Henry Adams reflects on history

[Mark Kohut]

the dynamo taught least because it had barely reached infancy [Chicago 1893], 
and, if its progress was to be constant at the
rate of the last ten years, it would result in infinite costless energy within a 
generation...One lingered long among the dynamos, for they
were new, and they gave to history a new phase. ...........

Historian(s), who, when he came suddenly on a new power, asked naturally what it 
was;--did it pull or did it push? Was it a screw
or thrust? Did it flow or vibrate? Was it a wire or a mathematical line?  
.......

The historical mind can think only in historical processes, and probably this 
was the first time since historians existed, 

that any of them had sat down helpless before a mechanical sequence. 
--Education, p. 319, L of A, vintage edition.






TRP, budding "historical" novelist, read this.