Christopher Wright

“ During the several days the correspondents were at Kitty Hawk, the Wrights knew they were being observed. From time to time they caught glimpses of men’s heads over the hilltop in the distance. Moreover, they heard each day, from members of a life-saving crew, just how many visitors had come. But they simply thought it was a good joke on the mysterious observers, whoever they were.
Arthur Ruhl, of Collier’s, had met the Wrights in Dayton about a year before. On May 14, before the final flight, he came over to the camp. ”

“ The Wrights were startled. So great had been the secrecy about the visit of the Frenchmen that not many even in the French Government were permitted to know about their trip to Dayton. How did this mysterious Britisher know about it? The Wrights assumed that he must have been a volunteer worker in the British secret service. It was now obvious that he had crossed the Atlantic for no other purpose than to call on the Wrights and had hoped to burst in upon them while the Frenchmen were still there. After a stay of only one day in Dayton he hastened back to New York to sail on the next boat. ”

“ In his early life he was a teacher, from 1829 to 1833 being Professor of Mathematics in Western Reserve College. He became in 1833 Secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York. In 1838 he came to Boston, and for twenty years was actively engaged in editorial work, taking a stand as a most pronounced abolitionist. Since then he has been Insurance Commissioner or Actuary for the State till the time of his death. Mr. Wright has been an earnest advocate of the project for converting the "Middlesex Fells" into a park in later years. He was always an earnest, active man. ”

“ Because of the persistence of that kind of incredulity, the Wrights did not expect many sightseers, least of all newspapermen, at Kitty Hawk during their preparations for government tests. Therefore they did not think it necessary to keep their plans secret. ”

“ Then, all at once,--as the painter, with poised brush, glanced from his canvas to the scene,--she stood in full view beside the spring; her graceful, brown-clad figure framed by the willow's green. Her arms were filled with wild flowers that she had gathered from the mountainside--from nook and glade and glen.
"If you will not seek me, there is no use to hide," she called, still holding her place on the other side of the spring, and regarding him seriously; and the man felt under her words, and saw in her wide, blue eyes a troubled question. ”

“ But, instead, he swung obediently away and took his revenge in a careless "All right, dear!" as he went off.
"Isn't he a peach!" mused Wright aloud, watching admiringly the broad-shouldered figure across the room.
"You've known him long?" I asked, in order to avoid answering.
"Roommates at Princeton," he replied. "Those were the good old days! There never was a more popular man in college than old Bill! I basked in reflected glory all the time. He was always the King Pin among us, whether it was football, or writing skits, or drumming the piano." ”

“ Northcliffe, after his meeting with the Wrights at Pau, became one of their most enthusiastic supporters in England.
Long afterward, he publicly made this comment:
“I never knew more simple, unaffected people than Wilbur, Orville, and Katharine. After the Wrights had been in Europe a few weeks they became world heroes, and when they went to Pau their demonstrations were visited by thousands of people from all parts of Europe—by kings and lesser men, but I don’t think the excitement and interest produced by their extraordinary feat had any effect on them at all.” ”

“ Those wind-tunnel experiments marked one of the great turning points in the long history of attempts at human flight.
It still remained for the Wrights to put their new knowledge to actual test in gliding, and they set out on79 August 25, 1902, for their third stay at Kitty Hawk. But not until September 8 were they able to begin the work of assembling their new glider, for the camp, battered by winter gales, needed much repairing; and they decided to build an addition to it for living quarters. They did not have their machine ready for its first trial until September 19. ”

“ A common argument had been: “God didn’t intend man to fly. If he did, he would have given him a set of wings.”
It was the regret of his life to the Wrights’ friend, “Bill” Tate, that he missed witnessing that first flight. He had decided that “no one but a crazy man would attempt to fly in such a wind,” and made no effort to be there.
After preparing and eating their lunch, and then washing their dishes, Wilbur and Orville set out, about two o’clock that afternoon, to walk over to the Kitty Hawk weather station, four or five miles away, to send a telegram to their father. ”

