"Balloon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... flicker of bitter humor when she compared her moment of sentiment to a toy balloon pulled down from the blue ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... tall, certainly," said Sir Chetwynd, surveying his paunch, which lolled comfortably, and as it were by itself, in front of him, like a kind of waistcoated air-balloon. "I grant you they are tall. That is, the majority of them are. But I have seen short men among them. The Khedive is not taller than I am. And the Egyptian face is very deceptive. The features are often fine,— occasionally classic,—but intelligent expression ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... then, was Savareen? Had he sunk into the bowels of the earth, or gone up, black mare and all, in a balloon? Of course it was all nonsense about the landlord having passed him on the road without seeing or hearing anything of him. But what other explanation did the circumstances admit of? At any rate, there was nothing for Lapierre to do but ride back to Savareen's ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... wings from his coat-tails, he spread them as wide as possible and then jumped from the car of the balloon. ...
— The Woggle-Bug Book • L. Frank Baum
... The balloon will be filled and ready for the start about the middle of June, when Mr. Andree and his companions will ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 30, June 3, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... flying. Ever since God created man, man has been trying to learn how to fly, but always, until of recent years, he has suffered the sad fate of 'Darius Green and His Flying Machine.' For many centuries man has been impatient because he has had to stay down on earth or else go up in a clumsy balloon, which is not a flying machine at all! But, at last, he has made for himself a machine which he calls the aeroplane and the tedious problem has been solved quite satisfactorily, so that we now hear a great deal about monoplanes and biplanes, all of which are classed ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... a red balloon, or maybe a blue one. Which goes up the highest, Bunny?" For, just then a man walked past, with many balloons, blue, red, green and ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... the personality: the keen, eccentric character which took to balloons just after the Montgolfiers, and fell with his balloon into the North Sea, wrote his Treatise on the use of such instruments in War, and was never happy unless he was seeing or doing something—preferably under arms. And in every sentence also there is that curious directness of statement ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... considerable variety in our rambles. We shall walk about familiar places, and we shall explore streets and houses that have been buried for centuries. We shall go down deep into the earth, and we shall float in a balloon, high up into the air. We shall see many beasts of the forest; some that are bloody and cruel, and others that are gentle and wise. We will meet with birds, fishes, grand old buildings, fleas, vast woods, ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... island with a big hole in the middle that seems to lead to the centre of the earth," was the answer. "I have a fancy we can explore that by means of a balloon. I'm going ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... him from her so violently that he tumbled backward down the steps to the very bottom, where, unnerved by the ferocity of the attack and his head bruised by the fall, he felt his consciousness escape like gas from a punctured balloon. When found the next morning, he was barely covered by the old sin-eater's rags, while near by was scattered the entire orchestra of that eloquent wizard. Shudderingly he realized that it had been no dream; shudderingly he wondered if upon his soul had been shifted the ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... v. loon. Lowp, v. loup. Lowse, louse, to untie, let loose. Lucky, a grandmother, an old woman; an ale wife. Lug, the ear. Lugget, having ears. Luggie, a porringer. Lum, the chimney. Lume, a loom. Lunardi, a balloon bonnet. Lunches, full portions. Lunt, a column of smoke or steam. Luntin, smoking. Luve, love. Lyart, gray in general; discolored by decay or old ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... dresses just as much as you do," went on Miss Priscilla, more confidently; "but when I thought of allowing Mis' Snow to slash into that beautiful silk and just waste it on those great balloon sleeves, I—I simply couldn't give my consent!—and 'tisn't as though we hadn't ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... seven by seven feet, or more, of balloon silk, water-proof cloth, or even heavy unbleached sheeting, will be found most useful in camp. Sew strong tape strings at the four corners and at intervals along the sides for tying to shelters, etc. The water-proof cloth will serve as a ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... or a horizontal motion, and several strengthening keels that prevent leeway when turning. They are entirely on the principle of birds, maintaining themselves mechanically, and differing thus from the unwieldy balloon. Starting as if on a circular railway, against the wind, they rise to a considerable height, and then, shutting off the batteries, coast down the aerial slope at a rate that sometimes touches five hundred miles an hour. When near the ground the helmsman ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... effect on health. At considerable elevations the diminished pressure frequently causes a great feeling of malaise, giddiness, loss of strength, palpitation, and even nausea; and at greater heights, as was noticed by Mr. Glaisher in a very lofty balloon ascent, loss of sight, feeling, and consciousness. These were caused by a want of a sufficient supply of oxygen to remove effete matters from the system, and to carry on the organic functions necessary for the maintenance of life. On elevated ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... interior, with a train of a hundred and thirty natives, and had brought out the heads of forty different species, including a bongo—which the Baron did not get! He met another who had helped to organize a balloon club, and two twenty-four-hour trips in the clouds. (This, by the way, was the latest sport—at Tuxedo they had races between balloons and automobiles; and Montague met one young lady who boasted that she had been up five ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... and were charged only 25 cents for both. Went to enquire about the Frankford stage which leaves at nine. Went into a large Quakers' meeting house—both Pilling and John Wood in town, but could not manage to meet them. Visited the Exchange, a handsome edifice built of white marble. Another balloon in the sky. ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... outside her range of vision. "I don't LIKE having you sit where I can't see you," she said crossly. "Freud may have thought it was a good idea, but I think it's a lousy one." She clenched her hands and stared at nothing. The silence stretched thinner and thinner, like a balloon blown big, until the temptation to rupture it was too great to resist. "I didn't see the truck this morning. Nor hear it. There was no reason at all for me to slow down ...
