Splutter, splutter. Yes - we're off - we're rising. But why start off with an engine like that? But it smooths out now, like a long sigh, like a person breathing easily, freely. Like someone singing ecstatically, climbing, soaring - sustained note of power and joy. We turn from the lights of the city; we pivot on a dark wing; we roar over the earth. The plane seems exultant now, even arrogant. We did it, we did it!

I had the feeling . . . that my experience was very different from other people’s. (Are we all under this illusion?)

But I want first of all- in fact, as an end to these other desires- to be at peace with myself.

...the only continuity possible in life, as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom. The only real security is... living in the present and accepting it as it is now.

And if flying, like a glass-bottomed bucket, can give you that vision, that seeing eye, which peers down on the still world below the choppy waves - it will always remain magic.

It was a magic caused by the collision of modern methods and old ones; modern history and ancient; accessibility and isolation. And it was a magic which could only strike spark about that time. A few years earlier, from the point of view of aircraft alone, it would have been impossible to reach these places; a few later, and there will be no such isolation.

It is terribly amusing how many different climates of feelings one can go through in one day.