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1EFFECT OF THE PRESIDENT'S COMMUNICATION It is impossible to describe the effect produced by the last words of the
2honorable president--the cries, the shouts, the succession of roars, hurrahs, and all the varied vociferations which the
3American language is capable of supplying. It was a scene of indescribable confusion and uproar. They shouted, they
4clapped, they stamped on the floor of the hall. All the weapons in the museum discharged at once could not have more
5violently set in motion the waves of sound. One need not be surprised at this. There are some cannoneers nearly as noisy
6as their own guns. Barbicane remained calm in the midst of this enthusiastic clamor; perhaps he was desirous of
7addressing a few more words to his colleagues, for by his gestures he demanded silence, and his powerful alarum was worn
8out by its violent reports. No attention, however, was paid to his request. He was presently torn from his seat and
9passed from the hands of his faithful colleagues into the arms of a no less excited crowd. Nothing can astound an
10American. It has often been asserted that the word "impossible" is not a French one. People have evidently been deceived
11by the dictionary. In America, all is easy, all is simple; and as for mechanical difficulties, they are overcome before
12they arise. Between Barbicane's proposition and its realization no true Yankee would have allowed even the semblance of
13a difficulty to be possible. A thing with them is no sooner said than done. The triumphal progress of the president
14continued throughout the evening. It was a regular torchlight procession. Irish, Germans, French, Scotch, all the
15heterogeneous units which make up the population of Maryland shouted in their respective vernaculars; and the "vivas,"
16"hurrahs," and "bravos" were intermingled in inexpressible enthusiasm. Just at this crisis, as though she comprehended
17all this agitation regarding herself, the moon shone forth with serene splendor, eclipsing by her intense illumination
18all the surrounding lights. The Yankees all turned their gaze toward her resplendent orb, kissed their hands, called her
19by all kinds of endearing names. Between eight o'clock and midnight one optician in Jones'-Fall Street made his fortune
20by the sale of opera-glasses. Midnight arrived, and the enthusiasm showed no signs of diminution. It spread equally
21among all classes of citizens--men of science, shopkeepers, merchants, porters, chair-men, as well as "greenhorns," were
22stirred in their innermost fibres. A national enterprise was at stake. The whole city, high and low, the quays bordering
23the Patapsco, the ships lying in the basins, disgorged a crowd drunk with joy, gin, and whisky. Every one chattered,
24argued, discussed, disputed, applauded, from the gentleman lounging upon the barroom settee with his tumbler of
25sherry-cobbler before him down to the waterman who got drunk upon his "knock-me-down" in the dingy taverns of Fell
26Point. About two A.M., however, the excitement began to subside. President Barbicane reached his house, bruised,
27crushed, and squeezed almost to a mummy. Hercules could not have resisted a similar outbreak of enthusiasm. The crowd
28gradually deserted the squares and streets. The four railways from Philadelphia and Washington, Harrisburg and Wheeling,
29which converge at Baltimore, whirled away the heterogeneous population to the four corners of the United States, and the
30city subsided into comparative tranquility. On the following day, thanks to the telegraphic wires, five hundred
31newspapers and journals, daily, weekly, monthly, or bi-monthly, all took up the question. They examined it under all its
32different aspects, physical, meteorological, economical, or moral, up to its bearings on politics or civilization. They
33debated whether the moon was a finished world, or whether it was destined to undergo any further transformation. Did it
34resemble the earth at the period when the latter was destitute as yet of an atmosphere? What kind of spectacle would its
35hidden hemisphere present to our terrestrial spheroid? Granting that the question at present was simply that of sending
36a projectile up to the moon, every one must see that that involved the commencement of a series of experiments. All must
37hope that some day America would penetrate the deepest secrets of that mysterious orb; and some even seemed to fear lest
38its conquest should not sensibly derange the equilibrium of Europe. The project once under discussion, not a single
39paragraph suggested a doubt of its realization. All the papers, pamphlets, reports--all the journals published by the
40scientific, literary, and religious societies enlarged upon its advantages; and the Society of Natural History of
41Boston, the Society of Science and Art of Albany, the Geographical and Statistical Society of New York, the
42Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, and the Smithsonian of Washington sent innumerable letters of congratulation to
43the Gun Club, together with offers of immediate assistance and money. From that day forward Impey Barbicane became one
44of the greatest citizens of the United States, a kind of Washington of science. A single trait of feeling, taken from
45many others, will serve to show the point which this homage of a whole people to a single individual attained. Some few
46days after this memorable meeting of the Gun Club, the manager of an English company announced, at the Baltimore
47theatre, the production of "Much ado about Nothing." But the populace, seeing in that title an allusion damaging to
48Barbicane's project, broke into the auditorium, smashed the benches, and compelled the unlucky director to alter his
49playbill. Being a sensible man, he bowed to the public will and replaced the offending comedy by "As you like it"; and
50for many weeks he realized fabulous profits.
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