Perhaps we shall never again
know any rest as we now understand the term--rest being only change of
motion--and we shall not be able to sleep except on the cars, and whether
we die by Denver time or by the 90th meridian, we shall only change our
time. Blessed be this slip of a boy who is a man before he is an infant,
and teaches us what rapid transit can do for our race! The only thing
that can possibly hinder us in our progress will be second childhood; we
have abolished first.
THE ELECTRIC WAY
We are quite in the electric way. We boast that we have made electricity
our slave, but the slave whom we do not understand is our master. And
before we know him we shall be transformed. Mr. Edison proposes to send
us over the country at the rate of one hundred miles an hour. This
pleases us, because we fancy we shall save time, and because we are
taught that the chief object in life is to "get there" quickly. We really
have an idea that it is a gain to annihilate distance, forgetting that as
a matter of personal experience we are already too near most people. But
this speed by rail will enable us to live in Philadelphia and do business
in New York. It will make the city of Chicago two hundred miles square.
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