News from Nowhere | Page 4

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