Arnold Bennett clearly liked electric cars. They must have been the coming thing and maybe they were also seen as a hint that the machine age could produce more than dark satanic mills. Here are a few quotes.
Advantages.
Richard’s car ran
through the cutting — it was electrical, odourless, and almost noiseless.
Mounting
He crept back to his
own car, found it unharmed in the deep shadow where he had left it, and
mounted.
Dismounting
Richard directed the
car gently through the gate and then stopped; they dismounted, and crossed the
great field on foot.
Range
This vehicle, new and
in beautiful order, and charged for a journey of a hundred and twenty miles,
travelled in the most unexceptionable manner. The two and a half miles to the
North-Western station at Dunstable were traversed in precisely five minutes, in
spite of the fact that the distance included a full mile of climbing.
Teresa of Watling Street (1904)
Intimacy
The electric brougham
was waiting. I gathered up my skirt and sprang in.
Oh, the exquisite dark
intimacy of the interior of that smooth-rolling brougham!
Sacred and Profane Love (1905)
Notice the reference to a range of a hundred and twenty
miles. There are a number of explanations as to why electric cars were ousted
by the internal combustion engine after an auspicious start, but are any of
them satisfactory?
2 comments:
The clue is in the destination 'Dunstable'!
Every designer came from there, and they even made a film about the place (or was it Dawlish), in 'Those Magnificent Men in their Flying machines', (or was it 'Monte Carlo or bust')..?
My mind tends to wander after such excitement, so please, please continue...
Scrobs - I enjoyed both films. Quite daft but they captured to excitement of invention.
Post a Comment