A PREFACE AND AN APOLOGY. 
17 
as I had before felt impatient to feel them on. I didn’t 
believe as much in flying after I tried it as I did before : 
and I haven’t hankered much after it ever flnce. 
There are, no doubt, a good many four-fquare fort of 
people in the world who will fay that after fuch an ex¬ 
periment I fhould have turned my back on the dragon¬ 
fly. I did not do it right off”, but I did after a while; 
and I am afraid that the mortification of my failure when 
the horfes witnefled my defeat may have had fomething 
to do with it ; partly this, I think, and partly the con¬ 
viction felt by me that others more favourably conditioned 
for the work than myfelf were fure to accomplifli it; for 
the mind of the world had become greatly ftirred up on 
the fubjeCt of “ Aerial Navigation ” flnce my thoughts 
had been firft turned towards it. 
From the hour when I gave up thinking about flying, 
I flaw no more dragon-flies. From this hour, too, mif- 
fortunes began. The man known as cc the lucky ” be¬ 
came the moft unlucky of mortals : matters proceeding 
from bad to worfe, until I found myfelf reduced to the 
mental ftate of the afflicted Job, and the defpairing con¬ 
dition of Jonah in the belly of the whale. 
How it happened I cannot exaCtly fay, nor would it 
matter if I could, that one day in converfation with a 
friend, a devout believer in the neceflity and certainty of 
air-navigation, I was fuddenly imprefled t q fay to him, 
<c Lyman ! it juft occurs to me that my paft feven years of 
c 
