Transcribed from the 1908 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David
Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
NEWS FROM NOWHERE
OR
AN EPOCH OF REST
BEING SOME CHAPTERS FROM
A UTOPIAN ROMANCE
BY
WILLIAM MORRIS,
AUTHOR OF 'THE EARTHLY PARADISE.'
_TENTH IMPRESSION_
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1908
_All rights reserved_
_First printed serially in the_ Commonweal, 1890.
_Thence reprinted at Boston_, _Mass._, 1890.
_First English Edition_, _revised_, _Reeves & Turner_, 1891.
_Reprinted April_, _June_ 1891; _March_ 1892.
_Kelmscott Press Edition_, 1892.
_Since reprinted March_ 1895; _January_ 1897; _November_ 1899; _August_
1902; _July_ 1905; _January_ 1907; _and January_ 1908.
CHAPTER I: 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 scarcely 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 befel 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 a day of it," he said to himself; "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 towards 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 or 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 moonlit river, near upon high water, go swirling
and glittering up to Chiswick Eyot: as for the ugly bridge below, he did
not notice it or think of it, except when for a moment (says our friend)
it struck 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 under 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 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 feelings and desires of the
comrade of whom I am telling better than any one else in the world does.