Part 21 (1/2)

”You will find a history of it in Bamus. This fly would leap from the hands of the great Begimonta.n.u.s, flutter and buzz round the heads of his guests a.s.sembled at supper, and then, as if wearied, return and repose on the finger of its maker.”

”You don't mean to say you believe _that_?” asked Barton.

”Why not, sir; why not? Did not Archytas of Tarenturn, one of Plato's acquaintances, construct a wooden dove, in no way less miraculous? And the same Regimonta.n.u.s, at Nuremberg, fas.h.i.+oned an eagle which, by way of triumph, did fly out of the city to meet Charles V. But where was I? Oh, at Bishop Wilkins. Cardan doubted of the iron fly of Regimonta.n.u.s, because the material was so heavy. But Bishop Wilkins argues, in accordance with the best modern authorities, that the weight is no hindrance whatever, if proportional to the motive power. A flying machine, says Professor Bell, in the _Encyclopodia Britannica_--(you will not question the authority of the _Encyclopodia Britannica_?)--a flying machine should be 'a compact, moderately heavy, and powerful structure.' There, you see, the Bishop was right.”

”Yours was deuced powerful,” remarked Barton. ”I did not expect to see two limbs of you left together.”

”It _is_ powerful, or rather it _was_,” answered Winter, with a heavy sigh; ”but it's all to do over again--all to do over again! Yet it was a n.o.ble specimen. 'The pa.s.sive surface was reduced to a minimum,' as the learned author in the _Encyclopodia_ recommends.”

”By Jove! the pa.s.sive surface was jolly near reduced to a mummy. _You_ were the pa.s.sive surface, as far as I could see.”

”Don't laugh at me, please sir, after you've been so kind. All the rest laugh at me. You can't think what a pleasure it has been to talk to a scholar,” and there was a new flush on the poor fellow's cheek, and something watery in his eyes.

”I beg your pardon, my dear sir,” cried Barton, greatly ashamed of himself. ”Pray go on. The subject is entirely new to me. I had not been aware that there were any serious modern authorities in favor of the success of this kind of experiment.”

”Thank you, sir,” said Winter, much encouraged, and taking Barton's hand in his own battered claw; ”thank you. But why should we run only to modern authorities? All great inventions, all great ideas, have been present to men's minds and hopes from the beginning of civilization.

Did not Empedocles forestall Mr. Darwin, and hit out, at a stroke, the hypothesis of natural selection?”

”Well, he _did_ make a shot at it,” admitted Barton, who remembered as much as that from ”the old coaching days,” and college lectures at St.

Gatien's.

”Well, what do we find? As soon as we get a whisper of civilization in Greece, we find Daedalus successful in flying. The pragmatic interpreters pretend that the fable does but point to the discovery of sails for s.h.i.+ps; but I put it to you, is that probable?”

”Obvious bosh,” said Barton.

”And the meteorological mycologists, sir, _they_ maintain that Daedalus is only the lightning flying in the breast of the storm!”

”There's nothing those fellows won't say,” replied Barton.

”I'm glad you are with me, sir. In Daedalus _I_ see either a record of a successful attempt at artificial flight, or at the very least, the expression of an aspiration as old as culture. _You_ wouldn't make Daedalus the evening clouds accompanying Minos, the sun, to his setting in Sicily, in the west?” added Winter anxiously.

”I never heard of such nonsense,” said Barton.

”Sir Frederick Leighton, the President of the Royal Academy, is with me, sir, if I may judge by his picture of Daedalus.”

”Every sensible man must be with you,” answered Barton.

”Well, sir, I won't detain you with other famous flyers of antiquity, such as Abaris, mounted on an arrow, as described by Herodotus.

Doubtless the arrow was a flying machine, a novelty to the ignorant Scythians.”

”It _must_ have been, indeed.”

”Then there was the Greek who flew before Nero in the circus; but he, I admit, had a bad fall, as Seutonius recounts. That character of Lucian's, who employed an eagle's wing and a vulture's in his flight, I take to be a mere figment of the satirist's imagination. But what do you make of Simon Magus? He, I cannot doubt, had invented a machine in which, like myself, he made use of steam or naphtha. This may be gathered from Arn.o.bius, our earliest authority. He mentions expressly _currum Simonis Magi et quadrigas igneas_, the chariot of Simon Magus and his _vehicles of flame_--clearly the naphtha is alluded to--which vanished into air at the word of the Apostle Peter. The latter circ.u.mstances being miraculous, I take leave to doubt; but certainly Simon Magus had overcome the difficulties of aerial navigation. But, though Petrus Crinitus rejects the tradition as fabulous, I am prepared to believe that Simon Magus actually flew from the Capitol to the Aventine!

”'The world knows nothing of its greatest men,'” quoted Barton.

”Simon Magus has been the victim, sir, of theological acrimony, his character blackened, his flying machine impugned, or ascribed, as by the credulous Arn.o.bius, to diabolical arts. In the dark ages, naturally, the science of Artificial Flight was either neglected or practised in secret, through fear of persecution. Busbequius speaks of a Turk at Constantinople who attempted something in this way; but he (the Turk, I mean), was untrammelled by ecclesiastical prejudice. But why should we tarry in the past? Have we not Mr. Proctor with us, both in _Knowledge_ and the _Cornhill_? Does not the preeminent authority, Professor Pettigrew Bell, himself declare, with the weight, too, of the _Encyclopodia Britannica_, that 'the number of successful flying models is considerable. It is not too much to expect,' he goes on, 'that the problem of artificial flight will be actually solved, or at least much simplified.' What less can we expect, as he observes, in the land of Watt and Stephenson, when the construction of flying machines has been 'taken up in earnest by practical men?'”

”We may indeed,” said Barton, ”hope for the best when persons of your learning and ingenuity devote their efforts to the cause.”