no other way of escaping from the cold above ground, and
that this simple expedient did not require a great outlay of
imagination. Profound error! At its first appearance, the idea of
Miltiades had been hailed, and rightly enough, as a flash of genius. But
for him, but for his energy, and his eloquence, which was placed at the
service of his imagination, but for his forcefulness, his charm, and his
perseverance, which seconded his energy, let us add, but for the
profound passion that Lydia, the noblest and most valiant of women, had
been able to inspire in him, and which increased his heroism tenfold,
humanity would have suffered the fate of all the other animal or
vegetable species. What strikes us to-day in his discourse is the
extraordinary and truly prophetic lucidity with which he sketched in
general terms the conditions of existence in the new world. Without
doubt, these expectations have been immensely surpassed. He did not
foresee, he could not foresee, the prodigious accessions which his
original idea has received owing to its development by thousands of
auxiliary geniuses. He was far more right than he fancied, like the
majority of reformers--who are generally wrongly accused, of being too
much wrapt up in their own ideas. But on the whole, never was so
magnificent a plan so promptly carried out.

From that very day all these exquisite and delicate hands set to work,
aided, it is true, by incomparable machines. Everywhere, at the head of
all the workings, were to be found Lydia and Miltiades. Henceforth
inseparable, they vied with one another in ardour; and before a year was
out the galleries of the mines had become sufficiently large and
comfortable, sufficiently decorated even and brilliantly lighted, to
receive the vast and priceless collections of all kinds, which it was
their object to place in safety there, in view of the future.

With infinite precautions they were lowered one after another, bale by
bale, into the bowels of the earth. This salvage of the goods and
chattels of humanity was methodically carried out. It included all the
quintessence of the ancient grand libraries of Paris, Berlin, and
London, which had been brought together at Babylon, and then carried for
safety into the desert with the rest. The cream of all former museums,
of all previous exhibitions of industry and art, was concentrated there
with considerable additions. There were manuscripts, books, bronzes, and
pictures. What an ex