The
Rhine was more modern than the Hudson, as might well be, since it
produced far more coal; but all this counted for little beside
the radical change in the lines of force.
In 1858 the whole plain of northern Europe, as well as the
Danube in the south, bore evident marks of being still the
prehistoric highway between Asia and the ocean. The trade-route
followed the old routes of invasion, and Cologne was a
resting-place between Warsaw and Flanders. Throughout northern
Germany, Russia was felt even more powerfully than France. In
1901 Russia had vanished, and not even France was felt; hardly
England or America. Coal alone was felt -- its stamp alone
pervaded the Rhine district and persisted to Picardy -- and the
stamp was the same as that of Birmingham and Pittsburgh. The
Rhine produced the same power, and the power produced the same
people -- the same mind -- the same impulse. For a man
sixty-three years old who had no hope of earning a living, these
three months of education were the most arduous he ever
attempted, and Russia was the most indigestible morsel he ever
met; but the sum of it, viewed from Cologne, seemed reasonable.
From Hammerfest to Cherbourg on one shore of the ocean -- from
Halifax to Norfolk on the other -- one great empire was ruled by
one great emperor -- Coal. Political and human jealousies might
tear it apart or divide it, but the power and the empire were
one.
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