Vincent Dunbar was not a man to break his heart at the disappointment which, it is needless to say, awaited him. Long years afterwards, when Sir Henry Elliott was not only married, but had daughters coming out in the world, he, one day at a dinner-party, sat next a pale-faced, middle-aged lady, whose still beautiful features, combined with the quiet, almost grave elegance of her toilet, had already attracted his attention in the drawing-room. It was a countenance of perfect serenity; but no observing eye could look at it without feeling that that was a serenity not born of joy, but of sadness—a calm that had succeeded a storm—a peace won by a great battle. Sir Henry felt pleased when he saw that the fortunes of the dinner-table had placed him beside this lady, and they had not been long seated before he took an opportunity of addressing her. Her eyelids fell as she turned to answer him; but there was a sweet, mournful smile on her lip—a smile that awoke strange recollections, and made his heart for a moment stand still. For some minutes he did not speak again, nor she either; when he did, it was to ask her, in a low, gentle voice, to take wine with him. The lady's hand shook visibly as she raised her glass; but, after a short interval, the surprise and the pang passed away, and they conversed calmly on general subjects, like other people in society.
When Sir Henry returned to the drawing-room, the pale-faced lady was gone; and, a few days afterwards, the Morning Post announced among its departures that Miss Seymour had left London for the continent.
THE CONTINENTAL 'BRADSHAW' IN 1852.
Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide—the square, pale-yellow, compact, brochure which makes its appearance once a month, and which has doubled its thickness in its brief existence of five years—is suggestive of a multitude of thoughts concerning the silent revolution now passing over Europe. Presidents may have coups d'état; kings may put down parliaments, and emperors abrogate constitutions; Legitimists may dream of the past, and Communists of the future; but the railways are marking out a path for themselves in Europe which will tend to obliterate, or at least to soften, the rugged social barriers which separate nation from nation. This will not be effected all at once, and many enthusiasts are disappointed that the cosmopolitanism advances so slowly; but the result is not the less certain in being slow.
Our facetious contemporary Punch once gave a railway map of England, in which the face of the land was covered with intersecting lines at mutual distances of only a mile or two. A railway map of Europe has certainly not yet assumed such a labyrinthine character; still, the lines of civilisation (for so we may well term them) are becoming closer and closer every year. The outposts of Europe, where the Scandinavian, the Sclavonian, the Italian, and the Spaniard respectively rule, are scanty in their exhibition of such lines; but as we gradually approach the scenes of commercial activity, there do railways appear in greater and greater proximity. France strikingly exemplifies its own theory, that 'Paris is France,' by shewing how all its important railways spring from the metropolis in six directions. Belgium exhibits its compact net-work of railways, by which nearly all its principal towns are accommodated. The phlegmatic Dutchman has as yet placed the locomotive only in that portion of Holland which lies between the Rhine and the Zuiderzee. Rhineland, from Bâle to Wiesbaden, is under railway dominion. North Germany, within a circle of which Magdeburg may be taken as a centre, is railed pretty thickly; and Vienna has become a point from which lines of great length start. Exterior to all these are solitary lines, the pioneers of the new order of things, pointing in directions which will one day come within the yellow covers of Bradshaw. There is one line straggling out to Rostock; another to Stettin and Bromberg, on its way to Danzig; another to Warsaw, on its way to meet the czar at St Petersburg; another to Pesth, whence it will be carried through the scenes of the late Hungarian war; another to the neighbourhood of the Adriatic; others from Central Germany southward to the Swiss highlands, which bar further progress; and a very modest little group in North Italy.
It is instructive to mark the steps by which these continental railways have been brought into existence. The English practice of undertaking all such great works, is very little understood abroad; there is not capital enough afloat, and the commercial audacity of the people has not yet arrived at such a high-pressure point. Almost the whole of the railways now under notice, have been constructed either by the governments of the respective countries, or by companies which require some sort of government guarantee before they can obtain their capital.
Belgium was the first continental country to follow the railway example of England. Very soon after King Leopold was seated securely on his throne, he initiated measures for the construction of railways in Belgium; and a law was passed in 1834, sanctioning that compact system which, having Mechlin as a centre, branches out in four directions—to Liege, Antwerp, Brussels, and Ostend; and there were also lines sanctioned to the Prussian frontier, and the French frontier—the whole giving a length of about 247 English miles. Three years afterwards, a law was passed for the construction of 94 additional miles of railway—to Courtrai, Tournay, Namur, and other towns. In the western part of Belgium, the engineering difficulties were not of a formidable character; but towards the Prussian frontier, the bridges, cuttings, and embankments are so extensive, as to have rendered the works far more costly than in the average of continental railways. The Belgian Chambers provided the money, or rather authorised the government to borrow it, year after year. The first portion of railway was opened in 1835, and every year from thence till 1843, witnessed the opening of additional portions; until at length, in this last-named year, all the 341 miles mentioned above were opened for traffic. The cost varied from L.6140 per mile (near Courtrai), to L.38,700 per mile (near Liege); the entire cost of the whole, including working-plant, was within L.17,000 per average mile. While these railways were progressing, private companies were formed for the construction of other lines, to the extent of about 200 additional miles, most of which are now open—the Namur and Liege being opened in 1851. These various railways are said to have yielded, on an average, about 3½ per cent. on the outlay.
It was of course impossible for France to see its little neighbour, Belgium, advancing in its railway course, without setting a similar movement on foot; but various circumstances have given a lingering character to French railway enterprise. It was in 1837 that the short railway from Paris through Versailles to St Germain—the first passenger line in France—was opened. In the next following year, two companies, aided by the government in certain ways, undertook the construction of the railways from Paris to Rouen, and from Paris to Orleans. The French government, having a strong taste for centralisation in national matters, formed in 1842 that plan which has since, with some modifications, been carried into execution. The plan consisted in causing the great lines of communication to be surveyed and marked out by government engineers, and then to be ceded to joint-stock companies, to be constructed on certain conditions. There were to be seven such lines radiating from Paris: to the Belgian frontier; to one or more ports on the Channel; to the Atlantic ports; to Bordeaux; to the Spanish frontier; to Marseille; and to Rhenish Prussia. The government has had to concede more favourable conditions to some of these companies than were at first intended, to get the lines constructed at all. The first and second of the above lines of communication are now almost fully opened; the third is finished to Chartres; the fourth, to Nantes and Poitiers; the fifth, to Chateauroux; the sixth, to Chalons, with another portion from Avignon to Marseille; while the seventh, or Paris and Strasbourg Railway, is that of which the final opening has been recently celebrated with so much firing of guns, drinking of healths, blessing of locomotives, and speechifyings of presidents. At the close of 1851, the length of French railway opened was about 1800 miles; while the portion since opened, or now in progress or projected, amounts to about as much more. In the president's speech to the National Assembly in 1851 (of course, before the coup d'état), it was announced that the length of French railway to be finished and opened in 1851 would be 516 kilomètres (about 320 miles); and in 1852, about 330 kilomètres (205 miles.)