BIRDS AND AIRPLANES.
Mr. Orville Wright's pioneer airplane, which has just been honoured at South Kensington, was shown to me many years ago by its artificer ; and we talked very little about the plane, but a great deal about birds. The two brothers watched the flight of birds with intense curiosity for years, in order to wrench from them some of their secrets. But their labour, their most enjoyable labour, was altogether in vain, or seemed altogether in vain. " We found out nothing or next to nothing," so Mr. Orville Wright assured me, " until we could fly ourselves." As soon as they could fly, some of the mysteries they had vainly watched disclosed their secrets. The airman became an esoteric, one of the initiated as well as an initiator, though still he has not perhaps penetrated to the inmost shrine.
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