The Orient Express

Excerpt from The Orient Express
Let us go first to the Middle East. The Near East was a first love, so let us keep it in its proper place, - as something to which to return.
With the exception of six miles of toy line between Tehran and Shah Abdul Azim, there are no railways in Persia, which is the reason why they are so much discussed at present. But this Orient Express will take you there, for its way is like the definition of the Equator-an imaginary line running round the earth.
"The Dawn of Nothing" is a hard phrase to apply to the beginnings of the Persian Constitution. In the long-run I trust that its cynicism will prove far from the truth, but in the short run of eight years the high hopes that some held have suffered sad shipwreck. The Constitution was like that ill-starred ship -
"Built in the eclipse and rigged with curses dark,"
- which carried Lycidas to his doom. In January 1906 Muzaffar-ed-Din Shah unwillingly granted it to his disloyal subjects.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.