— The Sound of Silence • Barbara Constant
... represented with such realism; the serpent hissing between the lips of Envy is so huge, and so completely fills her wide-opened mouth that the muscles of her face are strained and contorted, like a child's who is filling a balloon with his breath, and that Envy, and we ourselves for that matter, when we look at her, since all her attention and ours are concentrated on the action of her lips, have no time, almost, to ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... draw them to camp rapidly. Next, you need a fire. There are fifty hard, resinous limbs sticking up from the prone hemlock; lop off a few of these and split the largest into match timber; reduce the splinters to shavings, scrape the wet leaves from your prospective fireplace and strike a match on the balloon part of your trousers. If you are a woodsman you will strike but one. Feed the fire slowly at first; it will gain fast. When you have a blaze ten feet high, look at your watch. It is 6 P.M. You don't want to turn in before 10 o'clock and you have four hours to kill before ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... tremendous speed and force as to be as little affected by the winds as a cannon ball. In fact, unless the wind is directly ahead the sails of the craft are so set as to take advantage of it like the sails of a ship; and the balloon rises or falls, as the birds do, by the angle at which it is placed to the wind, the stream of air forcing it up, or pressing it down, as the case may be. And just as the old-fashioned steam-ships were provided with boats, in which the passengers were ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... sways idly to the push of some explicable submarine current. It is like being in a captive balloon, except that the connecting cable extends stiffly upward instead ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... I'm predictin' to you! If you don't wish the devil had ye before you're done with that old balloon with a plug hat on it in your judges' stand, then I'll trot an exhibition half mile on my hands and knees against Star Pointer for a bag of oats. And I'm speakin' for all the hossmen in ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... improved aesthetically by the shells knocking the ugly points of the towers off. Here is a picture of Rheims Cathedral looming through the fog, as seen from the German lines. I painted this picture of the battle of the Aisne from a captive balloon. Here is a picture of the surrender of Maubeuge, showing two of the 40,000 French prisoners. I can usually paint better during a battle because there's nobody looking on over my shoulder to distract my attention. ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... one day into the outer grounds to see a new carriage, capable, according to its arrangement, of containing from two to eight persons, and a balloon of great size and new construction which Davilo had urgently counselled me to procure, as capable of sudden use in some of those daily thickening perils, of which I could see no other sign than occasional evidence that my steps were watched and dogged. ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... and, to Jane's horror, flung herself down on the floor and burst into floods of tears. Jane did not understand at all how a person could be so brave and like a general, and then suddenly give way and go flat like an air-balloon when you prick it. It is better not to go flat, of course, but you will observe that Anthea did not give way till her aim was accomplished. She had got the dear Lamb out of danger—she felt certain that the Red Indians would be round the White House or nowhere—the farmer's ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... Lunardi make the first ascent in a balloon, which had been witnessed in England. It was from the Artillery ground. Fox was there with his brother, General F. The crowd was immense. Fox, happening to put his hand down to his watch, found another hand upon it, which he immediately ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... and there was his schoolmate, who said that "America was discovered by British Columbia." There was old Mullinger of Earl Soham, who thought it "wrong of fooks to go up in a ballune, as that fare {33} so bumptious to the Almighty." There was the actual balloon, which had gone up somewhere in the West of England, and which came down in (I think) the neighbouring parish of Bedfield. As it floated over Monk Soham, the aeronaut shouted, "Where am I?" to some harvesters, who, standing in a row, their forefingers pointed at him, ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... Fall River they got two popular stores to wrap a colored flier in every parcel. In Taunton they had an evening band concert on the Common, accompanied with red fire and speeches. In Lawrence Miss Foley made a balloon ascension and showered down rainbow literature upon an eager crowd. Several times the women spoke from the vaudeville stage and showed colored lantern slides. They spoke in parks and pleasure resorts and outside ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... No one paid any attention to her. The high road before her door stretched to right and left with hardly any passersby. Occasionally a dogcart passed rapidly, driven by a red-faced man, with his blouse puffed out by the wind, making a sort of blue balloon; sometimes a slow-moving wagon, or else two peasants, a man and a woman, who came near, passed by, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... of the model. The difficulties encountered in its construction are few and easily overcome. In the first place, the cork must be air-tight, and it is best made so by pouring a little melted paraffin over it, care being taken not to close the tube. The rubber bags were taken from toy balloon-whistles. ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... foresight). Indeed, so flushed and riotous can the Scottish mind become over a commercial prospect that it sometimes sends native caution by the board, and a man's really fine idea becomes an empty balloon, to carry him off to the limbo of vanities. There is a megalomaniac in every parish of Scotland. Well, not so much as that; they're owre canny for that to be said of them. But in every district almost ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... the intrepid Bolivar mounting still higher; but the hero of Spanish-American independence returns a defeated man. Last of all comes the philosophic Boussingault, and attains the prodigious elevation of nineteen thousand six hundred feet—the highest point reached by man without the aid of a balloon; but the dome remains unsullied by his foot. Yet none of these facts increase our admiration. The mountain has a tongue which speaks louder ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... a bit of stick 100 feet aloft for hours at a time, swiftly sailing over the sea, is very much like crossing the Channel in a balloon. Manfred-like, you talk to the clouds: you have a fellow feeling for the sun. And when Jarl and I got conversing up there, smoking our dwarfish "dudeens," any sea-gull passing by might have taken us for Messrs. Blanchard and Jeffries, socially puffing their after-dinner ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... the girls. In my delirium I could see that my rebel angel was dancing a good deal with the boys, and frequently with my comrade, Jim, and I was pretty jealous. I made up my mind that I wouldn't speak to either of them again. I would watch my balloon battles with a good deal of interest, and think how much better and safer it was to fight that way. Every day, when the battle was over, and the two sides would get together for fun, I noticed when the bugle sounded for battle again, that on each side the boys ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... cheerful-looking boy might have been seen trudging toward one of the railway-stations. A new hat, brave in blue streamers, was on his head; a red balloon struggled to escape from one hand; a shabby carpet-bag, stuffed full, was in the other; and a pair of shiny shoes creaked briskly, as if the feet inside were going ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... and there was a grand wedding, at Grey's Park, and the supper was served on the lawn, where there was a dance, and music, and fireworks in the evening; and Sam Lawton, a half-witted fellow, went up in a balloon, and came down on a pile of rocks on the Jerrold farm, and broke his leg; and people were there from Boston, and Worcester, and Springfield, and New York, but very few from Allington, for the reason that very few were bidden. Could Lucy have had her way, the whole town would have been ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... such forms, a comparatively small and simple one, is drawn for us in Plate M. It will be seen that we have here a shape roughly representing that of a balloon, having a scalloped outline consisting of a double violet line. Within that there is an arrangement of variously-coloured lines moving almost parallel with this outline; and then another somewhat similar arrangement which ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... I have heard news that makes it necessary for me to return. Gambetta has escaped from Paris in a balloon, and is organizing affairs at Tours. We may ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... dancing of the telegraph wires—all these things were against him. His head began to nod and then to jump back with a sudden terrible spring as though an evil demon pulled it with a rope from behind, the carriage swelled like a balloon, then dwindled into a thin, straight line. The strangest things happened to his friends and relations. His mother, who was reading The Church Family Newspaper, developed two faces and a nose like a post, and ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... been turned topsy-turvy in consequence of his flight in the balloon being ascribed to ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... practice of medicine, it is evident from your last two letters that you would have no less objection to any other profession by which money is to be made, and, besides, it is too late to make another selection. This being so, we will come to an understanding in one word: Let the sciences be the balloon in which you prepare to travel through higher regions, but let medicine and surgery be your parachutes. I think, my dear Louis, you cannot object to this way of looking at the question and deciding it. In making my respects to ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... while he displayed some picture or some prospect.' In that humourous piece, Probationary Odes for the Laureateship (p. xliii), Dr. Joseph is made to hug his brother in his arms, when he sees him descend safely from the balloon in which he had composed his Ode. Thomas Warton is described in the same piece (p. 116) as 'a little, thick, squat, red-faced man.' There was for some time a coolness between Johnson and Dr. Warton. Warton, writing on Jan. 22, 1766, says:—'I only dined with Johnson, who seemed cold and indifferent, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... half-past nine dressed-up children were flitting along the side streets hurrying their seniors. On the main thoroughfare flags were flying, and the streams of strangers that had been flowing into town were eddying at the street corners. The balloon-vender wormed his way through the buzzing crowd, leaving his wares in a red and blue trail behind him. The bark of the fakir rasped the tightening nerves of the town. Everywhere was hubbub; everywhere was the dusty, heated air of the festival; ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... growing stuff, like a black balloon. Just over my place the balloon began to sift down a shower of pebbles. Like beans, they were; seeds, rather; for when they hit the ground they ...
