disorder only. If it were not so, the most poetical thing in the
world would be the Underground Railway."

"So it is," said Mr. Syme.

"Nonsense!" said Gregory, who was very rational when anyone else
attempted paradox. "Why do all the clerks and navvies in the
railway trains look so sad and tired, so very sad and tired? I will
tell you. It is because they know that the train is going right. It
is because they know that whatever place they have taken a ticket
for that place they will reach. It is because after they have
passed Sloane Square they know that the next station must be
Victoria, and nothing but Victoria. Oh, their wild rapture! oh,
their eyes like stars and their souls again in Eden, if the next
station were unaccountably Baker Street!"

"It is you who are unpoetical," replied the poet Syme. "If what you
say of clerks is true, they can only be as prosaic as your poetry.
The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, obvious
thing is to miss it. We feel it is epical when man with one wild
arrow strikes a distant bird. Is it not also epical when man with
one wild engine strikes a distant station? Chaos is dull; because
in chaos the train might indeed go anywhere, to Baker Street or to
Bagdad. But man is a magician, and his whole magic is in this, that
he does say Victoria, and lo! it is Victoria. No, take your books
of mere poetry and prose; let me read a time table, with tears of
pride. Take your Byron, who commemorates the defeats of man; give
me Bradshaw, who commemorates his victories. Give me Bradshaw, I
say!"