Page:America Today, Observations and Reflections.djvu/18

 the Atlantic will be as extinct, politically, as the Great Wall of China; or, rather, it will retain for America the abiding significance which the "silver streak" possesses for England—an effectual bulwark against aggression, but a highway to influence and world-moulding power.

Think of the time when the Lucania shall have fallen behind in the race, and shall be plying to Boston or Philadelphia, while larger and swifter hotel-ships shall put forth almost daily from Liverpool, Southampton, and New York! Think of the growth of intercourse which even the next ten years will probably bring, and the increase of mutual comprehension involved in it! Is it an illusion of mine, or do we not already observe in England, during the past year, a new interest and pride in our trans-Atlantic service, which now ranks close to the Navy in the popular affections? It dates, I think, from those first days of the late war, when the Paris was vainly supposed to be in danger of capture by Spanish cruisers, and when all England was wishing her god-speed.

For my own taste, this sumptuous hotel-ship is rather too much of a hotel and too little of a ship. I resent the absolute exclusion of the passengers from even the most distant view of the propelling and guiding forces. Practically, the Lucania is a ship without a deck; and the deck is to the ship what the face is to the human being. The so-called promenade-deck is simply a long roofed balcony on