from News form Nowhere

An extract from the final chapter of News from Nowhere by William Morris

Morris looks into the future in his Victorian book "News from Nowhere" and describes a society which is far more equal and beautiful that the Victorian society in which he lived and worked. This is the end of the book, which Morris sets in the Oxfordshire village of Kelmscott where he lived and in whose churchyard he is buried.

We went into the church, which was a simple little building. There was no modern architectural decoration in it; it looked, indeed, as if none had been attempted since the Puritans whitewashed the mediaeval saints and histories on the wall. It was, however, gaily dressed up for this latter-day festival, with festoons of flowers from arch to arch and great pitchers of flowers standing about on the floor; while under the west window hung two cross scythes, their blades polished white, and gleaming from out of the flowers that wreathed them. But its best ornament was the crowd of handsome, happy-looking men and women that were set down to table, and who, with their bright faces and rich hair over their pretty holiday raiment, looked, as the Persian poet puts it, like a bed of tulips in the sun.

I stood on the threshold with the expectant smile on my face of a man who is going to take part in a festivity which he is really prepared to enjoy. Dick, standing by me, was looking round the company with an air of proprietorship in them, I thought. Opposite me sat Clara and Ellen, with Dick's place open between them: they were smiling, but their beautiful faces were each turned towards the neighbours on either side, who were talking to them, and they did not seem to see me. I turned to Dick, expecting him to lead me forward, and he turned his face to me; but strange to say, though it was as smiling and cheerful as ever, it made no response to my glance - nay, he seemed to take no heed at all of my presence, and I noticed that none of the company looked at me. A pang shot through me, as of some disaster long expected and suddenly realised. Dick moved on a little without a word to me. I was not three yards from the two women who, though they had been my companions for such a short time, had really, as I thought, become my friends. Clara's face was turned full upon me now, but she also did not seem to see me, though I know I was trying to catch her eye with an appealing look. I turned to Ellen, and she did seem to recognise me for an instant; but her bright face turned sad directly, and she shook her head with a mournful look, and the next moment all consciousness of my presence had faded from her face.

I felt lonely and sick at heart past the power of words to describe. I hung about a minute longer, and then turned and went out of the porch again and through the lime-avenue into the road while blackbirds sang their strongest from the bushes about me in the hot June evening.

Once more without any conscious effort of will I set my face toward the old house by the ford, but as I turned round the corner which led to the remains of the village cross, I came upon a figure strangely contrasting with the joyous, beautiful people I had left behind in the church. It was a man who looked old, but whom I knew from habit, now half-forgotten, was really not much more than fifty. His face was rugged, and grimed rather than dirty; his eyes dull and bleared; his body bent, his calves thin and spindly, his feet dragging and limping. His clothing was a mixture of dirt and rags long over-familiar to me. As I passed him he touched his hat with some real goodwill and courtesy, and much servility.

1. How, precisely, has the old church been decorated? But what was the most beautiful part of it?

2. Look at your answer to question one. What important point is Morris making about society with these observations?

3. The book is written as a dream, from which in the end the story-teller wakes. Quote and explain one detail in paragraph two which suggests the narrator is dreaming.

4. In the final paragraph, Morris describes his narrator meeting a man who "strangely contrasted" with the people in the church. Explain how the figure does contrast with the others. Use two quotations, one referring to the man and one to the congregation.

5. What do you think is the significance of the meeting in this final paragraph?