Gen. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, in the world’s first aerial liner,
at the ripe age of nearly seventy-two years, performed a magnificent
flight of 250 miles from Friedrichshafen to Düsseldorf. The New York
_Times_ says of him:
He presents one of the finest examples in history of effort
concentrated on a single object, of failure after failure borne
with courage, of refusal to give up, of final triumph.
He has had a career which in the case of most men would have
been regarded as sufficiently full of honor many years ago.
He served in the American civil war as a cavalry officer on
the Union side, becoming an intimate friend of the late Carl
Schurz, and when he returned to Europe he took part in the
Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and in the Franco-Prussian War of
1870.
As late as 1907 such words as these could be written about Count
von Zeppelin and generally regarded as describing him: “He has
sacrificed half a century of time, his wealth, his estates, his
reputation, his happiness, his family life, in a futile attempt
to solve the problem of flying. It is practically certain that
after fifty years of unexampled perseverance Count Zeppelin
is doomed to complete failure. There is something unspeakably
tragic in the fate of this high-minded aristocrat.”
His failures continued for some time after this verdict was
written, but at length the world was startled by the splendid
flights made by his dirigible “No. 4,” and when that vessel was
wrecked in August, 1908, the German Government and the German
people combined to aid the old patriot and inventor to make good
his loss.
(42)
=Aeroplane=--See TENDENCIES, INHERITED.
=Affection, Disinterested=--See FRIENDS, KEEPING.
=Affection for Animals=--See ANIMALS, ABSURD FONDNESS FOR.
=Affections Misplaced=--See ANIMALS, ABSURD FONDNESS FOR.