I must begin somewhere, and since I refuse to begin at the soles of
men’s feet, which are the beginning of his anatomy, the earth is our
natural datum point, I will begin just a hundred years ago, when the
world we know to-day was as remote from the world as it was then, as the
world I hope to point the way to will, in many ways, be as remote from
the world as it is now.
On the 27th of September, of this very year in which I write, took place
the centenary of the opening of the Stockton and Darlington railway, and
though it was not the first line to be constructed in England (for the
Killingworth railway was built in 1814, and again this was not the first
upon which locomotives ran), its claim to priority is nevertheless well
founded, for it was the first railway the public noticed, and, in
democratic countries, the birth of anything original must date from the
moment the most ignorant in the land realize its existence. It flatters
ignorance to be always first—such is democratic pride.
The 27th of September, 1825, was a very remarkable day in the world’s
history, one of those birthdays which have no predictable date, but
which depend on the outburst of genius of some great man. The great man
was a humble and self-taught engine-wright from Killingworth, one George
Stephenson, albeit an honest and persevering man, a worker, a thinker
and a dreamer; one of those human thunder clouds which, from time to
time, beat up against the conventional currents of thought, and out of
which flash the lightnings of unsuspected things—a very remarkable and
creative man.
On the 27th of September, a hundred years ago, a great concourse of
people assembled at Brusselton Incline, some nine miles from Darlington.
There, the travelling engine, as it was called, driven by George
Stephenson, the greatest genius of his age, moved forward amidst shrill
blasts of its whistle, “with its immense train of carriages,”
thirty-eight in number; “and such was its velocity,” writes an
eye-witness, “that in some parts the speed was frequently twelve miles
an hour!” It took sixty-five minutes to cover the nine miles to
Darlington, and the multitude stood aghast!
But the other day, I travelled in the “Detroiter” from New York to near
by the front door of Mr. Henry Ford—another remarkable and self-taught
revolutionary—the distance, if I remember rightly, some seven hundred
and fifty miles, and the time taken was fourteen hours. From Brusselton
Incline the iron horse hauled away, amidst wild excitement, the
stupendous load of ninety tons. At Pittsburg, I have seen locomotives
hauling six and seven thousand tons of coal, puffing by all unobserved.
Surely Einstein is right, the relative is only true, and ninety tons in
1825 was almost as unbelievable as to-day would be a centaur galloping
between the taxis of Piccadilly or Fifth Avenue.
All this must have been remembered during the centenary celebrations
this year, and broadcast from meeting room, assembly hall and dinner
table, for centenaries lose their interest without much feeding. There,
little men in tail coats, morning jackets and lounge suits, some with
trousers creased and others somewhat baggy at the knee, according to the
political creed of the wearer, in port and beer, and, in America, I know
not what, toasted the memory of the great man. Pæans and praise gushed
from their arid heads like the water from the rock smitten by Moses.
These little men, sitting for a bare few minutes on the chariot wheel of
genius, did say, “What a dust do we raise!” And in our morning papers we
read of all this blather and pomposity, and overlooked an eternal truth.
For we got into our railway carriages next day and complained of their
unfitness for human habitation, even of the most temporary nature, and
condemned the line we were travelling on as impossible, because the
train was five minutes late. Outwardly a very ordinary picture, all
this—the drinking, speechmaking and travelling troubles of little men,
some strap-hangers to genius, but most quite normal nonentities; yet
behind it all lurks a somewhat interesting problem—the protean
psychology of the very ordinary man.