ly 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!"

"Must you go?" inquired Gregory sarcastically.

"I tell you," went on Syme with passion, "that every time a train comes
in I feel that it has broken past batteries of besiegers, and that man
has won a battle against chaos. You say contemptuously that when one has
left Sloane Square one must come to Victoria. I say that one might do
a thousand things instead, and that whenever I really come there I have
the sense of hairbreadth escape. And when I hear the guard shout out the
word 'Victoria,' it is not an unmeaning word. It is to me the cry of
a herald announcing conquest. It is to me indeed 'Victoria'; it is the
victory of Adam."

Gregory wagged his heavy, red head with a slow and sad smile.

"And even then," he said, "we poets always ask the question, 'And what
is Victoria now that you have got there?' You think Victoria is like
the New Jerusalem. We know that the New Jerusalem will only be like
Victoria. Yes, the poet will be discontented even in the streets of
heaven. The poet is always in revolt."

"There again," said Syme irritably, "what is there poetical about being
in revolt? You might as well say that it is poetical to be sea-sick.
Being sick is a revolt. Both being sick and being rebellious may be the
wholesome thing on certain desperate occasions; but I'm hanged if I can
see why they are poetical. Revolt in the abstract is--revolting. It's
mere vomiting."

The girl winced for a flash at the unpleasant word, but Syme was too hot
to heed her.

"It is things going right," he cried, "that is poetical! Our digestions,
for instance, going sacredly and silently right, that is the foundation
of all poetry