Lives there the man who can adequately describe this
Wonder? ``Never,'' says the Pilot, who has seen it many
times, but to whom it is ever new and more wonderful.
Up, up, up, and still up, unfalteringly speeds the Pilot
and his mount. Sweet the drone of the Engine and steady
the Thrust as the Propeller exultingly battles with the Drift.
And look! What is that bright silver streak all along
the horizon? It puzzled the Pilot when first he saw it,
but now he knows it for the Sea, full fifty miles away!
And on his right is the brightness of the Morn and the
smiling Earth unveiling itself to the ardent rays of the Sun;
and on his left, so high is he, there is yet black Night, hiding
innumerable Cities, Towns, Villages and all those places
where soon teeming multitudes of men shall awake, and by
their unceasing toil and the spirit within them produce
marvels of which the Aeroplane is but the harbinger.
And the Pilot's soul is refreshed, and his vision, now
exalted, sees the Earth a very garden, even as it appears
at that height, with discord banished and a happy time
come, when the Designer shall have at last captured Efficiency,
and the Man-who-takes-the-credit is he who has earned it,
and when kisses are the only things that go by favour.
Now the Pilot anxiously scans the Barograph, which is
an instrument much the same as the Altimeter; but in this
case the expansion of the vacuum box causes a pen to trace
a line upon a roll of paper.
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