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40. Night Train to Paris
- Louisiana State University Press
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230 40 Night Train to Paris. NOVEMBER 1 Such a whirl of events! The very world is on fire! Great battles in progress, dynasties crumbling, new nations being born, the statesmen of the world sitting at Versailles to decide the fate of the peoples. In such a time, how puny seem the doings of any one human being! I had intended to write something about Naples and the wonderful visit I made, in the hurried last afternoon, to ruined Pompeii—a warm, ripe, rich, fall day, with such a view of distant mountains and sea and old Vesuvius rising near at hand, as I shall never forget. But how can one stop to think of cities ruined nineteen hundred years ago when cities are being ruined fifty miles from where I sit at this moment? I had one day at Rome, with hurried calls on the Ambassador, Signor Luzzatti, and others, and took the night train for Paris. An American named Mayer shared the compartment with me. He was employed by the French government to “speed up” shipping in Italy—to secure quicker loading and unloading. He had much to say about the superiority of American methods and the need of introducing them into Europe. Upon questioning him as to what American methods were and how they differed from European methods, I found that when a ship came in and all the docks were full, the proper way was to “slip this man a twenty-franc note, and that man a fifty-franc note, and perhaps another man a one hundred-franc note—and you get in!” ...