Algernon Blackwood

“ No wonder that poets give the angels wings, and that the symbolism of wings is found in the most vital thoughts of all religions. The wings of the soul, the wings of the imagination, these are more than mere empty phrases!
The choice of the air to illustrate some imagined spiritual region, of course, is obvious enough, for air will most certainly be the last department of Nature men will conquer; and, apart from unwieldy mechanical contrivances, men will never really fly⁠—as birds do. To pass through and across the air is quite another thing to flying as the birds know flying. ”

“ All the little pictures of the thousand-mile journey that come back to haunt the mind with their separate bits of loveliness have bird-life in them somewhere. The rest, even the rapids, dangerous rocks and whirlpools, lie indistinct and rather vague; these with the birds, on the contrary, stand out sharply and well defined. ”

“ No thinking man can watch the flight of birds, especially of big birds, without grave thoughts of wonder and delight rising in him. Their ease and grace and strength of movement, their light and sure supremacy over the medium which they navigate with such consummate facility, their speed and dropping swiftness, are all so incomparably superior to any mechanical motor skill that we possess ourselves. ”

“ The weight of men’s bodies in proportion to their muscular development forever blocks the way; whereas the power of the muscles that drive the wings of birds, compared to the weight of their slender, delicate frames, their tiny bones, their hollow quills, is overwhelmingly to their advantage. A drumming partridge can flap its sturdy wings four hundred times to the minute. It is doubtful if the supplest man can “flap” ’ his arms at a quarter of this speed, and a broad wing offers far more resistance to the air than the thin line of a human arm. ”

“ There is nothing in all Nature to compare with their consummate skill and lightning ease. The accuracy of a marten’s or a swallow’s aim in darting through midair to snap at a zigzag-flying insect is an exhibition of surpassing skill. ”

“ It is difficult to watch the circling seagulls, the poised and hovering hawk, the darting swallows, or the soaring lark, without feeling that here is life really enjoying itself in the best possible form of free, unimpeded motion. ”

“ The eye cannot even follow the beats of a flying pigeon’s wings to count their number.
To watch the seagulls from the stern of some steamer is a keen delight. One notes the cunningly-contrived arrangement of the feathers, which lie one upon another in such a way that the downward stroke is not exactly counterbalanced by the upward. In the former the air presses them closer together, thus supplying the resistance necessary to rise; whereas in the upward stroke they open out, letting the air slip through. With what minimum of effort, too, they compass the maximum of movement ”