Sunday, August 24, 2008

Wonders Never Cease

Today I'm going through the pictures I took in the archives, hoping to find that there's enough here to write a dissertation with.

Anyway, this picture is from a book published by the Archives of the Chamber of Commerce of Marseille about the Industrial Revolution and the impact it had on Marseille. What I like about this picture, aside from the fact that I know where it is, is the three people standing at the edge of the gorge watching the train, which would have still been a novelty in the south of France in 1848.

It reminds me of a scene in Proust in which the narrator breaks down crying upon seeing his first plane fly overhead. I think that he is crying partly because man has left the earth, and partly because he senses that his world is coming to an end. Of course, these people are not crying, but you have to wonder what sorts of thoughts they're having.

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