The Imagined Empire by Mi Gyung Kim

Author:Mi Gyung Kim
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780822981954
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

The notions and opinions of this motley multitude were certainly as various as their situations in life were different. The populace, who composed the far greater part of the company, were sure the thing could not be done by day-light, for no Christian could fly through the air, and Goblins and Sprites were not permitted to ramble abroad till the dead hour of night. The next class to these had very little more faith than their fellows: “they could not think as how it could be that a bubble could carry a man, and they feared the whole story was but a bubble,” and so they divin’d it would prove in the end. The middle ranks were doubtful, but not without hope. The more enlightened were anxious for the event, and were not without sharing in that concern which every sensible mind could not but feel for the issue of so hazardous an enterprise. Men of real science were otherwise affected; they were at rest as to the practicability of the expedition; but they could not help expressing, by their looks, the sympathetic concern they entertained, lest some untoward circumstance should intervene, to defeat, or even to delay the execution, either of which would have been equally fatal to the adventurer. While the thoughts and apprehensions of the subordinate classes were thus occupied, those of elevated rank, who look upon the life or death of an individual, and the good or ill success of an experiment, with equal indifference, and calculated only to kill time, and contribute to their amusement, diverted themselves with the bustle among the canaille, and laughed and talked of Lunardi, as another Bottle Conjurer, whom all men went to see, though no man thought possible what he pretended to perform.125

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