The noise of a great terminus is no jar
to me. It is music. I prick up my ears to it, and paw the platform.
Dear to me as the bugle-note to any war-horse, as the first twittering
of the birds in the hedgerows to the light-sleeping vagabond, that cry
of `Take your seats please!' or--better still--`En voiture!' or
`Partenza!' Had I the knack of rhyme, I would write a sonnet-sequence
of the journey to Newhaven or Dover--a sonnet for every station one
does not stop at. I await that poet who shall worthily celebrate the
iron road. There is one who describes, with accuracy and gusto, the
insides of engines; but he will not do at all. I look for another, who
shall show us the heart of the passenger, the exhilaration of
travelling by day, the exhilaration and romance and self-importance of
travelling by night.
`Paris!' How it thrills me when, on a night in spring, in the hustle
and glare of Victoria, that label is slapped upon my hat-box! Here,
standing in the very heart of London, I am by one sweep of a paste-
brush transported instantly into that white-grey city across the sea.
To all intents and purposes I am in Paris already. Strange, that the
porter does not say, `V'la`, M'sieu'!' Strange, that the evening
papers I buy at the bookstall are printed in the English language.
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