new, some old," he sees as he rows up from the new London that is so far off from the London of to-day, all "dominated by the long walls and sharp gables of a great red-brick pile of building, partly of the latest Gothic, partly of the court style of Dutch William, but so blended together by the bright sun and beautiful surroundings, including the bright blue river which it looked down upon, that even amidst the beautiful buildings of that new happy time it had a strange charm about it."[1]
Since I wrote down these words of his, he has passed from the earth that was so beautiful to him; and he knows now the realities that were sometime dim in his eyes. He has left us many visions that we shall not forget; chiefest, perhaps, those that belong to the banks of the silver Thames. Those who go to Hampton Court on a bright summer day may well think, even now, that it does not fall very far below the poet's picture of its future.
- ↑ William Morris, "News from Nowhere," p. 162,
