If, as Dante sings: "There is no greater grief than in a time of misery to remember happier days," there are few persons in our time who can testify more feelingly to the truth of the poet's words than Ferdinand de Lesseps. For many years he was a bright-shining, sympathetic figure among those who lead in the van of our material progress; and the accomplishment, by his initiative and energy, of the long dream of the Suez Canal, made him the hero, not of his own nation alone, but of all the civilized world; honors were heaped upon him, and acclamations greeted him on every side. His name became a household word. A few years later, and all is changed. At the advanced age of eighty-eight, Ferdinand de Lesseps is in deep disgrace. Charged with the chief responsibility for the ruin brought about by the failure of another of his great enterprises--the Panama Canal--he has been condemned by the tribunal to pay a huge fine, and has only been saved from the shame of actual imprisonment by the knowledge of his judges that, in his feeble state of health, imprisonment would speedily be fatal. As at the ceremonies on the occasion of the opening of the Suez Canal, De Lesseps was compared to Columbus, the opener of a way to the new world, so we may see the close of the great discoverer's career reflected in the tragic ending of the splendid fortunes of De Lesseps. Ferdinand de Lesseps was the son of a French gentleman who, fifty years since, was in the Consular service of France in Egypt. He was born at Versailles in 1805, and after receiving the usual education given to youth of his class, he was early inducted into the mysteries of diplomatic life, where his father's services and influence naturally opened a way for him. In 1833, when twenty-eight, he was made consul at Cairo, and remained at that post for over ten years, during which time he laid the foundations for that knowledge of all matters connected with Egyptian affairs which was to prove so valuable to him and to the world a few years later.