d are essentially as wonderful as 'the mighty
ocean' or 'the beauteous land' to which they contribute. A balloon is
no more wonderful than an air-bubble, and were you to build an Atlantic
liner as big as the Isle of Wight it would really be no more remarkable
than an average steam-launch. Nobody marvels at the speed of a snail,
yet, given a snail's pace to start with, an express train follows as a
matter of course. Movement, not the rate of movement, is the mystery.
Precisely the same materials, the same forces, the same methods, are
employed in the little as in the big of these examples. Why should mere
accumulation, reiteration, and magnification make the difference? We may
ask why? But it does, for all that. If we answer that these mammoth
multiplications impress us because they are so much bigger, taller,
fatter, faster, etc., than we are, the question arises--How many times
bigger than a man must a mountain be before it impresses us? Perhaps the
problem has already been tackled by the schoolman who pondered how many
angels could dance on the point of a needle.

However, these and similar first principles, it will readily be seen,
are far from being irrelevant for the visitor at the Earl's Court
Exhibition. No doubt they are continually discussed by the thousands who
daily and nightly throng that very charming dream-world which Mr.
Kiralfy has built 'midmost the beating' of our 'steely sea.'

To an age that is over-read and over-fed Mr. Kiralfy brings the message:
'Leave your great minds at home, and go up the Great Wheel!' and I heard
his voice and obeyed. The sensation is, I should say, something between
going up in a balloon and being upon shipboard--a sensation compounded,
maybe, of the creaking of the circular rigging, the pleasure of rising
in the air, the freshening of the air as you ascend, the strange feeling
of the earth receding and spreading out beneath you, the curious
diminution of the people below--to their proper size. You will hear
original minds all about you comparing them to ants, and it is curious
to notice the involuntary feeling of contempt that possesses you as you
watch them. I believe one has a half-defined illusion that we are
growing greater as they are growing smaller. Ants and flies! ants and
flies! with here and there a fiery centipede in the shape of a District
train dashing in and out amongst them. We lose the power of
understanding their motions, and their throngs and movements do i