16 A PREFACE AND AN APOLOGY. 
one (landing in an attitude of trembling fear, and ready 
for a bolt at a moment’s notice, but filled with fo much 
curiofity as to compel them all the time to draw nearer 
and nearer. There was fomething marvelloufiy impreflive 
in that night fcene. I never think of it without almoft 
feeling the breath of thofe timid, curious, trembling 
horfes—now approaching, now receding, coming clofe 
up, then galloping away, and then again returning : and 
the folemn miftinefs of the dewy midnight air: the four 
great white wings ! the low tones of the fpeakers : and the 
preparation ! and what was to come of it! the expecta¬ 
tions ! the anticipations ! 
Alas! for the vanities of earth: alas! for human 
intellect! for human mechanifm ! Difappointment! and 
difappointment only. I tried to run down the hill: the 
machinift fupported me on one fide, my brother-in-law 
on the other : we all ran down together as well as we 
could, a fort of partnerfhip and combination fly, the 
courfe downward rather zig-zaggy: and my poor legs! 
I cannot fay which was mod to be pitied, legs or back. 
I thought I had about feventeen hundred pounds of old 
iron on my fhoulders: why my legs did not break in that 
run down hill I don’t know; but the fix-rail fence at the 
bottom of it was not failed over by me as I had feen 
myfelf failing in imagination—nor the next field, nor the 
barn I 
And I felt juft as glad to get “ them ” wings off" again 
