Chapter 5, Section 1

The journey is discussed in the London newspapers

IN WHICH A NEW SPECIES OF FUNDS, UNKNOWN TO THE MONEYED MEN, APPEARS ON ‘CHANGE

Phileas Fogg rightly suspected that his departure from London would create a lively sensation at the West End. The news of the bet spread through the Reform Club, and afforded an exciting topic of conversation to its members. From the club it soon got into the papers throughout England. The boasted “tour of the world” was talked about, disputed, argued with as much warmth as if the subject were another Alabama claim. Some took sides with Phileas Fogg, but the large majority shook their heads and declared against him; it was absurd, impossible, they declared, that the tour of the world could be made, except theoretically and on paper, in this minimum of time, and with the existing means of travelling. The Times, Standard, Morning Post, and Daily News, and twenty other highly respectable newspapers scouted Mr. Fogg’s project as madness; the Daily Telegraph alone hesitatingly supported him. People in general thought him a lunatic, and blamed his Reform Club friends for having accepted a wager which betrayed the mental aberration of its proposer.

Articles no less passionate than logical appeared on the question, for geography is one of the pet subjects of the English; and the columns devoted to Phileas Fogg’s venture were eagerly devoured by all classes of readers. At first some rash individuals, principally of the gentler sex, espoused his cause, which became still more popular when the Illustrated London News came out with his portrait, copied from a photograph in the Reform Club. A few readers of the Daily Telegraph even dared to say, “Why not, after all? Stranger things have come to pass.”

At last a long article appeared, on the 7th of October, in the bulletin of the Royal Geographical Society, which treated the question from every point of view, and demonstrated the utter folly of the enterprise.

Vocabulary

boasted

To speak in exulting language of another; to glory; to exult.
— 1913 Webster

absurd

\Ab*surd"\ ([a^]b*s[^u]rd")

inconsistent with reason or logic or common sense.

theoretically

\The`o*ret"ic*al*ly\

according to the assumed facts.

hesitatingly

\Hes"i*ta`ting*ly\

With hesitation or doubt.
— 1913 Webster

aberration

\Ab`er*ra"tion\

The act of wandering; deviation, especially from truth or moral rectitude, from the natural state, or from a type.
— 1913 Webster

espoused

take up the cause, ideology, practice, method, of someone and use it as one’s own.