But this feeling could not last. When the people of England saw how inevitably Louis Napoleon reaped from every conflict some selfish advantage, how the Crimean War gave him all the prestige, and the Italian War the coveted province of Nice, they began to doubt his fair professions. And this jealousy is fast deepening into fear. The English people have an instinct of approaching danger. Any one can see that the "entente cordiale" is not quite what it once was. When a British Lord of Admiralty can rise in his place in Parliament, and, after alluding to the powerful and increasing naval force of France, add,—"I say that any Ministry who did not act upon that statement, and did not at once set about putting the country in the position she ought to occupy in respect to her navy, would deserve to be sent to the Tower or penitentiary,"—we may be sure that England has as much jealousy as trust, and perhaps quite as much alarm as either.
But we have only to look at her acts to know what England is thinking. For six years she has been engaged in an unceasing war with France,—not, indeed, with swords and bayonets, but as really with her workshops and dockyards. She has tasked these to their uttermost to maintain and increase her naval superiority. And this is not the only evidence we have of her true feeling. The building of new fortifications for her ports, and the enlargement and strengthening of the old defences, all tell the same story of profound distrust. "Plymouth has been made secure. The mouth of the Thames is thought to be impregnable." That is the way English papers write. Around Portsmouth and Gosport she has thrown an immense girdle of forts. We may think what we will of Cherbourg, England views it in the light of a perpetual menace. To the proud challenge she has sent back a sturdy defiance. Right opposite to it, on her nearest shore, she has reared a "Gibraltar of the Channel." If you take your map, you will perceive, facing Cherbourg, and projecting from the southern coast of England, the little island of Portland, which at low tide becomes a peninsula, and is connected with the main land by Chesil Bank, a low ridge of shingle ten miles long. On the extreme north of this island, looking down into Weymouth Bay, is a little cluster of rocky hills, rising sharply to a considerable height, and occupying, perhaps, a space of sixty acres. This is where the fortress, or Veme, as it is called, is built. On the northern side, the cliff lifts itself up from the waters of the bay almost in a perpendicular line, and is absolutely inaccessible. On all other sides the Veme has been isolated by a tremendous chasm, which makes the dry ditch of the fort. This chasm has been blasted into the solid rock, and is nowhere less than a hundred feet wide and eighty feet deep. At the angles of the fortress it widens to two hundred feet, and sinks beneath the batteries in a sheer perpendicular of one hundred and thirty feet. Two bastions jut from the main work into it, protecting it from approach by a terrible cross-fire. All the appointments are upon the same scale. The magazines, the storehouses, the water-tanks, are built to furnish supplies for a siege, not of months, but of years. On every side the rocky surface of the hills has been shaved down below the level of its guns; so that there is not a spot seaward or landward that may not be swept by its tremendous batteries. Such is this remarkable stronghold which is rising to completion opposite Cherbourg. Yet it is but one of several strong forts which are to protect the single harbor of Weymouth Bay. Was this Titanic work reared in the spirit of trust? Does it speak of England's hope of abiding friendship with France? No; it tells us that beneath seeming amity a deadly struggle is going on,—that every dock hollowed, every ship launched, every colony seized, and every fortress reared, is but another step in a silent, but real, contest for supremacy.
When this hidden fire shall burst forth into a devouring flame, when this seeming alliance shall change into open enmity and bitter war, no one can prophesy. But no doubt sooner or later. For between nations, as well as in the bosom of communities, there are irrepressible conflicts, which no alliances, no compacts, and no motives of wisdom or interest can forever hold in check. And when it shall burst forth, no one can foretell what its end shall be. That dread uncertainty, more than all these things else, keeps the peace. We can but think that the naval preëminence of England has grown out of the real character of her people and of their pursuits,—and that the same causes which, in the long, perilous conflicts of the past, have enabled her to secure the sovereignty of the seas, will strengthen her to maintain that sovereignty in all the conflicts which in the future may await her. But, whatever may be the result, to whomsoever defeat may come, nothing can obliterate from the pages of history the record of the sagacity, perseverance, and courage with which the French people and their ruler have striven to overcome a maritime inferiority, whose origin, perhaps, is in the structure of their society and in the nature of their race.
SOMETHING LEFT UNDONE.
Labor with what zeal we will,
Something still remains undone,
Something, uncompleted still,
Waits the rising of the sun.
By the bedside, on the stair,
At the threshold, near the gates,
With its menace or its prayer,
Like a mendicant it waits:
Waits, and will not go away,—
Waits, and will not be gainsaid.
By the cares of yesterday
Each to-day is heavier made,
Till at length it is, or seems,
Greater than our strength can bear,—
As the burden of our dreams,
Pressing on us everywhere;
And we stand from day to day
Like the dwarfs of times gone by,
Who, as Northern legends say,
On their shoulders held the sky.