The British Empire, like the Roman, built itself slowly. It was the way of both nations to deal with needs as needs occurred, and not before. Neither of them charted out their projects in advance, {107} thereafter working to them, like Lenôtre, when he laid out the gardens of Versailles. On the contrary, a strip was added here, a kingdom there, as time went on, but not in accordance with any plan or system. In certain cases, no doubt, the reason for annexation was a simple desire for possession. But much more often the motive was apprehension of one kind or another. Empire-builders have usually achieved empire as an accident attending their search after security--security against the ambition of a neighbour, against lawless hordes which threaten the frontier, against the fires of revolution and disorder spreading from adjacent territories. Britain, like Rome before her, built up her empire piecemeal; for the most part reluctantly; always reckoning up and dreading the cost, labour, and burden of it; hating the responsibility of expansion, and shouldering it only when there seemed to be no other course open to her in honour or safety. Symmetry did not appeal to either of these nations any more than vastness. Their realms spread out and extended, as chance and circumstances willed they should, like pools of water in the fields when floods are out. We cannot but distrust the soundness of recent German policy, with its grandiose visions of universal empire, if we consider it in the light of other things which happened when the world was somewhat younger, though possibly no less wise. The great imaginative conquerors, though the fame of their deeds still rings down the ages, do not make so brave a show, when we begin to examine into the permanency of their achievements. The imperial projects of Alexander, of the Habsburgs, the Grand Monarque, and Napoleon--each of whom drew out {108} a vast pattern and worked to it--are not among those things which can be said with any justice to have endured. None of them were ever fully achieved; while some were broken in pieces, even during the lifetimes of their architects.