The Dawn of a To-morrow | Page 3

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THE DAWN OF A TO-MORROW By FRANCES HODGSON
BURNETT

I
There are always two ways of looking at a thing, frequently there are
six or seven; but two ways of looking at a London fog are quite enough.
When it is thick and yellow in the streets and stings a man's throat and
lungs as he breathes it, an awakening in the early morning is either an
unearthly and grewsome, or a mysteriously enclosing, secluding, and
comfortable thing. If one awakens in a healthy body, and with a clear
brain rested by normal sleep and retaining memories of a normally
agreeable yesterday, one may lie watching the housemaid building the
fire; and after she has swept the hearth and put things in order, lie
watching the flames of the blazing and crackling wood catch the coals
and set them blazing also, and dancing merrily and filling corners with
a glow; and in so lying and realizing that leaping light and warmth and
a soft bed are good things, one may turn over on one's back, stretching
arms and legs luxuriously, drawing deep breaths and smiling at a
knowledge of the fog outside which makes half-past eight o'clock on a
December morning as dark as twelve o'clock on a December night.

Under such conditions the soft, thick, yellow gloom has its picturesque
and even humorous aspect. One feels enclosed by it at once
fantastically and cosily, and is inclined to revel in imaginings of the
picture outside, its Rembrandt lights and orange yellows, the halos
about the street-lamps, the illumination of shop- windows, the flare of
torches stuck up over coster barrows and coffee- stands, the shadows
on the faces of the men and women selling and buying beside them.
Refreshed by sleep and comfort and surrounded by light, warmth, and
good cheer, it is easy to face the day, to confront going out into the fog
and feeling a sort of pleasure in its mysteries. This is one way of
looking at it, but only one.
The other way is marked by enormous differences.
A man--he had given his name to the people of the house as Antony
Dart--awakened in a third-story bedroom in a lodging-house in a poor
street in London, and as his consciousness returned to him, its slow and
reluctant movings confronted the second point of view--marked by
enormous differences. He had not slept two consecutive hours through
the night, and when he had slept he had been tormented by dreary
dreams, which were more full of misery because of their elusive
vagueness, which kept his tortured brain on a wearying strain of effort
to reach some definite understanding of them. Yet when he awakened
the consciousness of being again alive was an awful thing. If the
dreams could have faded into blankness and all have passed with the
passing of the night, how he could have thanked whatever gods there be!
Only not to awake-- only not to awake! But he had awakened.
The clock struck nine as he did so, consequently he knew the hour. The
lodging-house slavey had aroused him by coming to light the fire. She
had set her candle on the hearth and done her work as stealthily as
possible, but he had been disturbed, though he had made a desperate
effort to struggle back into sleep. That was no use--no use. He was
awake and he was in the midst of it all again. Without the sense of
luxurious comfort he opened his eyes and turned upon his back,
throwing out his arms flatly, so that he lay as in the form of a cross, in
heavy weariness and anguish. For months he had awakened each
morning after such a night and had so lain like a crucified thing.
As he watched the painful flickering of the damp and smoking wood
and coal he remembered this and thought that there had been a lifetime

of such awakenings, not knowing that