We are still running at a great rate, but it soon becomes clear that the balloon is losing her way. A little later, and she is bringing to. There is no longer an upward rush of air against my flattened hand held horizontally over the side of the car. The moving phantasmagoria has settled down into a well-defined ground plan. A piece of paper thrown over descends. The barometer, which I can now again afford to consult, informs me that we are a little under 1000 feet from the ground. We have gained a thousand in pulling up.

Bad judgment, and badly done! For it is clear that I have greatly overdone the whole thing. Had one thrown only one half that precious ballast up above there, just to check the balloon's course, and the remainder by successive instalments later on as required, we might now have been nearly on the ground, and moving toward it at a safe and manageable rate; whereas now she has lost all her way. We are still a long distance from the earth, with the sea very close. A long white line of hungry-looking foam is coming straight upon me with the speed of a railway train, and in a weird silent manner which half fascinates me.

And now her great downward momentum has carried her far below her true equilibrium level. Now, by all the laws which govern balloons, she is bound, if I let her go-like a light float driven forcibly down into a pool of water and then left to itself—to rise rapidly again. She will run up above the clouds once more, and carry me thousands of feet higher than we have ever yet been-to descend later on into the sea, miles from the shore, with a tremendous crash, for there will then be no ballast to stop her. We must get down now at all costs, if not on the land, then as near as possible to it. Below is a favorable marsh, covered with long rank grass. I have still one bag of ballast left, and the heavy grapnel to throw. This I can cut away, rope and all, if necessary; and she can hardly gather any very dangerous way now, however much gas I have to let out to get down in time.

There is no time for weighing such considerations as these before taking action, nor do I need any. For, indeed, at a crisis like this, as the plot

steadily thickens, and your nerves get wound up more and more to the sticking point, your wits also seem to sharpen continually, until you arrive at a point at which you seize, as it were by inspiration, at a momentary glance, all the leading points of the situation, and translate them into instant action with a result as good, or better, than an hour's careful consideration would give at an ordinary time.

The instant it became clear that the balloon was bringing to, or nad already brought to, and before she had time to gather way upward, I had seized the valve line and opened the valve full. I am now steadily letting out an enormous stream of gas, while thus reviewing and deliberately indorsing this sudden resolve. The sea is very near, and it will be a close race between us. Nevertheless, I am persuaded that the balloon has got the lead, and this time she shall keep it. So I do not let go the valve line till we are well on our downward course once more. I then heave up the last bag of ballast, rest it on the edge of the car, steady it there with one hand, take the heavy grapnel in the other, and stand by to throw them at the right moment. The half-empty balloon goes rapidly down, gathering way as she goes, but in the hundreds of feet that are now left she cannot possibly accelerate as in the thousands up above; and the more empty she gets the inore her hollow underside tends to hold the air like a parachute. The last bag goes when we are something over a hundred feet from the ground. The grapnel follows immediately after, the moment I am sure that it will reach the ground, as its sustaining rope is a hundred feet in length. We are running hard after them; but the loss of their combined weight puts a powerful drag upon the balloon, which has now only me and the light wicker car to carry. She strikes the ground with a fairly good whack, it is true, but nothing at all to signify. At the last moment I spring upward and hold on to the hoop, that the car may take the first bump. The next instant I am sprawling at the bottom of the car, with hoop and balloon right on top of me.

The poor balloon is utterly crippled by the loss of the great quantity of gas which I had to let out up above, together

litical success-that if a man can but command the complete devotion of a few considerable women, he will find himself wafted, as if by magic, over difficulties which he would not otherwise surmount at all. That is a bit of teaching from the personal experience of Lord Beaconsfield, which is probably not very sound for the purposes of the rest of the world. If, indeed, a man can command, like Endymion, that curious power of alternating cold bursts of passion which do him no harm, but interest these considerable women in him, with the complete indifference that always comes to his aid as soon as he needs it, he may be safe in trusting to this agency. But for the political world at large, Lord Beaconsfield's teaching on this subject is likely to be much more misleading than effectual. Then, of course, there is the teaching that the elements of political power are often thrown away, unless there be a commanding individual will" to use thema lesson urged both in relation to the Whig Ministries of the year 1832-1841, and to the Ministry of Sir Robert Peel. Again, there is the permanent teaching of Sidonia, taken up again in this new tale chiefly by his alter ego, Mr. Neuchatel, that you should not be seriously, or at least for any long time, discomposed by anything that touches the affections, that you should keep down susceptibility by cultivating a "salutary hardness;" that you should rather "cherish affection than indulge grief," though "every one must follow their mood;" that suicide, for instance, shows "a want of imagination," the deficiency in a suicide being not that he thinks too little of the purposes of suffering, but too little of the innumerable chances of escaping from it.

