Se —_ ——— 
BECOMES AN ENGINEER. 179 
at which he may give up that title. To him, in four- 
and-twenty hours, the appearance of the world becomes 
completely changed; he has hitherto received instruc- 
tion; he is going ‘to create it. His future seems, more- 
over, to promise him all that a century may have offered 
in the way of brilliant occurrences to some few individ- 
uals favoured by fate. 
Few engineers, for example, receive their diplomas 
without believing themselves from this moment called 
(like new “Riquets”) either to join the ocean to the 
Mediterranean by a great canal which will carry mer- 
chantmen even to the centre of a kingdom, or to trace 
on the slope of the Alps the winding and bold road 
whose summit is lost amidst eternal snow, but which the 
traveller nevertheless will face even in the depth of 
winter. One has conceived the hope of ornamenting 
the capital with one of those light, and at the same time 
steady bridges, where the bold chisel of a David may 
some day come to animate the marble; another, remod- 
elling the gigantic works of Cherbourg, arrests tempests 
at the entrance of roadsteads, provides useful harbours 
for merchantmen, associates himself finally with the 
glory of the national squadrons by furnishing them with 
new means of attack and defence. The less ambitious 
have dreamt of improving the course of the principal 
rivers, and rendering their waters deeper and less rapid 
by means of embankments; of checking those moving 
mountains which, under the name of sandhills, gradually 
invade rich countries and transform them into sterile 
deserts. 
I will not venture to affirm that, notwithstanding the 
extreme moderation of his desires, Fresnel entirely 
escaped these happy dreams of youth. At all events the 
