The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-lytton — Read

From the date of the expedition with Taee which I have just narrated, / the child paid me frequent visits. He had taken a liking to me, which I / cordially returned. Indeed, as he was not yet twelve years old, and / had not commenced the course of scientific studies with which childhood / closes in that country, my intellect was less inferior to his than to / that of the elder members of his race, especially of the Gy-ei, and most / especially of the accomplished Zee. The children of the Vril-ya, / having upon their minds the weight of so many active duties and grave / responsibilities, are not generally mirthful; but Taee, with all / his wisdom, had much of the playful good-humour one often finds the / characteristic of elderly men of genius. He felt that sort of pleasure / in my society which a boy of a similar age in the upper world has in the / company of a pet dog or monkey. It amused him to try and teach me the / ways of his people, as it amuses a nephew of mine to make his poodle / walk on his hind legs or jump through a hoop. I willingly lent myself to / such experiments, but I never achieved the success of the poodle. I was / very much interested at first in the attempt to ply the wings which the / youngest of the Vril-ya use as nimbly and easily as ours do their legs / and arms; but my efforts were attended with contusions serious enough to / make me abandon them in despair.

These wings, as I before said, are very large, reaching to the knee, / and in repose thrown back so as to form a very graceful mantle. They are / composed from the feathers of a gigantic bird that abounds in the rocky / heights of the country -- the colour mostly white, but sometimes with / reddish streaks. They are fastened round the shoulders with light but / strong springs of steel; and, when expanded, the arms slide through / loops for that purpose, forming, as it were, a stout central membrane. / As the arms are raised, a tubular lining beneath the vest or tunic / becomes, by mechanical contrivance inflated with air, increased or / diminished at will by the movement of the arms, and serving to buoy the / whole form as on bladders. The wings and the balloon-like apparatus are / highly charged with vril; and when the body is thus wafted upward, it / seems to become singularly lightened of its weight. I found it easy / enough to soar from the ground; indeed, when the wings were spread it / was scarcely possible not to soar, but then came the difficulty and the / danger. I utterly failed in the power to use and direct the pinions, / though I am considered among my own race unusually alert and ready in / bodily exercises, and am a very practiced swimmer. I could only make the / most confused and blundering efforts at flight. I was the servant of the / wings; the wings were not my servants -- they were beyond my control; / and when by a violent strain of muscle, and, I must fairly own, in that / abnormal strength which is given by excessive fright, I curbed their / gyrations and brought them near to the body, it seemed as if I lost the / sustaining power stored in them and the connecting bladders, as when the / air is let out of a balloon, and found myself precipitated again to the / earth; saved, indeed, by some spasmodic flutterings, from being dashed / to pieces, but not saved from the bruises and the stun of a heavy fall. / I would, however, have persevered in my attempts, but for the advice or / the commands of the scientific Zee, who had benevolently accompanied my / flutterings, and, indeed, on the last occasion, flying just under me, / received my form as it fell on her own expanded wings, and preserved / me from breaking my head on the roof of the pyramid from which we had / ascended.