§ 19

Dreams are vagarious, they are not restricted to times or seasons. Night appears during midday hours. The paradox is lively, often very humorous, but by no means ill fitting. From summer to winter is like the winking of an eyelid. In my dream the shades of a winter evening arrived. Factory working hours were over. My spirit was transported within the walls of one of the houses recently described. Well placed electric lights made the home as bright as day. A pleasant warm air gently circulated in the rooms from the pigeon-holes in the heating shafts. What we used to call England’s sun, the open fire, with all the smoke and dirt it made, its extravagance of fuel and insufficient warmth it provided, is no more. Since the abolition of the use of coal as a speed and warmth producer, sunshine in England is more than doubled and there is much less rain and mist; so, even in winter, the air is warmer, while it is clear and clear of particles which robbed us of light and rendered a clean house almost an impossibility in the barbarous past.

A family is busy. The head of it, a fine type of workman, clean and appropriately dressed as a workman should be, is occupied in making a table. His wife is busy at her loom. Two daughters are sewing together strips of strong woollen stuff which are to form by no means inelegant frocks. The stuff is dyed a pleasant blue. They are not using sewing machines, but ply the needle with patient hands; a strong thread well waxed is inevitable. Hand sewing being more durable than machine is, in the long run, more economical. Two sons are helping their father. In the corner of this bright sitting and working room, a table is laid for supper, covered by a spotless cloth. Pewter plates and jugs glisten with their bright polish. Large loaves of wholemeal look fat and desirable, while a big cheese fresh from a dairy is appetising and tempting. Hard by is a barrel of ale, real ale, made of hops and malt, wholesome and invigorating. No shams enter into its making; no poisonous chemicals destroy its purity. One or two neighbours have dropped in, and pleasant talk is in progress. When supper is finished work is suspended, some simple glees echo pleasantly from the walls, or a story is read aloud and commented upon. How thrifty it all looks, how homeful, how quietly gay is the atmosphere of this modestly provided household; what a contrast it presents to the old squalor, absence of order and often low dissipation of past times, and not so far off, which were called civilised and free, but were indeed barbarous and tyrannical.

The streets are quiet, most of the inhabitants are occupied in a manner similar in motive, if different in the matter of it. At an early hour, before midnight, the big bells of the Commune ring, when it is expected that the people will go to rest. Soon after the whole city is asleep, resting after a day of rich labour.