self by seizing and holding great possessions. And he did.
But what, after all, were many of the
possessions seized by the Norman Conqueror
but a handful of straw. And so
are not a few of the conquests of earthly
ambition, no matter how tenaciously
held as well as ardently won. Over
many a pile of wealth and massed
achievement might be written: "A handful
of straw in a baby fist!"
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Daisy Rinehart expresses a very common feeling in this poem:
I'm tired of sailing my little boat
Far inside of the harbor bar;
I want to be out where the big ships float—
Out on the deep, where the great ones are!
And should my frail craft prove too slight
For storms that sweep those wide seas o'er,
Better go down in the stirring fight
Than drowse to death by the sheltered shore!
—Munsey's Magazine.
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Glenn H. Curtiss, by his successful and spectacular flight of 150 miles from Albany to this city (May 29, 1910), has jumped into the first rank of aviators.
Curtiss began life as soon as he was of a workable age as a newsboy. He is still remembered as a lad always ambitious in sport, particularly if there were any mechanical contrivances to be worked out that might add to his triumph. His ambition was to "arrive" in anything he undertook, and to do this he was not content to accept the suggestions of others, but sought to work out his own original ideas.
When about ten or eleven years old he was very much perturbed over the fact that one of his chums owned a hand-sled that always coasts down-hill faster than his own. Curtiss set to work to construct a sled that would outdistance his rival's, and after weeks of quiet work had the satisfaction of leaving his rival far behind.
From sleds he turned his attention to bicycles.
"Why not attach a gasoline engine to it?" he asked one day, and immediately he went to work, using the model of an old gasoline engine to work on, and was soon able to amaze his neighbors by chugging through the country on his hand-made machine. The fever of the motorcycle was right on him, and that early success led him to establish a bicycle shop which soon grew from a mere repair shop to a plant for the manufacture of motor-cycles, and the success of the improved Curtiss motor was what gave him his first real fame.
In 1907 he took one of his machines to Ormond, Fla. It was built solely for speed, for it was Curtiss' aim to go faster than any one else. The judges, greatly to the disappointment of the inventor, pronounced it a freak and not eligible, with the orthodox machines. It was a big disappointment, but Curtiss announced that he would make an exhibition mile trial, and, to the amazement of the experts, he covered the distance in the remarkable time of 0:26 2-5, the fastest mile that had ever been traveled by a man.
From making motors for bicycles it was an easy step to try the construction of light gasoline motors for flying purposes. Captain Thomas S. Baldwin was the first to see the possibilities of the Curtiss motor for balloon purposes, and at his suggestion Curtiss built one for Baldwin's dirigible airship. This was successful, and others were built.
Then followed the success of the Wright brothers with heavier-than-air machines and the craze for the heavier-than-air type abroad. Curtiss' little shop at Hammondsport became the headquarters for the aeronautical students of this country and aerial flight received its first big impetus, next to that given by the Wrights when Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, in November, 1907, organized his Aeronautic Experiment Association, and Curtiss was one of its six members.
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By the sheer force of his ambition Pope won his place, and held it, in spite of religious prejudice, and in the face of physical and temperamental obstacles that would have discouraged a stronger man. For Pope was deformed and sickly, dwarfish in soul and body. He knew little of the world of nature or of the world of the human heart. He was lacking, apparently, in noble feeling, and instinctively chose a lie when the truth had manifestly more advantages. Yet this jealous, peevish, waspish little man became the acknowledged leader of English literature.—William J. Long, "English Literature."
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