Transcribed from the 1908 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition byDavid Price,
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; March1892.
Kelmscott Press Edition, 1892.
Since reprinted March 1895; January 1897;November 1899; August 1902; July 1905;January 1907; and January 1908.
Up at the League, says a friend, there had been one night abrisk conversational discussion, as to what would happen on theMorrow of the Revolution, finally shading off into a vigorousstatement by various friends of their views on the future of thefully-developed new society.
Says our friend: Considering the subject, the discussion wasgood-tempered; for those present being used to public meetingsand after-lecture debates, if they did not listen to eachothers’ opinions (which could scarcely be expected ofthem), at all events did not always attempt to speak alltogether, as is the custom of people in ordinary polite societywhen conversing on a subject which interests them. For therest, there were six persons present, and consequently sixsections of the party were represented, four of which had strongbut divergent Anarchist opinions. One of the sections, saysour friend, a man whom he knows very well indeed, sat almostsilent at the beginning of the discussion, but at last got drawninto it, and finished by roaring out very loud, and damning allthe rest for fools; after which befel a period of noise, and thena lull, during which the aforesaid section, having saidgood-night very amicably, took his way home by himself to awestern suburb, using the means of travelling which civilisationhas forced upon us like a habit. As he sat in thatvapour-bath of hurried and discontented humanity, a carriage ofthe underground railway, he, like others, stewed discontentedly,while in self-reproachful mood he turned over the many excellentand conclusive arguments which, though they lay at hisfingers’ ends, he had forgotten in the just pastdiscussion. But this frame of mind he was so used to, thatit didn’t last him long, and after a brief discomfort,caused by disgust with himself for having lost his temper (whichhe was also well used to), he found himself musing on thesubject-matter of discussion, but still discontentedly andunhappily. “If I could but see a day of it,” hesaid to himself; “if I could but see it!”
As he formed the words, the train stopped at his station, fiveminutes’ walk from his own house, which stood on the banksof the Thames, a little way above an ugly suspensionbridge. He went out of the station, still discontented andunhappy, muttering “If I could but see it! if I could butsee it!” but had not gone many steps towards the riverbefore (says our friend who tells the story) all that discontentand trouble seemed to slip off him.
It was a beautiful night of early winter, the air just sharpenough to be refreshing after the hot room and the stinkingrailway carriage. T