NEWS FROM NOWHERE

or, An Epoch of Rest

Being Some Chapters From a Utopian Romance

by

William Morris

Chapter 1

Discussion and Bed

Up at the League, says a friend, there had been one night a brisk

conversational discussion, as to what would happen on the Morrow of

the Revolution, finally shading off into a vigorous statement by

various friends of their views on the future of the fully-developed

new society.

Says our friend: Considering the subject, the discussion was

good-tempered; for those present being used to public meetings and

after-lecture debates, if they did not listen to each others' opinions

(which could hardly be expected of them), at all events did not always

attempt to speak all together, as is the custom of people in ordinary

polite society when conversing on a subject which interests them. For

the rest, there were six persons present, and consequently six

sections of the party were represented, four of which had strong but

divergent Anarchist opinions. One of the sections, says our friend, a

man whom he knows very well indeed, sat almost silent at the beginning

of the discussion, but at last got drawn into it and finished by

roaring out very loud, and damning all the rest for fools; after which

befell a period of noise, and then a lull, during which the aforesaid

section, having said good-night very amicably, took his way home by

himself to a western suburb, using the means of travelling which

civilisation has forced upon us like a habit. As he sat in that

vapour-bath of hurried and discontented humanity, a carriage of the

underground railway, he, like others stewed discontentedly, while in

self-reproachful mood he turned over the many excellent and conclusive

arguments which though they lay at his fingers' ends, he had forgotten

in the just past discussion. But this frame of mind he was so used to,

that it didn't last him long, and after a brief discomfort, caused by

disgust with himself for having lost his temper (which he was also

well used to), he found himself musing on the subject-matter of

discussion, but still discontentedly and unhappily. "If I could but

see it!"

As he formed the words, the train stopped at his station, five

minutes' walk from his own house, which stood on the banks of the

Thames, a little way above an ugly suspension bridge. He went out of

the station, still discontented and unhappy, muttering "If I could but

see it! if I could but see it!" but had not gone many steps toward the

river before (says our friend who tells the story) all that discontent

and trouble seemed to slip off him.

It was a beautiful night of early winter, the air just sharp enough to

be refreshing after the hot room and the stinking railway carriage.

The wind, which had lately turned a point or two north of west, had

blown the sky clear of all cloud save a light fleck of two which went

swiftly down the heavens. There was a young moon halfway up the sky,

and as the home-farer caught sight of it, tangled in the branches of a

tall old elm, he could scarce bring to his mind the shabby London

suburb where he was, and he felt as if he were in a pleasant country

place--pleasanter, indeed, than the deep country was as he had known

it.

He came right down to the river-side, and lingered a little, looking

over the low wall to note the moon-lit river, near upon high water, go

swirling and glittering up to Cheswick Eyot; as for the ugly bridge

below, he did not notice it or t hink of it, except when for a moment

(says our friend) it stuck him that he missed the row of lights

down-stream. Then he turned to his house door and let himself in; and

even as he shut the door to, disappeared all remembrance of that

brilliant logic and foresight which had so illuminated the recent

discussion; and of the discussion itself there remained no trace, save

a vague hope, that was now become a pleasure, for days of peace and

rest, and cleanness and smiling goodwill.

In this mood he tumbled into bed, and fell asleep after his wont, in

two minutes' time; but (contrary to his wont) woke up again not long

after in that curiously wide-awake condition which sometimes surprises

even good sleepers; a condition uder which we feel all our wits

preternaturally sharpened, while all the miserable muddles we have

ever got into, all the disgraces and losses of our lives, will insist

on thrusting themselves forward for the consideration of those

sharpened wits.

In this state he lay (says our friend) till he had almost begun to

enjoy it; till the tale of his stupidities amused him, and the

entanglements before him, which he saw so clearly, began to shape

themselves into an amusing story for him.

He heard one o'clock strike then two and then three; after which he

fell asleep again. Our friend says that from that sleep he awoke once

more, and afterwards went through such surprising adventures that he

thinks that they should be told to our comrades, and indeed the public

in general, and therefore he proposes to tell them now. But, says he,

I think it would be better if I told them in the first person, as if

it were myself who had gone through them; which, indeed, will be the

easier and more natural to me, since I understand the feeling and

desires of the comrade of whom I am telling better than any one else

in the world does.