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 

 ncAv 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 embanknaents ; 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 



