The works of Edgar Allan Poe; newly collected and edited, with a memoir, critical introductions, and notes, by Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry; the illustrations by Albert Edward Sterner.

THE BALLOON HOAX

P. S. [By Mr. Ainsworth.] The last nine hours
have been unquestionably the most exciting of my
life. I can conceive nothing more sublimating than
the strange peril and novelty of an adventure such as
this. May God grant that we succeed! I ask not
success for mere safety to my insignificant person,
but for the sake of human knowledge and - for the
vastness of the triumph. And yet the feat is only so
evidently feasible that the sole wonder is why men
have scrupled to attempt it before. One single gale
such as now befriends us - let such a tempest whirl
forward a balloon for four or five days (these gales
often last longer) and the voyager will be easily borne,
in that period, from coast to coast. In view of such a
gale the broad Atlantic becomes a mere lake. I am
more struck, just now, with the supreme silence which
reigns in the sea beneath us, notwithstanding its agitation, than with any other phenomenon presenting
itself. The waters give up no voice to the heavens.
The immense flaming ocean writhes and is tortured
uncomplainingly. The mountainous surges suggest the
idea of innumerable dumb gigantic fiends struggling
in impotent agony. In a night such as is this to me,
a man lives - lives a whole century of ordinary life
- nor would I forego this rapturous delight for that
of a whole century of ordinary existence.
Sunday, the 7th. [Mr. Mason's MS.] This morning the gale, by ten, had subsided to an eight or
nine knot breeze (for a vessel at sea), and bears
us, perhaps, thirty miles per hour, or more. It has
veered, however, very considerably to the north; and
now, at sundown, we are holding our course due west,
principally by the screw and rudder, which answer
their purposes to admiration. I regard the project
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