And then, again, there is the record of the many lessons of political tact in which Mr. Disraeli was always a proficient. First, we are told a good deal of the use of Private Secretaries and of the pleasantness of the mutual relation between a sedulous private secretary and his chief." There is usually in the relation an identity of interest, and that of the highest kind; and the perpetual difficulties, the alternations of triumph and defeat, develop devotion. youthful secretary will naturally feel

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some degree of enthusiasm for his chief, and a wise Minister will never stint his regard for one in whose intelligence and honor he finds he can place confidence. Such a Minister, even if he has been working with his private secretary all day, always greets his private secretary again, wherever he meets him, with the greatest consideration, because he knows that such a recognition will raise the young man in the eyes of the social herd who always observe little things, and generally form from them their opinions of great affairs." Then, of course, there is the old maxim of men of tact, that if you want to succeed in what you are about, you should never show your hand too much-"Tact teaches you when to be silent. Inquirers who are always inquiring never learn anything. And there is the observation that "every one to a certain extent is a mannerist, every one has his ways ;" and that, if you want to increase by your help the efficiency of another to the highest point, you must acquiesce in that mannerism, and drop into those ways. Further, if you study opportunity, you will often shorten the business of life. Lord Roehampton, the Foreign Minister, is in this story accustomed to give foreign ambassadors audiences after the shooting parties. "He thought it was a specific against their being too long. He used to say, 'The first dinner-bell often brings things to a point.''' And again, in a higher key-" Great men should think of Opportunity and not of Time. Time is the excuse of feeble and puzzled spirits."

And finally, there is a fund of observation in all Mr. Disraeli's books-and perhaps it is the subtlest kind of observation he ever gives us-of the intermediate world between real feeling and mere imagination, of the thing most like to sentiment which exists in utterly unfeeling minds, of the thing farthest removed from sentiment which exists in thoroughly sentimental minds. For instance, in Lord Beaconsfield's study of the thoroughly selfish peer, he says: "He seemed to like meeting men with whom he had been at school. There is certainly a magic in the memory of schoolboy friendships-it softens the heart, and even affects the nervous system of those who have no hearts." And

similarly, he is always studying, and studying very skilfully, the unsentimental side of sentiment itself, even of the sentiment of women. You can see that Lord Beaconsfield does not really like women with soft hearts. He likes women capable of great devotion, but capable of trampling under foot all personal feelings, for their own purposes; and he likes men who calmly accept that sacrifice, and think it the right thing for women to do.

If we were to sum up in a word the worldly wisdom of Lord Beaconsfield, we should say it taught first the value of ambition, and, next, the use of the tools with which ambition may most effectually work. The poor, if they desire wealth, should achieve it, and may be reasonably satisfied with achieving it; the rich, who have it already, should desire power which they have not got, and obtain that power. Lady Montfort's reproach to her husband is the reproach Mr. Disraeli must very often have addressed in his heart to the great landowners and peers of this country. "'What,' she would say,' are rank and wealth to us? We were born to them. We want something that we were not

born to. Of course,

You reason like a parvenu.

if you had created your rank and your riches, you might rest on your oars, and find excitement in the recollection of what you had achieved. A man of your position ought to govern the country, and it always was so in old days.'" There you have the true Lord Beaconsfield-" Set your mind to attain some form of power which you have not got, but which you may earn wholly for yourself, and your life will be more or less happy, if you are faithful to that pursuit, and show capacity as well as fidelity." This, with the maxims embodying the chief points of his own experience in working out this problem, is Lord Beaconsfield's stock of worldly wisdom, as illustrated in "Endymion." It seems to us a very humble stock of worldly wisdom, and yet, no doubt, it has served well one of the most singularly successful men of his age and country. But we think there is sufficient evidence that though Lord Beaconsfield's success has been wonderful, the aims in which he has succeeded have been singularly narrow, and singularly alloyed with a metal that can only be called base.The Spectator.