Water Views

At the beginning of The Bostonians, Henry James shows Basil Ransom visiting a cousin in Boston, looking out from a window from which

there was a view of the water; Miss Chancellor having the good fortune to dwell on that side of Charles Street toward which, in the rear, the afternoon sun slants redly, from an horizon indented at empty intervals with wooden spires, the masts of lonely boats, the chimneys of  dirty 'works,' over an expanse of anomalous character, which is too big for a river and too small for a a bay. This view seemed to him very picturesque, though in the gathered dusk little was left of it save a cold yellow streak in the west, a gleam of brown water, and the reflection of the lights that had begun to show themselves in a row of houses, impressive to Ransom in their extreme modernness, which overlooked the same lagoon from a long embankment on the left, constructed of stones roughly piled.

Later, at dinner,

he had another view, through a window where the curtain remained undrawn by her direction (she called his attention to this--it was for his benefit), of the dusky, empty river, spotted with points of light... 

A matter glossed by the hostess's sister:

'That's what they call in Boston being very "thoughtful," Mrs. Luna said, 'giving you the Back Bay (don't you hate that name?) to look at and then taking credit for it.'

 One infers that this takes place in the early 1870s.

In 1872, George Santayana arrived at his mother's house in Boston, where

 They took us into the dining room to show us the "beautiful view" from the back of the house--a great expanse of water, with a low line of nondescript brick and wooden houses marking the opposite bank. It was Bostonian to show us the view first; ...

He gave that view qualified praise:

This view of a vast expanse of water reflecting the sky was unmistakably impressive, especially when the summer sunset lit up the scene, and darkness added to distance made the shabby bank opposite appear inoffensive. Gorgeous these sunsets often were, more gorgeous, good Bostonians believed, than any sunsets anywhere else in the world, and my limited experience does not belie them. The illumination often had a kaleidoscopic quality, with fiery reds and yellows, but at other hours the seasons and aerial effects of the Charles River Basin were not remarkable.

 (Persons and Places)

From the description, Mrs. Santayana's house may have been one of those extremely modern houses to the left of Charles Street; certainly there was an embankment between her house and the river.

Photocopying and Conferences

 In David Lodge's novel Small World, the American professor Morris Zapp, remarking on the view of Rummidge University, says

"Look at the Library--built like a huge warehouse. The whole place says, 'We have learning stored here; if you want it, you've got to come inside and get it.' Well, that doesn't apply any more."
 "Why not?", Persse set off again at a gentle trot.
 "Because," said Morris Zapp, reluctantly following, 'information is much more portable in the modern world than it used to be. So are people. Ergo, it's no longer necessary to hoard your information in one building or keep your top scholars corralled in one campus. There are three things which have revolutionized academic life in the last twenty years, though very few people have taken in the fact: jet-travel, direct-dialling telephones and the Xerox machine. Scholars don't need to work in the same institution to interact, nowadays: they call each other up, or they meet at international conferences. And they don't have to grub about in the library for data: any book or article that sounds interesting they have Xeroxed and read it at home. Or on the plane going to the next conference. I work mostly at home or on planes these days. I seldom go into the university except to teach my courses."

I thought of this in reading Peter Brown's memoir Roads of the World, which particularly mentioned the revolution that photo-copying created. Brown discussed phone calls mostly in connection with this family. But he seems to have spent a good deal of time on airplanes and at conferences.

Brown mentions not only the use of photocopying in scholarly work, but in teaching, in the course packets one could arrange for students to get at Kinko's. The latter use ended, or at least was restricted, in 1991, when a number of textbook publishers won a lawsuit against Kinko's. I believe that I remember picking up a course packet or two from the Kinko's on Route 1 before they got out of that business. No doubt the packet or packets were for computing courses, but I don't remember which.