Time Lord (33 page)

SANDFORD FLEMING
’
S
feelings about the civil engineering profession—the so-called tunnelers, levelers, bridge-builders, and track-layers—were expressed in an 1876 speech: “It is the business of their life to make smooth the path on which others are to tread.” On a later occasion, he reflected on the near-tragic art of engineering. If the civil engineer has done his job well, all traces of it disappear and others take the pleasure, the profit, and the recognition.

The Fleming papers in the National Archives of Canada indeed bring pleasure and smooth the path. Each alphabetical division in the 145 boxes (ironically, they are not chronologically arranged) contains its share of juxtaposed surprises and leads, I hope, to some piquant moments in this text. Typed letters from world leaders in his honor-encrusted old age rub against drafts of condolences sent to an Indian guide on the death of his wife, forty years earlier. I am especially indebted to the staff of Hutchison House in Peterborough, Ontario, who sent me Fleming material the moment I first expressed interest, and allowed me to browse through their collections when I visited a few weeks later. Otherwise, I have cited, where appropriate, debts to the major scholars in the field, who, like Fleming, are always there to smooth the way: William Everdell, Michael O’Malley, Pierre Berton, Jacques Attali, Stephen Kern, Derek Howse, David Landes, Peter Gay, David Harvey, Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Arno Borst, Eviatar Zerubavel, James Burke, Walter Houghton, and to the hosts of other books and articles that informed them, or trail in their wake. My former colleagues at the University of Iowa Mitchell Ash, Ed Folsom, Shelley Berc, and Garrett Stewart helped inform my reading early in the process and deserve a salute from two time zones away.

C
LARK
B
LAISE
  
San Francisco
March 2000