Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 7.djvu/234

 BARON D'ESTOURNELLES DE CONSTANT

FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES

(1902)

France and America immense material progresses have been attained. It seemed once that a deep, bottomless gulf, an abyss, was separating for ever our two continents. Now thousands of bonds unite one to the other; the obstacles which separated them disappear. The ocean, daily traversed by steamers as big as floating hotels, as thick as cars on a tramway line, has been converted into a great roadway and is destined to become soon a crowded avenue. Distance has been annihilated. One thing still remains between our countries: ignorance. That is the veritable abyss, the ocean that has to be effaced. We do not know America. You do not know France. We see you through the mists of our prejudices. You believe we are very old. We believe you are very young. We are both wrong.