heart, and of a perfectly trained body, who had so completely
mastered every detail of his profession as gymnast, acrobat, and
aeronaut, that he had come to have absolute faith in himself, downright
abiding certainty that within his sphere of work not only must he
succeed, but that, in the very nature of things it was quite impossible
for him to fail.

Donaldson's story may well serve as an inspiration, as does that of
every man who, with a cool head and high courage, takes his life in his
hands for adventure into the world's untrodden fields. While he was
regarded by average onlookers as little better than a "Merry Andrew," a
public shocker, doing feats before the multitude to still the heart and
freeze the blood, those whose fortune it was to know him intimately
realized him to be a man of the most serious purpose, with a great
faith in the future of aerial navigation. He seemed to be possessed by
the conviction that it was one day to become wholly practicable and
generally useful; for he was keen to do all he could to popularize and
advance it, and to demonstrate its large measure of safety where
practised under reasonable conditions.

To many still living his memory is dear--to all indeed who ever knew
him well, and it is to his memory and to the surviving friends who held
him dear I dedicate this little story.

Washington Harrison Donaldson was the son of David Donaldson, an artist
of no mean ability of Philadelphia, where the boy was born October 10,
1840. The mother, of straight descent from a line of patriots active
during the Revolution, gave the boy the name of Washington; the father,
an ardent worker for General Harrison's candidacy for the presidency in
the "Tippecanoe-and-Tyler-too" campaign, added the name of Harrison.
It is not conceivable that this christening with two names so closely
linked with notable deeds of high emprise in the early history of this
country, had its influence upon the boy.

As a mere youth he showed the most adventurous spirit and ardent
ambition to excel his mates, to do deeds of skill and dexterity that
others could not do. When still a child he was running up an
unsupported eight-foot ladder, and balancing himself upon the topmost
round in a way to startle the cleverest professional athletes. A
little later, getting hold of any old rope, stretching it in any old
way as a "slack-rope," he was busy perfecting himself as a slack-rope
walker. Naturally, school held him onl