Way down below the level road on which I stood, way on the opposite side of the river, Pittsburgh lies a dark, low mass, hemmed in by its rivers, lorded by its hills; in the hollow the smoke hangs so dense often I could not see the city at all, but once in a while a breeze falls on the town, and the great white skyscrapers come forth from the thick, black cloud, and the effect is glorious—the glorification of Work, for Pittsburgh is the work-city of the world.
XII EDGAR THOMSON STEEL WORKS
I found these works and this view of them on a trolley ride out of Pittsburgh. They group themselves under their canopy of smoke as finely as any in the world, and every works in the Wonder of Work has character—just as a tree has—but how much more impressive is a row of blast furnaces, oil wells, and coal breakers, than trees! Yet these are the subjects of our age—naturally, scarcely any one ever looks at them, especially artists—though I hear the "young artists" of America have with money prizes been encouraged to take up "Labor" as a change from painting "murals"—but you can't help people to be artists or to see things, they must do it for themselves. The only artists who see things in the world are engineers and a few architects, for the mill has taken the place of the cathedral—and the great craftsmen who once worked for Popes now work for captains of industry—for art follows money.
XIII ON THE WAY TO BESSEMER
A few years ago it would have been impossible to have done, or even found, the subjects in this book, for one would have had an impossible tramp, or a trip in a hack, and the nuisance and expense of it all, while the roads rarely went near the mills or works. Now the trolley whisks you about, and frequently deserts the roads to get to the mills and pick up its passengers, the workmen. The trolley is by far the best guide to the Wonder of Work in the world. I had no idea what was at Bessemer—or rather on the way to it. I had been in the works, but as the car mounted the hill I saw the subject behind me, and at the next stop jumped off and drew it, and it is in this way my work has been done. It's all adventure—the adventure of hunting for the Wonder of Work, and the love of the hunt has carried me all over Europe and America.