David Gelernter's epigraph to Mirror Worlds

No changing of place
at a hundred miles an hour,


       You can't imagine how strange it seemed
       to be journeying on thus, without
       any visible cause of progress
       other than the magical machine,


nor making of stuffs a thousand
yards a minute,


       with its flying white breath and
       rhythmical, unvarying pace,
       between these rocky walls, which are
       already clothed with moss and
       ferns and grass;


will make us
one whit stronger, happier
or wiser.


       and when I reflected that


There was always more
in the world
than men could see,
walked they ever so slowly;


       these great masses of stone had been cut
       asunder to allow our passage thus far
       below the surface of the earth, I felt that


they will see it no better
for going fast.
JOHN RUSKIN (1856)


       no fairy tale
       was every half so wonderful
       as what I saw.
       FANNY KEMBLE (1830)