News From Nowhere : Or An Epoch of Rest Being Some Chapters From a Utopian Romance

Chapter 32 : The Feast's Beginning - The End
XXXII. The Feast's Beginning - The End Dick brought me at once into the little field which, as I had seen from the garden, was covered with gaily-colored tents arranged in orderly lanes, about which were sitting and lying in the grass some fifty or sixty men, women, and children, all of them in the height of good temper and enjoyment - with their holiday mood on, so to say. "You are thinking that we don't make a great show as to numbers," said Dick; "but you must remember that we shall have more to-morrow; because in this haymaking work there is room for a great many people who are not over-skilled in country matters: and there are many who lead sedentary lives, whom it would be unkind to deprive of their pleasure in the hay-field - scientific men and close students generally: so that the skilled workmen, outside those who are wanted as... (From : Marxists.org.)

Chapter 31 : An Old House Amongst New Folk
XXXI. An Old House Among New Folk As I stood there Ellen detached herself from our happy friends who still stood on the little strand and came up to me. She took me by the hand, and said softly, "Take me on to the house at once; we need not wait for the others: I had rather not." I had a mind to say that I did not know the way thither, and that the river-side dwellers should lead; but almost without my will my feet moved on along the road they knew. The raised way led us into a little field bounded by a backwater of the river on one side; on the right hand we could see a cluster of small houses and barns, new and old, and before us a gray stone barn and a wall partly overgrown with ivy, over which a few gray gables showed. The village road ended in the shallow of the aforesaid backwater. We crossed the road, and again almost without... (From : Marxists.org.)

Chapter 30 : The Journey's End
XXX. The Journey's End On we went. In spite of my new-born excitement about Ellen, and my gathering fear of where it would land me I could not help taking abundant interest in the condition of the river and its banks; all the more as she never seemed weary of the changing picture, but looked at every yard of flowery bank and gurgling eddy with the same affectionate interest which I myself once had so fully, as I used to think, and perhaps had not altogether lost even in this strangely changed society with all its wonders. Ellen seemed delighted with my pleasure at this, that, or the other piece of carefulness in dealing with the river: the nursing of pretty corners; the ingenuity in dealing with difficulties of water-engineering so that the most obviously useful works looked beautiful and natural also. All this, I say, pleased me hugely, and she was pleased at my... (From : Marxists.org.)

Chapter 29 : A Resting-Place on the Upper Thames
XXIX. A Resting-Place on the Upper Thames Presently at a place where the river flowed round a headland of the meadows, we stopped a while for rest and victuals, and settled ourselves on a beautiful bank which almost reached the dignity of a hill-side: the wide meadows spread before us, and already the scythe was busy amid the hay. One change I noticed amid the quiet beauty of the fields - to wit, that they were planted with trees here and there, often fruit-trees, and that there was none of the niggardly begrudging of space to a handsome tree which I remembered too well; and though the willows were often polled (or shrowded, as they call it in the countryside), this was done with some regard to beauty: I mean that there was no polling of rows on rows so as to destroy the pleasantness of half a mile of country, but a thoughtful sequence in the cutting, tha... (From : Marxists.org.)

Chapter 28 : The Little River
XXVIII. The Little River We started before six o'clock the next morning, as we were still twenty-five miles from our resting-place, and Dick wanted to be there before dusk. The journey was pleasant, though to those who do not know the upper Thames, there is little to say about it. Ellen and I were once more together in her boat, though Dick, for fairness’ sake, was for having me in his, and letting the two women scull the green toy. Ellen, however, would not allow this, but claimed me as the interesting person of the company. "After having come so far," said she, "I will not be put off with a companion who will always be thinking of somebody else than me: the guest is the only person who can amuse me properly. I mean that really," said she, turning to me, "and have not said it merely as a pretty saying." Clara blushed and looked very happ... (From : Marxists.org.)

Questions and Answers
X. Questions and Answers "Well," said the old man, shifting in his chair, "you must get on with your questions, Guest; I have been some time answering this first one." Said I: "I want an extra word or two about your ideas of education; although I gathered from Dick that you let your children run wild and didn't teach them anything; and in short, that you have so refined your education, that now you have none." "Then you gathered left-handed," quoth he." But of course I understand your point of view about education, which is that of times past, when ‘the struggle for life,' as men used to phrase it (i.e., the struggle for a slave's rations on one side, and for a bouncing share of the slave-holders’ privilege on the other), pinche... (From : Marxists.org.)

A Market by the Way
IV. A Market by the Way We turned away from the river at once, and were soon in the main road that runs through Hammersmith. But I should have had no guess as to where I was, if I had not started from the waterside; for King Street was gone, and the highway ran through wide sunny meadows and garden-like tillage. The Creek, which we crossed at once, had been rescued from its culvert, and as we went over its pretty bridge we saw its waters, yet swollen by the tide, covered with gay boats of different sizes. There were houses about, some on the road, some among the fields with pleasant lanes leading down to them, and each surrounded by a teeming garden. They were all pretty in design, and as solid as might be, but countrified in appearance, li... (From : Marxists.org.)

On the Lack of Incentive to Labour in a Communist Society
XV. On the Lack of Incentive to Labor in a Communist Society "Yes," said I. "I was expecting Dick and Clara to make their appearance any moment: but is there time to ask just one or two questions before they come?" "Try it, dear neighbor - try it," said old Hammond. "For the more you ask me the better I am pleased; and at any rate if they do come and find me in the middle of an answer, they must sit quiet and pretend to listen till I come to an end. It won't hurt them; they will find it quite amusing enough to sit side by side, conscious of their proximity to each other." I smiled, as I was bound to, and said: "Good; I will go on talking without noticing them when they come in. Now, this is what I want to ask you about - to wit, how you get... (From : Marxists.org.)

The Third Day on The Thames
XXV. The Third Day on The Thames As we went down to the boat next morning, Walter could not keep off the subject of last night, though he was more hopeful than he had been then, and seemed to think that if the unlucky homicide could not be got to go over-sea, he might at any rate go and live somewhere in the neighborhood pretty much by himself; at any rate, that was what he himself had proposed. To Dick and I must say to me also, this seemed a strange remedy; and Dick said as much. Quoth he: "Friend Walter, don't set the man brooding on the tragedy by letting him live alone. That will only strengthen his idea that he had committed a crime, and you will have him killing himself in good earnest." Said Clara: "I don't know. If I may say what I... (From : Marxists.org.)

Concerning the Arrangement of Life
XII. Concerning the Arrangement of Life "Well," I said, "about those ‘arrangements’ which you spoke of as taking the place of government, could you give me any account of them?" "Neighbor, " he said, "although we have simplified our lives a great deal from what they were, and have got rid of many conventionalities and many sham wants, which used to give our forefathers much trouble, yet our life is too complex for me to tell you in detail by means of words how it is arranged; you must find that out by living among us. It is true that I can better tell you what we don't do than what we do do. "Well?" said I. "This is the way to put it," said he: "We have been living for a hundred and fifty years, at least, more or less in our pre... (From : Marxists.org.)