; he would go so far as to credit it as a major influence upon his later work, so therefore the idea of aiding in the production of a tableau vivant in which a subject would be rapidly but effectively mummified was irresistible. The fact that it would all happen during a pageant of the most disgusting pornography was utterly irrelevant to him.
Of course it was the pornography that had led to Browne. He lived in Ireland in the Victorian era. The authorities found Catholicism and Irish-speaking far more offensive than the acts carried out by Frank and his colleagues in the backstreets of Paris, so Browne, who publicly denounced the native Irish as degenerate and demonstrated his beliefs by treating his tenants in a similar fashion to his pigs, was regarded as a model citizen. Someone in Browne’s circle had been present at that spectacle in Paris, and in the withdrawing room had mentioned it as being the highpoint of his trip to France.
Browne seized upon this new information. His sense of utter superiority to the local population and his ritualised cruelty had led him to regard the Empress herself as foreign, weak and far too liberal. The government in England were throwing loans at Irish tenant farmers to allow them to buy their land. It was obvious to Browne that these ‘people’ had only one use for money, and that was to drink it. He resolved to carry out a coup that would purge the Empire of the corruption at its head, but he needed a weapon that would dismay any opposition. Frank’s gas was to be that weapon.
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