The Arcades Project - Operi

pavement, so as not to delay the opposing streams of the crowd-while no man
thinks to honor another with so much as a glance. The brutal indifference, the
unfeeling isolation of each in his private interest becomes the more repellent and
offensive, the more these individuals are crowded together within a limited space.
And however much one may be aware that this isolation of the individual, this
narrow self-seeking, is the fundamental principle of our society everywhere, it is
nowhere so shamelessly barefaced, so self-conscious, as just here in the crowding
of the great city." Friedrich Engels, Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England,
2nd cd. (Leipzig, 1848), pp. 36-37 ("Die grossen Stadte").15 [M5a,!]
'·By "bohemians' I mean that class of individuals for whom existence is a problem,
circumstances a myth, and fortune an enigma; who have no sort of fixed abode, no
place of refuge; who belong nowhere and are met with everywhere; who have no
particular calling in life but follow fifty professions; who, for the most part, arise
in the morning without knowing where they are to dine in the evening; who are rich
today, impoverished tomorrow; who are ready to live honestly if they can, and
otherwise if they cannot. " Adolphe d 'Ennery and Grange, Les Bohemiens de Paris
(Paris), pp. 8-9 (L'Ambigu-Comique, September
27, 1843; series entitled Magasin theatral).
[M5a,2]
·'Then from out of Saint Martin's Gate / The romantic Omnibus flashed by."
[Leon Gozlan,] Le Triomphe des Omnibus: Poeme heroi"--comique (Paris, 1828),
p. 15. [M6,!]
'·When the first German railway line was about to be constructed in Bavaria, the
medical faculty at Erlangen published an expert opinion . .. ; the rapid movement
would cause ... cerebral disorders (the mere sight of a train rushing by could
already do this), and it was therefore necessary, at the least, to build a wooden
barrier five feet high on both sides of the tracle" Egon Friedell, Kulturgeschichte
del' Neuzeit (Munich, 1931), vol. 3, p. 91. [M6,2]
"Beginning around 1845 . . . there were railroads and steamers in all parts of
Europe, and the new means of transport were celebrated . ... Pictures, letters,
stories of travel were the preferred genre for authors and readers." Egon Friedell,
Kulturgeschichte del' Neuzeit (Munich, 1931), vol. 3, p. 92. [M6,3]
The following observation typifies the concerns of the age: "When one is sailing
on a river or lake, one's body is without active movement. ... The skin experi­
ences no contraction, and its pores remain wide open and capable of absorbing
all the emanations and vapors of the surrounding environment. The blood ...
remains ... concentrated in the cavities of the chest and abdomen, and reaches
the extremities with clifficulty:' J.-F. Dancel, De I'Injluence des voyages sur l'homme
et sur ses maladies: Ouvrage specialement destine aux gens du monde (Paris, 1846),
p. 92 ("Des Promenades en bateau sur les lacs et les rivieres"). [M6,4]