Possesses still, at least for romantics like me, a fragrant sense of what might-have-been

The most appealing aspect of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, at least in retrospect, was its European cosmopolitanism. It had few black , brown or yellow subjects, but it contained within itself half the peoples of Europe. It was multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-faith, bound together only, whether willingly or unwillingly, by the imperial discipline. it was closer to the European community of the twenty-first century than to the British Empire of the the nineteenth and possesses still, at least for romantics like me, a fragrant sense of what might-have-been.

J. Morris, Trieste and the meaning of nowhere (2001), 32