Howards End

I knew it was familiar:

Like many others who had lived long in a great capital, she had strong feelings about the various railway termini. They are our gates to the glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out into adventure and sunshine, to them; alas! we return. In Paddington all Cornwall is latent and the remoter west; down the inclines of Liverpool Street lie fenlands and the illimitable Broads; Scotland is through the pylons of Euston; Wessex behind the poised chaos of Waterloo. . .

To Margaret - I hope that it will not set the reader against her - the station of King's Cross had always suggested infinity. Its very situation - withdrawn a little behind the facile splendors of St Pancras - implied a comment on the materialism of life. Thos two great arches, colourless, indifferent, shouldering between them an unlovely clock, were fit portals for some eternal adventure, whose issue might be prosperous, but would certainly not be expressed in the ordinary language of prosperity. If you think this is ridiculous, remember that it is not Margaret who is telling you about it; and let me hasten to add that they were in plenty of time for the train. . .

E.M. Forster, Howards End