News from Nowhere by William Morris (essential books to read .txt) 📕

It was a beautiful night of early winter, the air just sharp enoughto be refreshing after the hot room and the stinking railwaycarriage. The wind, which had lately turned a point or two north ofwest, had blown the sky clear of all cloud save a light fleck or twowhich went swiftly down the heavens. There was a young moon halfwayup the sky, and as the home-farer caught sight of it, tangled in thebranches of a tall old elm, he could scarce bring to his mind theshabby London suburb where he was, and he felt as if he were in apleasant country place--pleasanter, indeed, than the deep country wasas he had known it.

He came right down to the river-side, and lingered a little, lookingover the low wall to note the moonlit river, near upon high water, goswirling and glittering up to Chiswick Eyot: as for the ugly bridgebelow, 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