CHAPTER III
EFFECT OF THE PRESIDENT'S COMMUNICATION
It is impossible to describe the effect produced by the lastwords of the honorable president-- the cries, the shouts, thesuccession of roars, hurrahs, and all the varied vociferationswhich the American language is capable of supplying. It was ascene of indescribable confusion and uproar. They shouted, theyclapped, they stamped on the floor of the hall. All the weaponsin the museum discharged at once could not have more violently setin 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 enthusiasticclamor; perhaps he was desirous of addressing a few more wordsto 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 presentlytorn from his seat and passed from the hands of his faithfulcolleagues into the arms of a no less excited crowd.
Nothing can astound an American. It has often been assertedthat the word "impossible" in not a French one. People haveevidently been deceived by the dictionary. In America, all iseasy, all is simple; and as for mechanical difficulties, theyare overcome before they arise. Between Barbicane's propositionand its realization no true Yankee would have allowed even thesemblance of a difficulty to be possible. A thing with them isno sooner said than done.
The triumphal progress of the president continued throughoutthe evening. It was a regular torchlight procession. Irish, Germans,French, Scotch, all the heterogeneous units which make up thepopulation of Maryland shouted in their respective vernaculars;and the "vivas," "hurrahs," and "bravos" were intermingled ininexpressible enthusiasm.
Just at this crisis, as though she comprehended all thisagitation regarding herself, the moon shone forth withserene splendor, eclipsing by her intense illumination all thesurrounding lights. The Yankees all turned their gaze towardher resplendent orb, kissed their hands, called her by all kindsof endearing names. Between eight o'clock and midnight oneoptician in Jones'-Fall Street made his fortune by the sale ofopera-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 wasat stake. The whole city, high and low, the quays bordering thePatapsco, the ships lying in the basins, disgorged a crowd drunkwith joy, gin, and whisky. Every one chattered, argued, discussed,disputed, applauded, from the gentleman lounging upon the barroomsettee with his tumbler of sherry-cobbler before him down to thewaterman who got drunk upon his "knock-me-down" in the dingy tavernsof Fell Point.
About two A.M., however, the excitement began to subside.President Barbicane reached his house, bruised, crushed, andsqueezed almost to a mummy. Hercules could not have resisted asimilar outbreak of enthusiasm. The crowd gradually desertedthe squares and streets. The four railways from Philadelphiaand Washington, Harrisburg and Wheeling, which converge atBaltimore, whirled away the heterogeneous population to the fourcorners of the United States, and the city subsided intocomparative tranquility.
On the following day, thanks to the telegraphic wires, fivehundred newspapers and journals, daily, weekly, monthly, orbi-monthly, all took up the question. They examined it underall 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 whetherit was destined to undergo any further transformation. Did itresemble the earth at the period when the latter was destituteas yet of an atmosphere? What kind of spectacle would its hiddenhemisphere present to our terrestrial spheroid? Granting thatthe question at present was simply that of sending a projectileup to the moon, every one must see that that involved thecommencement of a series of experiments. All must hope thatsome day America would penetrate the deepest secrets of thatmysterious orb; and some even seemed to fear lest its conquestshould not sensibly derange the equilibrium of Europe.
The project once under discussion, not a single paragraphsuggested a doubt of its realization. All the papers,pamphlets, reports-- all the journals published by thescientific, literary, and religious societies enlarged upon itsadvantages; and the Society of Natural History of Boston, theSociety of Science and Art of Albany, the Geographical andStatistical Society of New York, the Philosophical Society ofPhiladelphia, and the Smithsonian of Washington sent innumerableletters of congratulation to the Gun Club, together with offersof immediate assistance and money.
From that day forward Impey Barbicane became one of the greatestcitizens of the United States, a kind of Washington of science.A single trait of feeling, taken from many others, will serve toshow the point which this homage of a whole people to a singleindividual attained.
Some few days after this memorable meeting of the Gun Club, themanager of an English company announced, at the Baltimoretheatre, the production of "Much ado about Nothing." But thepopulace, seeing in that title an allusion damaging toBarbicane's project, broke into the auditorium, smashed thebenches, and compelled the unlucky director to alter his playbill.Being a sensible man, he bowed to the public will and replacedthe offending comedy by "As you like it"; and for many weeks herealized fabulous profits.