Tom Standage Quote
You Americans are a very singular people, he later recalled to one of his friends. I went with my automaton all over my own country—the Germans wondered and said nothing. In France they exclaimed, Magnifique! Merveilleux! Superbe! The English set themselves to prove—one that it could be, and another that it could not be, a mere mechanism acting without a man inside. But I had not been long in your country, before a Yankee came to see me and said, 'Mr Maelzel, would you like another thing like that? I can make you one for five hundred dollars.' I laughed at his proposition. A few months afterwards, the same Yankee came to see me again, and this time he said, 'Mr Maelzel, would you like to buy another thing like that? I have one already made for you.
You Americans are a very singular people, he later recalled to one of his friends. I went with my automaton all over my own country—the Germans wondered and said nothing. In France they exclaimed, Magnifique! Merveilleux! Superbe! The English set themselves to prove—one that it could be, and another that it could not be, a mere mechanism acting without a man inside. But I had not been long in your country, before a Yankee came to see me and said, 'Mr Maelzel, would you like another thing like that? I can make you one for five hundred dollars.' I laughed at his proposition. A few months afterwards, the same Yankee came to see me again, and this time he said, 'Mr Maelzel, would you like to buy another thing like that? I have one already made for you.
Related Quotes
About Tom Standage
Born and raised in England, Standage graduated from Oxford University with a degree in engineering and computing. He began his career in journalism as a science and technology writer for The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph where he was deputy editor of the technology supplement, Connected. Standage is the author of six books including The Victorian Internet (1998), A History of the World in 6 Glasses (2005), and Writing on the Wall (2013).