The Coming of Blériot

(July, 1909.)

The telephone bell rings with the petulant persistence that marks a
trunk call, and I go in from some ineffectual gymnastics on the lawn to
deal with the irruption. There is the usual trouble in connecting up,
minute voices in Folkestone and Dover and London call to one another and
are submerged by buzzings and throbbings. Then in elfin tones the real
message comes through: "Blériot has crossed the Channel.... An article
... about what it means."

I make a hasty promise and go out and tell my friends.

From my garden I look straight upon the Channel, and there are white
caps upon the water, and the iris and tamarisk are all asway with the
south-west wind that was also blowing yesterday. M. Blériot has done
very well, and Mr. Latham, his rival, had jolly bad luck. That is what
it means to us first of all. It also, I reflect privately, means that I
have under-estimated the possible stability of aeroplanes. I did not
expect anything of the sort so soon. This is a good five years before my
reckoning of the year before last.

We all, I think, regret that being so near we were not among the
fortunate ones who saw that little flat shape skim landward out of the
blue; surely they have an enviable memory; and then we fell talking and
disputing about what that swift arrival may signify. It starts a swarm
of questions.

First one remarks that here is a thing done, and done with an
astonishing effect of ease, that was incredible not simply to ignorant
people but to men well informed in these matters. It cannot be fifteen
years ago since Sir Hiram Maxim made the first machine that could lift
its weight from the ground, and I well remember how the clumsy quality
of that success confirmed the universal doubt that men could ever in any
effectual manner fly.

Since then a conspiracy of accidents has changed the whole problem; the
bicycle and its vibrations developed the pneumatic tyre, the pneumatic
tyre rendered a comfortable mechanically driven road vehicle possible,
the motor-car set an enormous premium on the development of very light,
very efficient engines, and at last the engineer was able to offer the
experimentalists in gliding one strong enough and light enough for the
new purpose. And here we are! Or, rather, M. Blériot is!

What does it mean for us?

One meaning, I think, stands out plainly enough, unpalatable enough to
our national pride. This thing from first to last was made abroad. Of
all that made it possible we can only claim so much as is due to the
improvement of the bicycle. Gliding began abroad while our young men of
muscle and courage were braving the dangers of the cricket field. The
motor-car and its engine was