Essay: ON FLYING MORE AND ENJOYING IT LESS

For I dipp'd into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales . . .

—Tennyson, Locksley Hall

HOW gloriously easy the vision of air transport seemed to the Victorians! And for a while, how reassuringly true it turned out to be! For years now, those "argosies of magic sails" have been gliding in and out of airports as if flight were...

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