— The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds • Francis Flagg
... someone, whose hopes or ambitions would not make him so subject to illusion. He had told his little son, aged five years, to look through the telescope. The child had exclaimed that he had seen "a little balloon" crossing the sun. Scott says that he had not had sufficient self-reliance to make public announcement of his remarkable observation at the time, but that, in the evening of the same day, he had told Dr. Dick, F.R.A.S., who had cited ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... tales, to the Indian mind, seemed an insult to common sense. For some time he was treated merely with ridicule and contempt; but, when, resolutely continuing to recount his adventures, he told them about a balloon, and that he had seen white people, who, by attaching a great ball to a canoe, as he described it, could rise in it up to the clouds, and travel through the heavens, the medicine, or mystery men of his tribe pronounced him to be an impostor; and the multitude vociferously declaring that ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... mouse doesn't go to sleep in the cat's cradle and scare poor pussy so her tail swells up like a balloon, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... to spend money, and Kedzie was now unpractised. Her wisher was so undeveloped that she could only wish for things available to people of moderate affluence. She could not wish for a yacht, because Jim had a yacht. She could not wish for a balloon because she would not go up in it. She could wish for a house, but she could not walk into it without delay. She could not live in two hotels at once. Jewelry she could use in quantities, but even at that she had only so much surface ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... burnt clay, &c., used to form the bed in which the sleepers or ties of a railway track are laid, and also to the sand which a balloonist takes up with him, in order that, by throwing portions of it out of the car from time to time, he may lighten his balloon when he desires to rise to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... as the narrow trail permitted, and thus hurried his arrival at the San Juan, and the formation beyond that stream. A few hundred yards before reaching the San Juan, the road forks, a fact that was discovered by Lieutenant-Colonel Derby of my staff, who had approached well to the front in a war balloon. This information he furnished to the troops, resulting in Sumner moving on the right-hand road while Kent was enabled to utilise the road to the left. General Wheeler, the permanent commander of the cavalry division, who had been ill, came forward during ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... yet appeared upon the earth. The first apparent trend of evolution seemed to be an entirely materialistic reaction. This was due to the fact that believers in the spiritual had identified with their spirituality a great deal that was unnecessary and merely casual. If the balloon on which people mount up above the earth is any such theory as that of the six days' creation, it is easy to see how when that balloon is pricked the spiritual flight of the time appears to have ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... machines Gradual process of invention The human race the true inventor Obscure origin of many inventions Inventions born before their time "Nothing new under the sun" The power of steam known to the ancients Passage from Roger Bacon Old inventions revived Printing Atmospheric locomotion The balloon The reaping machine Tunnels Gunpowder Ancient firearms The steam gun The Congreve rocket Coal-gas Hydropathy Anaesthetic agents The Daguerreotype anticipated The electric telegraph not new Forgotten ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... see McQuill, the reporter of the 'Journal,' and ask him as a particular favor to leave my daughter's name out of his next balloon full of gas!" laughed the judge, as ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... we had a fine run, scouring the country on our fleet horses, and came into town soon after sundown. Here we found our companions, who had refused to go to ride with us, thinking that a sailor has no more business with a horse than a fish has with a balloon. They were moored, stem and stern, in a grog-shop, making a great noise, with a crowd of Indians and hungry half-breeds about them, and with a fair prospect of being stripped and dirked, or left to pass the night in ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... though she saw it only in the germ. But as the Greeks beheld a Persephone and Athene in the passing stranger, and ennobled humanity into ideal beauty, Margaret saw all her friends thus idealized. She was a balloon of sufficient power to take us all up with her into the serene depth of heaven, where she loved to float, far above the low details of earthly life. Earth lay beneath us as a lovely picture,—its sounds came up mellowed ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... century. Since that time there has been almost constant progress in the science of this great force, until at the present time it is handled, controlled and understood in its phenomena almost as easily as water is poured into a vessel, air compressed under a piston, or hydrogen made to inflate a balloon. ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... awakened. It seemed as though a change had taken place in the motion of the schooner, which was sliding along on the surface of the quiet sea, with a slight list to starboard. And yet, there was neither rolling nor pitching. Yes, I felt myself carried off as though my bunk were the car of an air-balloon. I was not mistaken, and I had fallen ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... afford to be in the fashion at very trifling charges. Miss Emily Ponto at the piano, and her sister Maria at that somewhat exploded instrument, the harp, were in light blue dresses that looked all flounce, and spread out like Mr. Green's balloon when inflated. ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Louvre to the Hotel de Ville, the spectacle was really fairy-like. Napoleon and Marie Louise, starting from Saint Cloud at eight in the evening, made their way, in torchlight, through a countless multitude. Their approach was announced to the people by the sudden ascent of a balloon, from which fireworks were discharged. At half-past nine they reached the Hotel de Ville. Nearly a thousand persons had gathered in the concert hall, almost three thousand in the record room, the Hall of Saint John, and in the semicircular place ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... Joseph himself, who is personally running about in these parts, over in Bohemia, endeavoring to bring Army matters to a footing; and is no doubt shocked to find them still in such backwardness, with a Friedrich at hand. The Kaiser's Letter, we perceive, is pilot-balloon to the Kaunitz episcopal Document, and to an actual meeting of Prussian and Austrian Ministers on the Bavarian point; and had been seen to be a salutary measure by an Austria in alarm. It asks, as the Kaunitz Memorial will, though in another style, "Must ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... from our present topic, it is worth noting that Windham may claim to have anticipated Monsieur Gambetta as a statesman voyaging in a balloon. Ballooning was a hobby of Windham's. He was a regular attendant of ascents, and inspected curiously the early aerial machines of Blanchard and Lunardi. Something surprised at his own temerity, he travelled the air himself, rose in a balloon—probably ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... just as certain as the morning's dawn. We were to have a gala day, indeed. There were to be processions and parades; A great oration in a mammoth tent, With dinner following, and toast and speech By all the wordy magnates of the town; A grand balloon ascension afterwards; And, in the evening, fireworks on the hill. I knew that drink would flow from morn till night In a wild maelstrom, circling slow around The village rim, in bright careering waves, But growing turbulent, and changed to ink Around the village ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... at him, but one eye can be so much more terrible than two, that plop, plop, plop came the balloon softly down the steps of the throne and at the foot shrank pitifully, as if ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... float in water if its gravity is less than that of water; for example, wood floats for this reason in water, and a balloon ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... at Ranelagh, and in 1790 a magnificent display of fireworks, at which the numbers in attendance reached high-water mark, numbering between 3,000 and 4,000 exclusive of free admissions. In 1802 an aeronaut ascended from the gardens in a balloon, and the last public entertainment was a ball given by the Knights of the Bath in 1803. The following year the gardens were closed. Sir Richard Phillips, writing in 1817, says that he could then trace the circular foundation of the rotunda, ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton
... balloon and sailed up and up and up, in front of a map that was as big as Rhode Island. He went on up till he was out of sight, and by and by he came down and got something to eat and went up again. To cut a long story short, he kept on doing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... one moment. The 'live thing' in the tree was a captive balloon. The box on the ground was a battery. The wire from the battery was connected with a firework bomb, which, when Tuxall pressed the switch, exploded, releasing a flaming 'dropper.' About the time the 'dropper' reached the earth Tuxall lighted up his well-oiled ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... was he free from credulity? A German by the name of Leppich constructed, secretly, in one of the gardens of Moscow, a balloon by means of which the French army should be covered with fire, and some historians say that Rostopchine was one of the most enthusiastic admirers ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... very pretty monsters: (1) an embryo in the form of a balloon on four feet; (2) a death's head emanating from an ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... again. To us it may seem a rather childish exhibition; but it must be remembered that these sailors were unwillingly embarked upon a voyage which they believed would only lead to death and disaster. The bravest of us to-day, if he found himself press-ganged on board a balloon and embarked upon a journey, the object of which was to land upon Mars or the moon, might find it difficult to preserve his composure on losing sight of the earth; and the parallel is not too extreme to indicate the light in which their present enterprise must ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... town. The island was perhaps a mile in length. Between it and the mainland a boat was coming toward us. It was a dark blob of hull on the shining water, and above it a queerly shaped circular sail was puffed out, like a balloon parachute, by the wind. ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... front at once, eager for service, for the war between the States had begun. He was made bearer of despatches by General Scott; he fought at Bull Run as lieutenant in the Second United States Cavalry, to which he had been assigned; he conducted successfully balloon reconnoissance along the Confederate lines, and so inspired General McClellan by his energy, courage, and persistence that he was appointed aide-de-camp to the general, with the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... ton or two of dynamite by means of a clock work attachment. The inventor had all the minor details very plausibly worked out, such as locating by means of pilot balloons the air currents at the proper height for the large balloons, automatic arrangements for keeping the balloon at the proper height after it was let go from the vessel, and so on. His scheme is nothing but the idea of the drifting or current torpedo, which was so popular during our war, transferred to the upper air. An automatic flying machine would be one step farther ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... even brave Sir Sidney turns a little as the boat reaches the doomed ship, and the men are seen clambering up her sides. At that dreadful moment a huge cloud of smoke, balloon shaped, rises high above the Desespere, a sheet of flame shoots into the air, and yards, and masts, and spars, and men are seen high above all. A sound far louder than thunder shakes the Pride from stern to stern. Sir Sidney presses his hand to his ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... I said, "I find my discovery has amplified itself. When I was here it was of small dimensions. Now it has grown to the proportions of a—well, a balloon," I ended. ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... first record which we have of the restoration of the dead to life in the Bible; and it is the first also of any one ascending into heaven "in a chariot of fire with horses of fire." Probably Elijah knew how to construct a balloon. Much of the ascending and the descending of seers, of angels and of prophets which astonished the ignorant was accomplished in balloons—a lost art for many centuries. No doubt that the poor widow, when she saw Elijah ascend, thought that he went straight to heaven, though in all probability ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... that sails in a balloon Down looking sees the solid shining ground Stream from beneath him in the broad blue noon,— ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... what you say! You speak of musicians and swine in the same breath. It is true. You ought to know, who wave the baton over them year in and year out. They rise like a balloon and then ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... The balloon of swollen conjecture floated over the back of the Front until it was destroyed by the quick-fire of authentic orders, which necessarily revealed much of the plan and many of the methods. On the afternoon ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... those facts, be the true means thereunto, remains to be proved. Science has been soaring in search of facts; for the committee appointed to manage the Kew Observatory, thinking that the phenomena of meteorology would answer further questioning, have sent up a balloon, with instruments and observers, to make a series of observations. The temperature was read off from highly sensitive thermometers at each minute during the ascent, so as to ascertain the difference of the heat of successive strata of the atmosphere, and the rate of variation. In the first flight, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... my thoughts about the generation of light air, which I, indeed, once saw produced, but I was at the height of my great complaint. I have made inquiry, and shall soon be able to tell you how to fill a balloon. I ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... State, with anxious head out of his carriage window, scowling because you don't come along! Admirable occasions for pledging passion and life-long devotion! Dear Harlan, your ingenuity must be puzzled by this time. I'll make a suggestion: fly over our house in a balloon and shout your declaration down the chimney. I'll sit in the fireplace from ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... "gringos" could ever fathom; or perhaps stepped a grave, formal sort of dance. Senora Morena, the only woman, would sometimes join in this. She was a large woman, but extraordinarily light on her feet. In fact, as she swayed and balanced opposite her partner she reminded me of nothing so much as a balloon ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... Potsdam, or Wilhelmshoehe; or with a long stride finds himself on the docks at Hamburg or Bremen, or beside the Kiel Canal, or in Kiel harbor facing a fleet of war-ships; or he lifts his eyes into the air to see a dirigible balloon returning from a voyage of two hundred and fifty miles