The Corliss engine of Machinery Hall in “76, under its sky of iron and
glass, is remembered by many people the day they saw it first as one
of the great experiences of life
The Corliss engine of Machinery Hall in “76, under its sky of iron and
glass, is remembered by many people the day they saw it first as one
of the great experiences of life. Like some vast, Titanic spirit, soul
of a thousand, thousand wheels, it stood to some of us, in its mighty
silence there, and wrought miracles. To one twelve-year-old boy, at
least, the thought of the hour he spent with that engine first is a
thought he sings and prays with to this day. His lips trembled before
it. He sought to hide himself in its presence. Why had no one ever
taught him anything before? As he looks back through his life there is
one experience that stands out by itself in all those boyhood
years–the choking in his throat–the strange grip upon him–upon his
body and upon his soul–as of some awful unseen Hand reaching down
Space to him, drawing him up to Its might. He was like a dazed child
being held up before It–held up to an infinite fact, that he might
look at it again and again.
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