BIRD-FLYING. 
63 
benches, and walking quickly, I hepped from the end 
rapidly off into the air !—Nothing daunted or difcouraged 
by the failure or the fall, I repeated the experiment with, 
“ I will do it! ” Again and again going over the fame 
ground only to fail, and to faff as before, but with each 
fucceeding failure only the more determined that I would 
do it; and only abandoning the efforts when the exhauhed 
mufcles and quivering nerves themfelves gave out. But Will 
and Faith are a mighty team : they fcale mountains; carve 
out dehinies; fubdue deferts; ehablifh highways of civiliza¬ 
tion and commerce through wilderneffes before untrodden 
by the foot of man ; and, armed with the torch of fcience, 
fcatter from the face of Nature the gathered darknefs of 
ages and generations. 1 “Impoffible” has no place in the 
vocabulary of Will and Faith. The prefent and the future, 
alike of the world that now is and of the world 6£ that is to 
come,” belong to Will and Faith. The Pah—and Death— 
and Corruption—and Oblivion, belong to the faint-hearted 
and the faithlefs. 
The locomotion of a bird in the air, which does 
nothing but hold itfelf with engineering fkill amid the 
forces of the winds, and in performing this feat travels 
pari pajfu with a veffel beaming at the rate of fifteen knots 
an hour, is fomething worth feeing. I have feen it more 
than once. 
The bird travels in face of the wind: the winds blowing 
1 Stanley in Africa. 
