Page:Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891).pdf/164

 and just go on anyhow, without thinking about it, and see where I get to."

Or maybe it is a conceited, headstrong young train. It will not be guided or advised. The traffic superintendent wants it to go to St. Petersburg or to Paris. The old, grey-headed station-master argues with it, and tries to persuade it to go to Constantinople, or even to Jerusalem if it likes that better—urges it to, at all events, make up its mind where it is going—warns it of the danger to young trains of having no fixed aim or object in life. Other people, asked to use their influence with it, have talked to it like a father, and have begged it, for their sakes, to go to Kamskatka, or Timbuctoo, or Jericho, according as they have thought best for it; and then, finding that it takes no notice of them, have got wild with it, and have told it to go to still more distant places.