Crotchets in the air; or, An (un)scientific account of a balloon-trip, in a letter1838 |
Common terms and phrases
Admissionists Age of Vapour amongst answer appropriateness-of architect Bal-lunatics ballast balloon being lightened BALLOON-TRIP better bodkins Chopine clouds COLBURN cried Daggerbowl cried O'Sham crotchet day-light dear degree descent dizzi Eagle and Child earth elephant elevation fancy Fee'dwell fellow creatures fire-work ascents five four gin-shops go!-And grapnel Green half heard height HENRY COLBURN Higher Histrionometer Horsecollar hour human humour hundred inflated JOHN POOLE Leadenlegs LINES OF FIRE London looking Lord Thurlow MARLBOROUGH STREET Martin's Lane mind Moral Nassau nearly nine O'Shamrock old ballooners ounce out-of-place question Pantheon Bazaar parasite party Paul's placed pleasant pocket poor Possibilifying pretty puff puffster rail-road replied reverie river ruined sensation Shakspeare shew sight SKETCHES AND RECOLLECTIONS slightest snuff-box spal St.-Paulserism stand Statesman T. C. Savill Thames wherries thing thought thousand tion town valve-line Vauxhall Gardens Wanstead Flats Westminster Abbey whole wonder
Popular passages
Page 5 - Why, thy face is valanced since I saw thee last: com'st thou to beard me in Denmark/— What, my young lady and mistress! By'r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven, than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine.
Page 24 - tis, to cast one's eyes so low! The crows and choughs, that wing the midway air, Show scarce so gross as beetles : Half way down Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade! Methinks, he seems no bigger than his head: The fishermen, that walk upon the beach, Appear like mice; and yon...
Page 18 - Upon each of the three or four experimental trials of the powers of the balloon to enable the people to glide away from us with safety to themselves — down they all went about thirty feet ! — then, up they came again, and so on. There we sat quietly all the while in our wicker buck-basket, utterly unconscious of motion ; till, at length, Mr. Green snapping a little iron, and thus letting loose the rope by which the earth was suspended to us — like Atropos, cutting the connexion between us with...
Page 17 - I do not despise you," says he, " for talking about a balloon going up, for it is an error which you share in common with some millions of our fellow-creatures ; and I, in the days of my ignorance, thought with the rest of you. I know better now. The fact is, we do not go up at all ; but at about five minutes past six, on the evening of Friday, the 14th of September, 1838 — at about that time, Vauxhall Gardens, with all the people in them, went downi
Page 18 - ... the while in our wicker buck-basket, utterly unconscious of motion ; till, at length, Mr. Green snapping a little iron, and thus letting loose the rope by which the earth was suspended to us — like Atropos, cutting the connexion between us with a pair of shears — down it went, with every thing on it ; and your poor, paltry, little Dutch toy of a town (your Great Metropolis, as you insolently call it), having been placed on casters for the occasion — I am satisfied of that — was gently...
Page 29 - ODE TO MESSRS. GREEN, HOLLOND, AND MONCK MASON, ON THEIR LATE BALLOON EXPEDITION. " Here we go up, up, up, — and there we go down, down, downy." — OLD BALLAD. O lofty-minded men ! Almost beyond the pitch of my goose pen ! And most inflated words ! Delicate Ariels ! ethereals ! birds Of passage ! fliers ! angels without wings ! Fortunate rivals of Icarian darings...
Page 7 - This question is framed with such extraordinary precision, that, to one who could, there ought not to be the slightest difficulty in answering it. My observations, however, having been confined chiefly to the looking down on the chimney-tops, I am enabled to reply only, with anything approaching to certainty, first, that I do not know; secondly, that I cannot tell; and thirdly, that it is hard to say. Yet, are there points upon which I will venture to speak positively. One (and, perhaps, the most...
Page 7 - According to your observations, in what manner, and to what extent, are the interests of science likely to be advanced, and the state of society in general, morally and physically considered, (dividing your answer to this portion of the question into two branches,) likely to be improved by the n.«e of balloons ? — and within what probable period ?" Utilitarian questioning and aeronautic answering.
Page 17 - I cannot have been deceived. I speak from the evidence of my senses, founded upon repetition of the fact. Upon each of the three or four experimental trials of the powers of the balloon to enable the people to glide away from us with safety to themselves, down they all went about thirty feet — then, up they came again, and so on. There we sat quietly all the while in our wicker buck-basket, utterly unconscious of motion ; till, at length, Mr. Green snapping a little iron, and thus letting loose...
Page 82 - From my own windows I saw the ascent. For a few minutes the balloon was concealed by clouds. Presently it re-appeared, and then was seen a momentary sheet of flame. There was a dreadful pause. In a few seconds, the poor creature, enveloped and entangled in the netting of her machine, fell with a frightful crash upon the slanting roof of a house in the Rue de Provence (not one hundred yards from where I was standing), and thence into the street — and Madame Blanchard was taken up a shattered corpse.