VISCOUNT FERDINAND DE LESSEPS. 3^3 



earnest. But all the while he was unwittingly fitting himself for his 

 true mission, and gaining strength, and knowledge, and courage for a 

 practical interpretation of a sublime thought : " Je veux detruire cette 

 muraille de sable qui arrete le progres." 



Tills muraille de sable, this wall of sand, separates two worlds. 

 In one, man plays the roll assigned to him in the original setting of 

 the piece ; in the other, he assists in never-ending creation. In one 

 he awaits his orders in harness, in the other he is charioteer. But 

 from whichever point of view we look backwards across the Isthmus, 

 from Islam or from Christendom, history foreshadows the canal. 

 And now that it is finished and in full operation, so that its direct 

 effects upon the commerce of the world have ultimated, one reads the 

 history of trade by a new light, which discovers prophetic meaning in 

 many events that anticipated this new dispensation. 



If we seek the origin of the idea, we are taken back to a remote 

 past; and we may follow the thought down through a hundred genera- 

 tions, which it dimly pervades, till the sifting of the French Revolu- 

 tion discovers its " fixity, that true sign of the law " ; thenceforth, it is 

 a pressing obligation hastening to maturity. 



In Napoleon's message to the Directory, " Whatever European 

 power holds Egypt permanently is in the end mistress of India," 

 he put the cart before the horse, as we have since learned ; but 

 the necessity for the canal in the scheme of human progress is re- 

 flected even in such inverted conceptions, and to the short-lived 

 Egyptian Institute we owe the first scientific investigation of the 

 problem of joining the two seas, although the errors of svirvey, which 

 deferred the project by placing the two seas out of level, reflect little 

 credit upon the pupils of the Normal School. To make errors that 

 should prove stepping stones to the truth was, however, in the spirit 

 of the age ; and the report of Lapere — reasserting "• the wisdom of 

 the ancieiifs" that had already afflicted and separated the nations 

 of the earth for thirty-five hundred years — only aroused a new and 

 defiant generation, that with better observations and in better temper 

 reconciled the two seas forever. 



M. Mimut, "one of the most distinguished diplomats ever in the 

 service of France," holding the great work of the French expedition 

 in his hands, gave to M. de Lesseps the first quickening thought, and 

 from that moment his mind and heart received the ancient hope re- 

 newed, and he became its champion. It was a religious experience. 

 "You have," said Renan, addressing him at the Academy, " caused 

 to blossom once more a flower which seemed faded forever. You 



