248 GOING UP IN A BALLOON. thing is, that you experience no sensation at all, so far as motion is concerned. 7. A very amusing illustration of this is given in a letter published by Mr. Poole, the well-known author, shortly after his ascent. "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 down!" 8. Feeling nothing of the ascending motion, the first impression that takes possession of you, in "going up" in a balloon, is the quietude, the silence, that grows more and more entire. The restless heaving to and fro of the huge inflated sphere above your head (to say nothing of the noise of the crowd), the flapping of ropes, the rustling of silk, and the creaking of the basket-work of the car- all has ceased. There is a total cessation of all atmospheric resistance. You sit in a silence which becomes more perfect every second. After the bustle of many moving objects, you stare before you into blank air. 9. So much for what you first feel; and now what is the thing you first do? In this case every body is alike. We all do the same thing. We look over the side of the car. We do this very cautiously, keeping a firm seat, as though we clung to it by a certain attraction of cohesion; and then, holding on by the edge, we carefully protrude the peak of our travelingcap, and then the tip of the nose, over the edge of the car, upon which we rest our mouth. 10. Every thing below is seen in so new a form, so flat, compressed, and so simultaneously, so much GOING UP IN A BALLOON. 249 too-much-at-a-time, that the first look is hardly so satisfactory as could be desired. But soon we thrust the chin fairly over the edge, and take a good stare downward; and this repays us much better. Objects appear under very novel circumstances from this vertical position. They are stunted and foreshortened, and rapidly flattened to a map-like appearance; they get smaller and smaller, and clearer and clearer. 11. Away goes the earth, with its hills and valleys, its trees and buildings, its men, women and children, its horses and cattle, its rivers and vessels, — all sinking lower and lower, and becoming less and less, but getting more and more distinct and defined as they diminish in size. But, besides the retreat toward minuteness, the outspread objects flatten as they lessen; men and women are five inches high, then four, three, two, one inch-and now a speck. As for the Father of Rivers, he becomes a dusky-gray, winding streamlet, and his largest ships are no more than flat, pale decks, all the masts and rigging being foreshortened to nothing. We soon come, now, to the shadowy, the indistinct, and then all is lost in air. Floating clouds fill up the space beneath. 12. How do we feel, all this time? "Calm, sir,calm and resigned." Yes, and more than this. After a little while, when you find nothing happens, and see nothing likely to happen, a delightful serenity takes the place of all other sensations; to this the extraor dinary silence, as well as the pale beauty and floating hues that surround you, chiefly contribute. The si lence is perfect-a wonder and a rapture. We hear the ticking of our watches. Tick! tick!- or is it the beat of our own hearts? We are sure of the watch; and now we think we can hear both. 13. Two other sensations must by no means be forgotten. You become very cold, and desperately 250 GOING UP IN A BALLOON. hungry. Of the increased coldness which you feel on passing from a bright cloud into a dark one, the bal loon is quite as sensitive as you can be; and probably much more so, for it produces an immediate change of altitude. The expansion and contraction which two romantic gentlemen fancied took place in the size of their heads, does really take place in the balloon according as it passes from a cloud of one temperature into that of another. 14. But here we are, still above the clouds! We may assume that you would not like to be "let off" in a parachute, even on the improved principle; we will therefore prepare for descending with the balloon. The valve-line is pulled!-out rushes the gas from the top of the balloon-you see the flag fly upward— down through the clouds you sink, faster and faster, lower and lower. Now you begin to see dark masses below-there's the old earth again!-The dark masses now discover themselves to be little forests, little towns, tree-tops, house-tops. Out goes a shower of sand from the ballast-bags, and our descent becomes slower another shower, and up we mount again, in search of a better spot to alight upon. 1 15. Our guardian aëronaut gives each of us a bag of ballast, and directs us to throw out its contents when he calls each of us by name, and in such quantities only as he specifies. Moreover, no one is suddenly to leap out of the balloon when it touches the earth; partly because it may cost him his own life or limbs, and partly because it would cause the balloon to shoot up again with those who remained, and so make them lose the advantage of the good descent already gained, if nothing worse happened. Meantime, the grapnel-iron has been lowered, and is dangling down at the end of a strong rope of a hundred and fifty feet long. It is now trailing over the ground. FROM A PROLOGUE TO A PLAY. 251 16. Three journeymen bricklayers are in chase of it. It catches upon a bank-it tears its way through. Now the three bricklayers are joined by a couple of fellows in smock-frocks, a policeman, five boys, followed by three girls, and, last of all, a woman with a child in her arms, all running, shouting, screaming, yelling, as the grapnel-iron and rope go trailing and bobbing over the ground before them. At last the iron catches upon a hedge— grapples with its roots; the balloon is arrested, but struggles hard; three or four men seize the rope, and down we are hauled. CHARLES DICKENS. CII.-FROM A PROLOGUE TO A PLAY. PRO'LOGUE (pro'lŏg), n., introduction | LŎRN, a., forsaken; forlorn. to a discourse or play. PRELUDE OF PRELUDE, n., music in troductory to a piece or concert. BAIZE, n., a coarse woolen cloth. PRIMA DON'NA (pre-) n., the principal female singer. MILLION-AIRE, n., one worth a million. The satire on certain stage representations in the following lines will be found as just as it is lively and amusing. WHAT is a prologue! Let our Tutor teach: Pro means beforehand; logos stands for speech. "Tis like the harper's prelude on the strings, The prima donna's courte'sy ere she sings. "The world's a stage," as Shakspeare said, one day; Here every foundling finds its lost mamma; When the young couple, old folks, rogues, and Join hands, so happy, at the curtain's fall! Here suffering virtue ever finds relief, And black-browed ruffians always come to grief. When the poor hero flounders in despair, Some dear lost uncle turns up millionaire, Clasps the young scapegrace with paternal joy, Sobs on his neck, "My boy! My boy! My Boy! O W. E CIII.-THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLI MYRTLE, n., a fragrant shrub. SEV'ERED, pp., separated. NAUGHT (nawt), n., nothi The ea in hearth has properly the sound it has in heart; though in th of the following beautiful poem the author gives it the sound of ea in earth THEY grew in beauty, side by side,- The same fond mother bent at night One 'mid the forests of the west, |