Not long ago two officers and gentlemen (whom I had never seen before
and one of whom, alas! I shall never see again) descended from a blue
sky on to a neighbouring stretch of sward; had tea with me in my garden;
and, ascending into the blue again, were lost to view. Since it is
seldom that the heavens drop such visitants upon us in the obscure
region in which I live, it follows that while the aviators were absent
from their machine the news had so spread that by the time they rejoined
it and prepared to depart, a crowd had assembled not unworthy of being
compared, in point of numbers, with that which two workmen in London can
bring together whenever they begin to make a hole in the wood-block
paving. I had not thought so many people lived in the neighbourhood.
Every family, at any rate was represented, while the rector looked on
with the tolerant smile that the clergy keep for the wonders of science,
and just at the last moment up panted our policeman on his bicycle, and
pulling out his notebook and pencil for the aviators' names (Heaven
knows why), set upon the proceedings the seal of authority.
Whatever may be said against aeroplanes in full flight, and there is
quite a long indictment--that they are, for instance, not at all like
birds, and much more like dragon-flies, and are too noisy, and too
rigid, and so forth,--no one in his senses can deny that as they rise
from the ground--especially if you are behind them and they are receding
swiftly in a straight line from you, and even more so if you are
personally acquainted with the occupants--they have beautiful and
exciting qualities. Not soon shall I forget the sight as my guests in
their biplane glided exquisitely from the turf into the air and, after
one circular sweep around our bewildered heads, swam away in the
direction of the Hog's Back.
That was phenomenon No. 1. Phenomenon No. 2--also connected with the
mechanics of quicker movement than Shanks's mare ever compassed--was
one of those old high bicycles, a fifty-two inch, I should guess, dating
from the late eighteen-seventies, which, although the year was 1916, was
being ridden along the Brighton front.
I am, unhappily, old enough to have been the owner of a bone-shaker,
upon which I can assure you I had far more amusing times than on any of
its luxurious progeny, even though they were fitted with every device
that all the engineers' brains in the world, together with the white hat
and beard of Mr. Dunlop, have succeeded in inventing. Being able to
remember the advent of the high bicycle and the rush to the windows and
gates whenever word went forth that one was approaching (much as a few
of the simpler among us still run when the buzz of the aeroplane is
heard), I was, as I watched the interest aroused among Brighton's
butterflies by this antique relic, in a position to reflect, not I trust
sardonically, but at any rate without any feelings of triumph, upon the
symmetrical completion of--I must not say one cycle of mechanical
enterprise, but one era. For this high bicycle (which was perhaps built
between thirty and forty years ago) wobbling along the King's Road drew
every eye. Before that moment we had been looking at I know not
what--the _Skylark_, maybe, now fitted with auxiliary motor power; or
the too many soldiers in blue clothes, with only one arm or one leg, and
sometimes with no legs at all, who take the sun near the Palace Pier and
are not wholly destitute of female companionship. But when this
outlandish vehicle came we all stopped to gaze and wonder, and we
watched it out of sight.
"Look at that extraordinary bicycle!" said the young, to whom it was
something of the latest.
"Well, I'm blessed," said the old, "if there isn't one of those high
bicycles from before the Flood!"
And not only did it provide a diverting spectacle, but it gave us
something to talk about at dinner, where we compared old feats perched
on these strange monsters, in the days when the road from John o' Groats
to Land's End was thick with competitors, and half the male world wore
the same grey cloth, and the Vicar of Ripley strove every Sunday for
the cyclist's soul.
Being myself didactically disposed, I went farther than reminiscence and
bored my companions with some such reflections as those that follow. It
is not given (I said) to many of us to have a second time on earth, but
this bicycle is having it, and enjoying it. In the distant
eighteen-seventies or eighties it was, as a daring innovation, a marvel
and a show. Then came (I went on) all the experiments and developments
under which cycling has become as natural almost as walking, during
which it lay neglected in corners, like the specimen in the London
Museum in the basement of Stafford House. And then an adventurous boy
discovered it, and riding it to-day bravely beside that promenade of
sun-beetles, assisted it (I concluded) to box the compass and transform
the Obsolete into the Novelty.
Some day, if I live, there may visit me from the blue as I totter among
the flower-beds an aeroplane of so scandalous a crudity and immaturity
that all the countryside, long since weary of the sight and sound of
flying machines, then so common that every cottager will have one, will
again cluster about it while its occupants and I drink our tea.
For with mechanical enterprise there is no standing still. Man, so
conspicuously unable to improve himself, is always making his inventions
better.