ABSTRACT
The artificiality of the language in the George Washington placard disturbs him because it is inaccurate and “indecent.” It is the product of an America that speaks a language of machinery; he laments “the inspired marbles, the breathing canvases, the great literatures; for the present America is voluble in the strong metals….” (96). Howells himself admits to succumbing to “immense, temporary pleasures” and enchantments of the emerging industrial age, most clearly as he gazes at the enormous Corliss Engine, centerpiece of the Centennial displays: “of that first impression the majesty of the great Corliss engine, which drives the infinitely varied machinery, remains most distinct…[it] does not lend itself to description… In the midst of this ineffably strong mechanism is a chair where the engineer sits reading his newspaper…he is like some potent enchanter there, and this prodigious Afreet is his slave who could crush him past all semblance of humanity with his lightest touch” (96). Here to some extent Howells projects an image of himself: the writer/reader helplessly vulnerable in the midst of a thoughtless and monstrous modernity.
