The Voice of the Machines. Gerald Stanley Lee

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       Gerald Stanley Lee

      The Voice of the Machines

      An Introduction to the Twentieth Century

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066194130

Table of Contents

       THE MEN BEHIND THE MACHINES

       MACHINES. AS SEEN FROM A MEADOW

       AS SEEN THROUGH A HATCHWAY

       SOULS OF MACHINES

       POETS

       GENTLEMEN

       PROPHETS

       THE LANGUAGE OF THE MACHINES.

       AS GOOD AS OURS

       ON BEING BUSY AND STILL

       ON NOT SHOWING OFF

       ON MAKING PEOPLE PROUD OF THE WORLD

       A MODEST UNIVERSE

       THE MACHINES AS POETS

       PLATO AND THE GENERAL ELECTRIC WORKS

       HEWING AWAY ON THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH

       THE GRUDGE AGAINST THE INFINITE

       SYMBOLISM IN MODERN ART

       THE MACHINES AS ARTISTS

       THE MACHINES AS PHILOSOPHERS

       IDEAS BEHIND THE MACHINES

       THE IDEA OF INCARNATION

       THE IDEA OF SIZE

       THE IDEA OF LIBERTY

       THE IDEA OF IMMORTALITY

       THE IDEA OF GOD

       THE IDEA OF THE UNSEEN AND INTANGIBLE

       THE IDEA OF GREAT MEN

       THE IDEA OF LOVE AND COMRADESHIP

       BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THIS BOOK

       PART ONE

       PART TWO

       PART THREE

       PART FOUR

       BY THE SAME AUTHOR

      PART ONE

THE MEN BEHIND THE MACHINES

       Table of Contents

      I

MACHINES. AS SEEN FROM A MEADOW

       Table of Contents

      It would be difficult to find anything in the encyclopedia that would justify the claim that we are about to make, or anything in the dictionary. Even a poem—which is supposed to prove anything with a little of nothing—could hardly be found to prove it; but in this beginning hour of the twentieth century there are not a few of us—for the time at least allowed to exist upon the earth—who are obliged to say (with Luther), “Though every tile on the roundhouse be a devil, we cannot say otherwise—the locomotive is beautiful.”

      As seen when one is looking at it as it is, and is not merely using it.

      As seen from a meadow.

      We had never thought to fall so low as this, or that the time would come when we would feel moved—all but compelled, in fact—to betray to a cold and discriminating world our poor, pitiful, one-adjective state.

      We do not know why a locomotive is beautiful. We are perfectly aware that it ought not to be. We have all but been ashamed of it for being beautiful—and of ourselves. We have attempted all possible words upon it—the most complimentary and worthy ones we know—words with the finer resonance in them, and the air of discrimination the soul loves. We cannot but say that several of these words from time to time have seemed almost satisfactory to our ears. They seem satisfactory also for general use in talking with people, and for introducing locomotives in conversation; but the next time we see a locomotive coming down the track, there is no help for us. We quail before the headlight of it. The thunder of its voice is as the voice of the hurrying people. Our little row of adjectives is vanished. All adjectives are vanished. They are as one.

      Unless the word “beautiful” is big enough to make room for a glorious, imperious, world-possessing, world-commanding beauty like this, we are no longer its disciples. It is become a play word. It lags behind truth. Let it be shut in with its rim of hills—the word beautiful—its show of sunsets and its bouquets and its doilies and its songs of birds.