paths, and the skill to transcribe his impressions in the freshest and most vivid colors, he possesses one form of the only valid plea for a man's asking the world of readers to listen to him—unhackneyed experience.
One of Mr. Holden's adventures has been described above. After Tissandier, he is doubtless the veteran journalistic aëronaut of the world. Beginning in 1861, he has made in all twenty-six voyages, some of them perilously eventful, including several night-flights of hundreds of miles. Most of his experience has been gained with Mr. King, though he accompanied Donaldson on several occasions. At the request of Professor Abby of the Signal Service, Mr. Holden took frequent barometrical and hygrometrical observations in his later excursions. He has made no ascensions for some years, his surplus time and enthusiasm being diverted to European travel. The following bit of description admirably illustrates his style: "It is a strange scene that bursts upon the vision of the balloon-passenger as he rises above the housetops and trees. There is a moment when he beholds the thousands of upturned faces, the throngs of people in the street, at the windows and on the housetops, teams moving lazily hither and thither, and amid all a confused fluttering of leaves, frightened birds, waving flags and handkerchiefs, and a general commotion quite indescribable. But in another moment the men become mere black spots on a field of green, the horses and carriages are reduced to toys and the houses to the dimensions of the blocks children use at play. While all detail is disappearing there is a seeming contraction of larger objects. Streets have drawn nearer to each other: it is but a few steps from one extremity of a town to the other, and remote places are brought within slight distances of the objects beneath his feet."
Mr. Frank H. Taylor, of Harpers Weekly, has an aëronautical record second only to that of Mr. Holden, having been basketed on several trips each with Wise, Donaldson and King. Mr. Alfred Ford, of The Graphic, who with Donaldson and Lunt started on the disastrous Transatlantic voyage in the Graphic balloon, and Rev. H.B. Jeffries, of the Pittsburg Leader, who officiated at the balloon-wedding over Cincinnati, are also entitled to rank as veterans. The European literature of ballooning, with its accurate and brilliant descriptions by Glaisher, Tissandier, De Fonvielle and Dupuis-Delcour, has nothing more graphic and absorbing than some of the accounts dashed off in the white heat of enthusiasm by these and other American journalists. The nervousness and chaffing before the start; the thrill and wonder of the upward rush; the strange exhilaration coming with relivening confidence; the unspeakable loveliness and grandeur of the prospect; the thousand varied incidents of the too-brief journey; the short, sharp excitement of the landing; the awe and curiosity of the impromptu crowd invariably on the ground before the balloon, and reluctantly leaving it only when the last whiff of gas is rolled out of it and the last rope thrown into the wagon; the moonlight ride to the station with the gas-bag for a pillow and the brain too busy with the strangeness of the day for much talk,—all this and more, in endless diversity of circumstance and treatment, these gentlemen have embalmed for the curious millions who cannot or will not go "up in a balloon."
ADAM AND EVE
CHAPTER XXII
The month of December was well advanced before Eve's letter had reached Reuben May. It came to him one morning when, notwithstanding the fog which reigned around, Reuben had arisen in more than usually good spirits, able to laugh at his neighbors for railing against weather which he declared was good weather and seasonable.
The moment the postman entered the shop his heart gave a great bound—for who but Eve would write to him?—and no sooner had his eyes fallen on the handwriting than his whole being rejoiced, for surely nothing but good news could be heralded by such glad feelings. With a resolute self-denial, of which on most occasions Reuben was somewhat proud, he refused himself the immediate gratification of his desires, and with a hasty glance laid the letter on one side while he entered into a needlessly long discussion with the postman, gossiped with a customer—for whose satisfaction he volunteered a minute inspection of a watch which might have very reasonably been put off until the morrow—and finally (there being nothing else by which the long-coveted pleasure could be further delayed) he took up the letter and carefully turned it first this side and then that before breaking the seal and unfolding the paper.
What would it say? That she was coming back—coming home? But when? how soon? In a month? in a week? now at once? In one flash of vision Reuben saw the furniture polished and comfortably arranged, the room smartened up and looking its best with a blazing fire and a singing kettle, and a cozy meal ready laid for two people; and then all they would have to say to one another—on his part much to hear and little to tell, for his life had jogged on at a very commonplace trot, his business neither better nor worse, but still, with the aid of the little sum his more than rigid economy had enabled him to save, they might make a fair start, free from all debt and able to pay their way.
These thoughts only occupied the time which Reuben took to undo the complicated folds by which, before the days of envelopes, correspondents endeavored to baffle the curiosity of those who sought to know more than was intended for them. But what is this? for Reuben's eyes had been so greedy to suck up the words that he had not given his mind time to grasp their meaning: "Not coming back! never—any more!"—"I like the place, the people, and, above all, my relations, so very much that I should never be happy now away from them."
He repeated the words over again and again before he seemed to have the least comprehension of what they meant: then, in a stupor of dull despondency, he read on to the end, and learnt that all his hopes were over, that his life was a blank, and that the thing he had dreaded so much as to cheat himself into the belief that it could never happen had come to pass. And yet he was still Reuben May, and lived and breathed, and hadn't much concern beyond the thought of how he should best send the things she had left to Polperro—the place she never intended to leave, the place she now could never be happy away from.
Later on, a hundred wild schemes and mad desires wrestled and fought, trying to combat with his judgment and put to flight his sense of resolution; but now, as in the first moment of death, with the vain hope of realizing his loss, the mourner sits gazing at the inanimate form before him, so Reuben, holding the letter in his hands, returned again and again to the words which had dealt death to his hopes and told him that the love he lived for no longer lived for him. For Eve had been very emphatic in enforcing this resolve, and had so strongly worded her decision that, try as he would, Reuben could find no chink by which a ray of hope might gain admittance: all was dark with the gloom of despair, and this notwithstanding that Adam had not been mentioned, and Reuben had no more certain knowledge of a rival to guide him than the jaundiced workings of a jealous heart. Many events had concurred to bring about this blamable reticence. In the first place, the letter which Eve had commenced as a mere fulfilment of her promise had grown through a host of changing moods; for as time went on many a sweet and bitter found its way to that stream whose course did never yet run smooth; and could the pages before him have presented one tithe of these varied emotions, Reuben's sober nature would have rejoiced in the certainty that such an excess of sensitiveness needed but time and opportunity to wear itself out.
It was nearly two months now since it had been known all through the place that Adam Pascal was keeping company with his cousin Eve, and the Polperro folk, one and all, agreed that no good could surely come of a courtship carried on after such a contrary fashion; for the two were never for twenty-four hours in the same mind, and the game of love seemed to resolve itself into a war of extremes wherein anger, devotion, suspicion and jealousy raged by turns and afforded equal occasions of scandal and surprise. To add to their original difficulties, the lovers had now to contend against the circumstances of time and place, for during the winter, from most of the men being on shore and without occupation, conviviality and merriment were rife among them, and from Bell-ringing Night, which ushered in Gun-powder Plot, until Valentine's Day was passed, revels, dances or amusements of any kind which brought people together were welcomed and well attended. With the not unnatural desire to get away from her own thoughts, and to avoid as much as was possible the opportunity of being a looker-on at happiness in which she had no personal share, Joan greedily availed