“ He said he knew a young man in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, George A. Spratt, “an amateur” in aeronautics, who had had some medical training. Spratt had never seen any gliding experiments, and Chanute thought he would69 be eager for the opportunity. If the Wrights would board him at camp, Chanute said, he would be glad to pay Spratt’s traveling expenses to Kitty Hawk and would consider himself “compensated by the pleasure given to him.” ”

“ In 1836 Wright left Cambridge to settle in London. He soon took a house at Brompton, and for nearly forty years plied his pen unceasingly. He recovered from manuscript and printed for the first time many valuable historical and literary records. Much of his work was hastily executed, and errors abound, but his enthusiasm and industry were inexhaustible. At first his efforts were mainly confined to mediæval literature. In 1836 an anthology of ‘Early English Poetry,’ prepared by Wright, was issued in black letter by William Pickering [q. v.] ”

“ A son of genius and of misfortune, John Wright was born on the 1st September 1805, at the farm-house of Auchincloigh, in the parish of Sorn, Ayrshire. From his mother, a woman of much originality and shrewdness, he inherited a strong inclination towards intellectual culture. His school education was circumscribed, but he experienced delight in improving his mind, by solitary musings amidst the amenities of the vicinity of Galston, a village to which his father had removed. At the age of seven, he began to assist his father in his occupation of a coal driver ”

“ Wright is 99 years of age his appearance is that of a much younger man. He is about 5 feet in height; his dark skin is almost free of wrinkles and his head is thickly covered with gray hair. His speech and thought indicate that he is very intelligent and there is no doubt that he still possesses a clear and active mind. ”

“ Who but He that looketh upon the heart of man could know the battle that was fought in the soul of that giant of the hills? He uttered no sound. He sat in his seat as if made of stone; save once, when he walked to the end of the porch to stand with clenched hands and passion shaken frame, facing the dark clump of pines on the hill.
Slowly the moon climbed over the ridge and lighted the scene. The mountaineer returned to his chair. All at once he raised his head, and, leaning forward, looked long and earnestly at the old shepherd, where he sat crouching like a convict awaiting sentence. ”

“ Somewhere between those canyon gates and the little city in the orange groves, the girl knew that Aaron King and his friend were making their way back to the world of men. With her eyes fixed upon the distant scene, as if striving for a wholly impossible strength of vision to mark the tiny, moving spots that she knew were there, the girl upon the high rim of the wild and lonely mountain gorge was lost to her surroundings, in an effort, as vain, to see her comrade of the weeks just past, in the years that were to come. ”

“ Mr. Wright was one of the characters of the Gallery. Like most of the officials of the House in those days, he was a protégé of the Sergeant-at-Arms, Lord Charles Russell. Rumour declared that he had originally been a boat-builder on the Thames, and had secured the favour of Lord Charles by his services in teaching his sons to row. He certainly looked more like a boat-builder, or the captain of a barge, than the keeper of the vestibule to the Reporters' Gallery. He was permitted to purvey refreshments of a modest kind to the reporters. ”

“ I remember you can see into the library from the path round the house!”
He darted out, the butler, protesting, lumbering along behind him.
“Mr. Wright,” he panted as he ran, “you didn’t reelly ought ... If any one should come ...”
But Bruce Wright was already at the window. The butler found him leaning on the sill, peering with an air of frightened curiosity into the empty room.
“The glazier from Stevenish”—Bude’s voice breathed the words hoarsely in Wright’s ear—“is coming to-morrow morning to put the window in. He wouldn’t come to-day, him being a chapel-goer and religious. ”

“ Wright has never concealed the purpose behind his novels, stories. It is to say plainly some word that he believes will be of help, if uttered, to men and women. In his strange personal history lies the seed of a novel more absorbing, if less credible, than any he has written. ”

