 | The fiend's delight |  |
A Wingless Insect.
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
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
Night's 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,
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, not 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
aëronauts would sound like the gentle pleting
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
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.
| The fiend's delight | |