FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON
by Jules Verne
CHAPTER 3 EFFECT OF THE PRESIDENT'S COMMUNICATION
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It is impossible to describe the effect produced by the
last
words of the honorable president-- the cries, the shouts,
the
succession of roars, hurrahs, and all the varied
vociferations
which the American language is capable of supplying. It
was a
scene of indescribable confusion and uproar. They
shouted, they
clapped, they stamped on the floor of the hall. All the
weapons
in the museum discharged at once could not have more violently
set
in motion the waves of sound. One need not be surprised
at this.
There are some cannoneers nearly as noisy as their own
guns.
Barbicane remained calm in the midst of this
enthusiastic
clamor; perhaps he was desirous of addressing a few more
words
to his colleagues, for by his gestures he demanded silence,
and his powerful alarum was worn out by its violent
reports.
No attention, however, was paid to his request. He was
presently
torn from his seat and passed from the hands of his
faithful
colleagues into the arms of a no less excited crowd.
Nothing can astound an American. It has often been
asserted
that the word "impossible" in not a French one. People
have
evidently been deceived by the dictionary. In America,
all is
easy, all is simple; and as for mechanical difficulties,
they
are overcome before they arise. Between Barbicane's
proposition
and its realization no true Yankee would have allowed even
the
semblance of a difficulty to be possible. A thing with
them is
no sooner said than done.
The triumphal progress of the president continued
throughout
the evening. It was a regular torchlight
procession. Irish, Germans,
French, Scotch, all the heterogeneous units which make up
the
population of Maryland shouted in their respective
vernaculars;
and the "vivas," "hurrahs," and "bravos" were intermingled
in
inexpressible enthusiasm.
Just at this crisis, as though she comprehended all this
agitation regarding herself, the moon shone forth with
serene splendor, eclipsing by her intense illumination all
the
surrounding lights. The Yankees all turned their gaze
toward
her resplendent orb, kissed their hands, called her by all
kinds
of endearing names. Between eight o'clock and midnight
one
optician in Jones'-Fall Street made his fortune by the sale
of
opera-glasses.
Midnight arrived, and the enthusiasm showed no signs of
diminution.
It spread equally among all classes of citizens-- men of
science,
shopkeepers, merchants, porters, chair-men, as well as
"greenhorns,"
were stirred in their innermost fibres. A national
enterprise was
at stake. The whole city, high and low, the quays
bordering the
Patapsco, the ships lying in the basins, disgorged a crowd
drunk
with joy, gin, and whisky. Every one chattered, argued,
discussed,
disputed, applauded, from the gentleman lounging upon the
barroom
settee with his tumbler of sherry-cobbler before him down to
the
waterman who got drunk upon his "knock-me-down" in the dingy
taverns
of Fell Point.
About two A.M., however, the excitement began to
subside.
President Barbicane reached his house, bruised, crushed,
and
squeezed almost to a mummy. Hercules could not have
resisted a
similar outbreak of enthusiasm. The crowd gradually
deserted
the squares and streets. The four railways from
Philadelphia
and Washington, Harrisburg and Wheeling, which converge at
Baltimore, whirled away the heterogeneous population to the
four
corners of the United States, and the city subsided into
comparative tranquility.
On the following day, thanks to the telegraphic wires,
five
hundred newspapers and journals, daily, weekly, monthly, or
bi-monthly, all took up the question. They examined it
under
all its different aspects, physical, meteorological,
economical,
or moral, up to its bearings on politics or civilization.
They debated whether the moon was a finished world, or
whether
it was destined to undergo any further transformation.
Did it
resemble the earth at the period when the latter was
destitute
as yet of an atmosphere? What kind of spectacle would its
hidden
hemisphere present to our terrestrial spheroid? Granting
that
the question at present was simply that of sending a
projectile
up to the moon, every one must see that that involved the
commencement of a series of experiments. All must hope
that
some day America would penetrate the deepest secrets of
that
mysterious orb; and some even seemed to fear lest its
conquest
should not sensibly derange the equilibrium of Europe.
The project once under discussion, not a single
paragraph
suggested a doubt of its realization. All the papers,
pamphlets, reports-- all the journals published by the
scientific, literary, and religious societies enlarged upon
its
advantages; and the Society of Natural History of Boston,
the
Society of Science and Art of Albany, the Geographical and
Statistical Society of New York, the Philosophical Society
of
Philadelphia, and the Smithsonian of Washington sent
innumerable
letters of congratulation to the Gun Club, together with
offers
of immediate assistance and money.
From that day forward Impey Barbicane became one of the
greatest
citizens of the United States, a kind of Washington of
science.
A single trait of feeling, taken from many others, will serve
to
show the point which this homage of a whole people to a
single
individual attained.
Some few days after this memorable meeting of the Gun Club,
the
manager of an English company announced, at the Baltimore
theatre, the production of "Much ado about Nothing." But
the
populace, seeing in that title an allusion damaging to
Barbicane's project, broke into the auditorium, smashed the
benches, and compelled the unlucky director to alter his
playbill.
Being a sensible man, he bowed to the public will and
replaced
the offending comedy by "As you like it"; and for many weeks
he
realized fabulous profits.
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