“ The death of Wright is a sad commentary on these sad times. He was a genial gentleman, honest, frank, brave, the friend and protector of those who slew him. It is a sad commentary on the ingratitude of man, who in his earlier and lower estate seems fitted to be ruled by fear rather than by love. ”

“ In 1837 he moved to Dorchester, Massachusetts, to prosecute a similar work in Boston.
Nothing is more remarkable in Mr. Wright's life than his perfect self- poise and peace of mind during such a long period of external agitation. It is doubtful, in spite of his highly nervous temperament, if he ever lost a night's sleep. When he was editing the Chronotype, and waiting for the telegraphic news to arrive, he would sometimes lie down on a pile of newspapers and go to sleep in less than half a minute. For mental relaxation he studied the higher mathematics and wrote poetry— much of it very good. ”

“ He was in the air only one minute and forty-five seconds, but he had made history.
The crowd knew well they had “seen something” and behaved accordingly. In the excited babel of voices one or two phrases could be heard again and again. “Cet homme a conquis l’air!” “Il n’est pas bluffeur!” Yes, truly Wilbur had conquered the air, and he was no bluffer. That American word “bluffer” had been much used during the time that reports from the United States about the Wrights had been stirring controversy in France. ”

“ Wright has made an earnest book, which is pervaded by an excellent spirit and noble aspirations, but his views are original and independent, and he has done his own thinking throughout, from his exposition of a radical and thorough-going socialism down to the punctuation of his volume, which he has carried out according to his own rules. ”

“ A small selection from his pictures was a prominent feature of the winter exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1886. Wright was an able and versatile artist, and the great reputation which he made in his lifetime is fairly sustained at the present day. As a painter of candlelight pieces, especially in those compositions ‘The Orrery,’ ‘The Gladiator,’ and ‘The Air-pump,’ where genre and portrait are combined with dramatic action, he has no rival in the English school ”

“ Patton, who thus denounced the cabmen and 'busmen of New York, had at the very time the "Negro Pew" in his own church!
While on this subject, let me tell you another fact respecting poor Mr. Wright. The life of his first wife was sacrificed to this heartless and unmanly feeling. He was travelling with her by steam-boat between New York and Boston. They had to be out all night, and a bitter cold winter's night it was. Being coloured people, their only accommodation was the "hurricane-deck." Mrs. Wright was delicate. ”

“ Many men of celebrity, not only local, he painted—Arkwright and Whitehurst, Darwin and Strutt; but the charm of his portraits does not depend on the fame of the sitter, but on the power of the artist to seize a distinct individuality, and to make each likeness for ever interesting as an authentic image of a fellow-man. Unsophisticated by fashion or affectation, Wright’s portraits are history in its simplest and truest form.
Of the pure charm of his children, some of the illustrations to this volume, especially Mr. Seymour Haden’s painter-like etching of the “Twins,” will speak. ”

“ Wright said, "Ed, put away that gun. This man is a friend."
"Man!" Spearman holstered his automatic, ready for a draw. "Your daydreams will kill us all yet."
"Smile, all of you—maybe his mouth does the same thing." Wright stepped to the trembling monster, hands open. Ann was sobbing in reaction, smothering the sound. Wright pointed at himself. "Man." He touched the gray fur. "Man...."
The giant drew back, not with violence. Paul felt Dorothy's small fingers shivering on his arm. The giant sucked his wound and spat, turning his head away from Wright to do it. "Man—man...." ”

“ His long, thin face, seamed and lined, was striking in its grotesque ugliness. From under his craggy, scowling brows, his sharp green-gray eyes peered with a curious expression of baffling, quizzing, half pathetic, and wholly cynical, interrogation. He was smoking a straight, much-used brier pipe. At his feet, lay a beautiful Irish Setter dog.
Half hidden by a supporting column of the depot portico--as if to escape the notice of the people in the automobile--he had been watching the woman with the disfigured face, with more than casual interest. ”