Henry Adams, The Dynamo And The Virgin Flashcards
“Adams haunted it…”
“Adams haunted it, aching to absorb knowledge, and helpless to find it”
Adams on the great science exhibition
“While he was thus meditating chaos…”
“While he was thus meditating chaos, Langley came by, and showed it to him”
- it was Langley who introduced Adams to the gallery of machines, does Adams envisage the machines as chaotic?
“Nothing in education…”
“Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates”
“To Adams the dynamo…”
“To Adams the dynamo became a symbol of infinity”
“He began to feel the forty-foot dynamos as a moral force…”
“He began to feel the forty-foot dynamos as a moral force, much as the early Christians felt the Cross”
“The planet itself seemed less impressive, in its old-fashioned…”
“The planet itself seemed less impressive, in its old-fashioned, deliberate, annual or daily revolution, than this huge wheel, revolving within arm’s-length at some vertiginous speed”
“Scarcely humming an audible warning to stand a hair’s-breadth further…”
“scarcely humming an audible warning to stand a hair’s-breadth further for respect of power,—while it would not wake the baby lying close against its frame”
- although the dynamo houses immense power, it wouldn’t wake a sleeping baby. Antithesis of ideas?
“one began to pray to it; inherited instinct…”
“one began to pray to it; inherited instinct taught the natural expression of man before silent and infinite force”
“Between the dynamo in the gallery of machines and the engine-house outside…”
“Between the dynamo in the gallery of machines and the engine-house outside, the break of continuity amounted to abysmal fracture for a historian’s objects”