toward London over the North Sea, and the Emperor is there. Is it the palace hidden in its shrubbery in the country; is it the clean, broad streets and decorations of the capital; ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... (a species of Empis) has been described which excites the female by manipulating a large balloon. "This is of elliptical shape, about seven millimeters long (nearly twice as long as the fly), hollow, and composed entirely of a single layer of minute bubbles, nearly uniform in size, arranged in regular circles concentric with the axis of the structure. The beautiful, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... rubber is forced through a die. Rubber bands are made by cementing a sheet of rubber into a tube and then cutting them off at whatever width may be desired. Toy balloons are made of such rubber. Two pieces are stamped out and joined by a particularly noisy machine, and then the balloon is blown ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... inflating balloons. Illuminating gas, which is usually employed for want of something better, is sensibly denser than hydrogen and possesses less ascensional force, whence the necessity of lightening the balloon or of increasing its volume. Such inconveniences become serious with dirigible balloons, whose surface, on the contrary, it is necessary to diminish as much as possible. When the increasing interest taken in aerostation at Paris was observed, an assured annual output of some ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... inscription was carved, stands, or stood recently, near Collier's End, in the parish of Standon, Hertfordshire; and it will possibly afford the English reader a more accurate idea of the feelings with which the world hailed the discovery of the balloon than any incident or illustration drawn from the annals ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... varies the type of aviation," he continued dreamily. "Now, the pigeon is, of course, a Zeppelin; whereas the sea urchin is obviously a balloon; and the ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... performance of Chopin's works pleasing it is sufficient to play them with less precision of rhythm than the music of other composers. I, on the contrary, do not know a single phrase of Chopin's works—including even the freest among them—in which the balloon of inspiration, as it moves through the air, is not checked by an anchor of rhythm and symmetry. Such passages as occur in the F minor Ballade, the B flat minor Scherzo—the middle part—the F minor Prelude, and even the A flat Impromptu, are not devoid of ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... that tapestry fell from the walls, shrunk like a pricked balloon and landed in miniature on chairs, sofas ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... down and show what you can do," says he. 'You've got gas enough for a balloon ascension, but that may be all there is ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... living in tents for?" asked the student as he pointed back to Red Owl, now considerably below them, and which presented a panorama of balloon-frame houses, mostly innocent of paint, with a sprinkling of tents pitched here and there among the trees; on lots not yet redeemed from virgin wildness, but which possessed the remarkable quality of "fetching" prices that would have done honor ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... found a nice grassplot, at one side of which I took my stand; and all things being prepared, I tossed the kite up just as little John ran off. It rose with all the dignity of a balloon, and promised a lofty flight; but John, delighted to find it pulling so hard at the string, stopped short to look upward and admire. The string slackened, the kite wavered, and, the wind not being very favorable, down came the kite to the grass. ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... a dandy car, all right," he said, "and he may be able to swim and ride the way he says he does, but I can beat him out on one point. I can pilot a plane, and I have been up in an observation balloon. I wonder what he would look like up in the air. I bet he ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... midnight, when all eyes were directed to a ball of fire, which, rising majestically upward, soared amid the tall elm trees. For a moment, the balloon became entangled in the boughs, revealing by its transparent light the green buds of spring, which variegated and cheered the scathed bark. It broke loose from their embrace—hovered irresolutely above them—then swept rapidly ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... been surpris'd to spy You on an auld wife's flannen toy; [flannel cap] Or aiblins some bit duddie boy, [perhaps, ragged] On's wyliecoat; [undervest] But Miss's fine Lunardi! fie, [balloon bonnet] ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... the big tail," explained Sue, "and that's why I thought maybe it was a cat. A cat's tail always swells up like a long balloon whenever it sees a dog. But ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on an Auto Tour • Laura Lee Hope
