When William the Conqueror was born his first exploit was to
grasp a handful of straw, and to hold it so tenaciously in
his little fist that the nurse could scarcely take it away.
This infantile prowess was considered an omen, and the nurse
predicted that the babe would some day signalize himself 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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