In this quote, Larson purposefully placed the short sentence before the longer sentence in order to emphasize the word, “nothing.” The contrasting length of the sentences forces the reader to look back at the first word; in fact, it makes the reader question what Larson means when he uses the one word sentence “nothing.” The use of the short sentence in the beginning catches the reader’s eye, catching their attention, as if Larson had done this purposefully. If Larson were to use two sentences of similar length in this passage, then it would cause the it to have less power than the contrast does. He is stressing that the Columbian World Exposition was making much progress, bringing so much attention, but now it was going nowhere.