... him "Uncle" because of his shock of white hair. The Highland division, under his command, fought many battles and gained great honor, even from the enemy, who feared them and called the kilted men "the ladies from hell." It was to them the Germans sent their message in a small balloon during the retreat from the Somme: "Poor old 51st. Still sticking ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... backwards and forwards in the room, "this is folly and madness. For me, a humble clerk, to connect myself, even in imagination, with her! What have I to offer her? Or what even in prospect? I have been sailing in the clouds, and my tattered balloon is precipitated to the earth—I have been dreaming. How delicious was the dream! But I am now awake, and will never expose myself to the mortification of ——. I have been foolish. No, not so; for, who could come within the range of such fascinations, and not be charmed? ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... that sight the town is all astir. Fishermen shake themselves up out of their mid-day snooze, to admire the beauty, as she slips on and on through water smooth as glass, her hull hidden by the vast curve of the balloon-jib, and her broad wings boomed out alow and aloft, till it seems marvellous how that vast screen does not topple headlong, instead of floating (as it seems) self-supporting above its image in the mirror. Women hurry to put on their best bonnets; ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... threw in the clutch and the car started, the girl blew a shower of sparks from the end of her cigarette, rose in her seat, and flung the lighted cigarette high into the air. Instantly it burst into a flare of crimson fire, hanging aloft as though it were a fire balloon, and lighting up road and creek and bushes and fields ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... between heat and electricity, between heat and cold, and the comparative effects of each, are discussed; and incidentally, interesting accounts are given of the mode of formation of glaciers, of Montgolfier's balloon, of Davy's safety-lamp, of the methods of glass-blowing, and of numerous other facts in nature and processes in art dependent upon the influence of heat. Like the other volumes of the Library of Wonders, this is illustrated wherever the text gives an opportunity ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... not with her. Now and then she invites some poor neighbor, she takes some young sempstress or worsted-worker to town to do her shopping, she carries the tired housewife to see her mother, she asks three little girls—somewhat crowded but rapturously happy—three miles to see the balloon that has alighted on the hill; she drives a widowed old mother-in-Israel to a tea-drinking of which she would otherwise be deprived. These are not charities. They are courtesies, and this bright-faced girl is sunshine in her ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... themselves wholeheartedly to the children, and if they set them romping till they are tired out, so much the better. In the garden or in an airy room with the windows open, a game with a ball or a toy balloon, or a game of hide-and-seek, will be all to the good, and the children may climb and be rolled over and swung about to their heart's content. With an only child, especially with a child whose home is in town, and whose outings are limited to a sedate airing in the park, such free ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... number, were led through divers passages and courts to the very front of the burning pile—blazing pile, we should say. There it stood before him, in all its solemn and sombre Eastern beauty—cupolas, minarets, domes, balloon-shaped spires, but the flames had seized a firm hold of the lower halls, and were bursting through the windows, adding a ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... table, always wanted to travel and see the world, but he did not know how to start. Until, all of a sudden, a diamond ring was hidden in his leg and a balloon carried him off ...
— The Story of a Plush Bear • Laura Lee Hope
... see the formation very well from the sea, Dick. If one were in a balloon it would be different. You must remember that there are many hundreds of islands scattered in that part of ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... scarce possible to talk of a paper kite, without thinking of that other and greater aerostatic contrivance—a balloon. ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... us! Though this is real home, our first waking to perception and naughtiness, it is more than Vale Leston. We seem to have been up in a balloon all those five ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... not reason as I do in regard to this gravel," he went on, "I should have to assume a balloon!—My dear fellow, the science of the aerostation of dirigible balloons is not yet developed enough for me to consider it and suppose that a murderer would drop from the clouds! So don't say a thing is possible, when ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... few of the peculiarities of the London multitude, when no riot, no execution, no murder, no balloon, disturbs the even current of their thoughts. These are the whimseys of the mass - the harmless follies by which they unconsciously endeavour to lighten the load of care which presses upon their existence. The wise man, even though he smile at them, will not ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... "The army is betrayed, the victory is ours, and yet we must resign it. Adieu, thou glorious land, thou garden of Europe, the house of Austria bids thee eternally adieu!" The French had, before and during the action, made use of a balloon for the purpose of watching the movements of ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... Balloon service from Paris Bapauine, battle of Barry, General Battues for deserters Bazaine, Marshal Beauce country Beaumont, fight at Beaune-la-Rolande, battle of Belfort, siege of Bellemare, General Carre de Bellenger, ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly |
