It would be profitable in the end if man would take a hint from his
lack of wings, and settle down comfortably into the assurance that
midair is not his appointed element. The confession is a humiliating
one, but there is a temperate balm in the consciousness that his
inability to “shave with level wing” the blue empyrean cannot justly be
charged upon himself. He has done his endeavour, and done it nobly; but
he’ll break his precious neck.
In Goldsmith’s veracious “History of Animated Nature” is a sprightly
account of one Nicolas, who was called, if our memory be not at fault,
the man-fish, and who was endowed by his Creator—the late Mr. Goldsmith
aforesaid—with the power of conducting an active existence under the
sea. That equally veracious and instructive work “The Arabian Nights’
Entertainments,” peoples the bottom of old ocean with powerful nations
of similarly gifted persons; while in our own day “the Man-Frog” has
taught us what may be done in this line when one has once got the knack
of it.
Some years since (we do not know if he has yet suffered martyrdom at
the hand of the fiendish White) there lived a noted Indian chieftain
whose name, being translated, signifies
“The-Man-Who-Walks-Under-the-Ground,” probably a lineal descendant of
the gnomes. We have ourselves walked under the ground in wine cellars.
With these notable examples in mind, we are not prepared to assert
that, though man has as a rule neither the gills of a fish nor the nose
of a mole, he may not enjoy a drive at the bottom of the sea, or a
morning ramble under the subsoil. But with the exception of Peter
Wilkins’ Flying Islanders—whose existence we vehemently dispute—and
some similar creatures whom it suits our purpose to ignore, there is no
record of any person to whom the name of
The-Man-Who-Flies-Over-the-Hills may be justly applied. We make no
account of the shallow device of Mongolfier, nor the dubious
contrivance of Marriott. A gentleman of proper aspirations would scorn
to employ either, as the Man-Frog would reject a diving-bell, or the
subterranean chieftain would sneer at the Mont Cenis tunnel. These
“weak inventions” only emphasize our impotence to strive with the
subtle element about and above. They prove nothing so conclusively as
that we _can’t_ fly—a fact still more strikingly proven by the constant
thud of people tumbling out of them. To a Titan of comprehensive ear,
who could catch the noises of a world upon his single tympanum as
Hector caught Argive javelins upon his shield, the patter of dropping
aeronauts would sound like the gentle pelting of hailstones upon a
dusty highway—so thick and fast they fall.
It is probable that man is no more eager to float free into space than
the earth—if it be sentient—is to shake him off; but it would appear
that he and it must, like the Siamese twins, consent to endure the
disadvantages of a mutually disagreeable intimacy. We submit that it is
hardly worth his while to continue “larding the lean earth” with his
carcase in the vain endeavour to emulate angels, whom in no respect he
at all resembles.