es, after all: the true
difference is between the people who regard them. I should rather read a
description of Hoboken by Rudyard Kipling than a description of Florence
by some New England schoolmarm. To the poet, all places are poetical; to
the adventurous, all places are teeming with adventure: and to experience
a lack of joy in any place is merely a sign of sluggish blood in the
beholder.

So, at least, it seems to me; for not otherwise can I explain the fact
that, like my beloved R.L.S., I have always enjoyed waiting at railway
junctions. I love not merely the marching phrases, but also the commas and
the semi-colons of a journey,--those mystic moments when "we look before
and after" and need not "pine for what is not." I have never done much
waiting in America, which is in the main a country of express trains, that
hurl their lighted windows through the night like what Mr. Kipling calls
"a damned hotel;" but there is scarcely a country of Europe except Russia
whose railway junctions are unknown to me. In many of these little
nameless places I have experienced memorable hours: and because the less
enthusiastic Baedeker has neglected to star and double-star them, I have
always wanted to praise them, in print somewhat larger than his own. Space
is lacking in the present article for a complete guide to all the railway
junctions of Europe; but I should like to commemorate a few, in gratitude
for what befell me there.

There is a junction in Bavaria whose name I have forgotten; but it is very
near Rothenburg, the most picturesquely medieval of all German cities. It
consists merely of a station and two intersecting tracks. When you enter
the station, you observe what seems to be a lunch-counter; but if you step
up to it and innocently order food, a buxom girl informs you that no food
is ever served there--and then everybody laughs. This pleasant
cachinnation attracts your attention to the assembled company. It consists
of many peasants, in their native costumes (which any painter would be
willing to journey many miles to see), who are enjoying the delicious
experience of travel. They are great travelers, these peasants. Once a
month they take the train to Rothenburg, and once a month they journey
home again, to talk of the experience for thirty days. All of them have
heard of Nuremberg [which is actually less than a hundred miles
away],--that vast and wonderful metropolis, so far, so very far, beyond
the ultimate horizo