That very small Quay of Boulders, small as it is, yet is too large. I saw there a number of vessels, abandoned, useless. For, see you, the Fishery has become so unproductive! The fish have fled that shore. Entretat languishes, perishes, so near to languishing, and, but for its sea-bathing, perishing, Dieppe, which owes its present existence--such as it is!--to the greater or less number of visitors, who render Dieppe in one season prosperous, and in another as nearly as possible, bankrupt. And this very influx from Paris, worldly Paris, is, after all, morally, at least, a real scourge to that marine population. Our Norman populations who discovered America, and who, ever since the fourteenth century, have known Africa, are every year becoming less and less in love with the sea, so that, year by year, more and more of them are turning their faces inland. The descendant of the bold fellow who formerly harpooned the Whale, is now a pale cotton-spinner of Montville or of Balbec. It is for Science, it is for the Law, to put a stop to this fearful decay. The former with its skill, its sound advice will,--if such advice be resolutely acted upon, _economise the Sea and_ revive that Fishery which is the very nursery of Seamen; and in the next place, the Law, less exclusively caring for the interests of the real _élite_, the real flower and elect of the country, in no wise to be compared to those great masses from which we draw our soldiery, but who, under given circumstances, will be able to cut the Gordian knot of the world. Such were my reflections, on the little wharf or Quay of Etretat, in the cloudy and rainy summer of 1860, while the capstan bar was heaved at by young females, while the capstan screamed at every turn, and while the whole scene put one in mind of _desolation for the present, and worse to come_. And thus is it with our century. Ever since 1730, and so in the present day, labor, fatigue, and slowness have been upon us. Let us all, of no matter what rank, put hand and strength to the capstan bar! But, alas! how many of us prefer _picking up pebbles on the wild_ sea shore! We read that Scipio, stern conqueror of Carthage, and Terence, the lucky refugee from that shipwreck of a world, amused themselves in picking up shells on the sea shore; capital friends in their forgetfulness of the past. They enjoyed the _dolce far niente_; they were luxurious in their enjoyment of the illusion of being _boys once more_. But let not that be _our_ wish. We will not, we must not, we dare not, forget _our_ duty; no, with persistent labor, with uncooling ardor, we will put our hands to the capstan bar, and help to _warp up_ this great, but worn and much tried century. CHAPTER VII. THE NEW LIFE OF THE NATIONS. Just as I was finishing this book, in December, 1860, resuscitated Italy, that great and glorious mother of the modern nations, sent me tidings, in the shape of a small book, a mere pamphlet. It was my "New Year's gift for 1861."