Summary
Chapter 18: The Beginning of the New Life
William asks Old Hammond whether people were satisfied with the new order and Old Hammond replies that they were since their position only improved throughout the two-year struggle and especially after peace came. If anything, they did not know how to ask enough from the new society, but had to set to work repairing all that was broken during the civil war. William says he is surprised to hear that there was so much destruction when the masses should have believed someday those things would be theirs, and Old Hammond blames the counter-revolutionaries who fought viciously from their fear and anger. Old Hammond discusses how people came to find pleasure in life and give up religion. William asks about developments since the revolution and Old Hammond replies by talking about the disappointment immediately following the success of the revolution that was solved through the production of art.
Chapter 19: The Drive Back to Hammersmith
Dick and Clara return to the hall, though William does not wish to leave Old Hammond. William feels uncomfortable after Dick makes a comment about him going back to his people, and the feeling seems to spread such that Clara says something troubles her as well. The group tries to shake the feeling by focusing on the present. They part ways for the night, with William asking if he can visit Old Hammond again later, though Dick says that that won't be for quite some time because he, William, and Clara will be going to the harvest.
Outside, Dick, Clara, and William find their horse Greylocks being looked after by three children eating cherries. The adults get into the carriage and ride off. They discuss clothing, with William again exposing his beliefs about beautiful clothing needing to be expensive, and they agree that William will get new clothes the next day.
Chapter 20: The Hammersmith Guest-House Again
Dick, Clara, and William stop for the night again at the Hammersmith Guest-House and are welcomed home by Boffin and Annie. They eat and drink another good meal and spend the evening singing and telling stories. William enjoys himself immensely without regret for those who are unhappy or suffered for the things that please him. He feels only a little worry that when he goes to sleep he might not wake up in the same time period.
Chapter 21: Going Up the River
When William awakes, he is still in the 21st century. He sees that Dick has already gotten and laid out a beautiful blue suit for him. Annie is already awake as well when William emerges into the hall and she gives him a friendly kiss. Annie is cleaning along with five other young women, and she tells him to eat a quick breakfast and then join Dick and Clara in the boat. William eats and talks cheerfully with Dick and Clara and then Annie kisses him again to say goodbye and the group of three sets off up the river, immediately passing people working on the harvest along the bank.
Chapter 22: Hampton Court and a Praiser of Past Times
Dick rows while Clara and William watch him and the scenery; William notes that this section of the Thames does not look so different from the 19th century. They come to a village called Hampton Court and Clara asks to stop for the day, though Dick suggests because it is still early that they stop for dinner and then continue on in the evening. They get out of their boat and quickly find a hall and eat a pleasant dinner with others. After walking around a while to look at the old architecture and visit with people living on the property in tents, they get back into their boat and Dick resumes sculling. Dick rows them further upstream until they are near another village named Runnymead as dusk turns to night. They begin to set up a campsite, but an old man tells them to come stay at his house. As the three walk with the old man, Clara makes a comment about the beauty of the day and the man asks, "You really like it then?" (144), which surprises her. As they near the house, Clara again makes a noise of pleasure and the man questions her and then begins to criticize Runnymead's beauty.
The old man invites them to have dinner inside and they meet a beautiful young woman who literally jumps for joy at their appearance in her home. It turns out that she is his granddaughter, Ellen. As he seats the guests for dinner, Dick tells William that he is "a grumbler" (145), which he says was more common in the olden days but still is a nuisance. The food at dinner is very good, but the old man still complains throughout the meal and the others including his granddaughter reply to him good-naturedly. The old man strikes up conversation with William, encouraging him to compare his country and the ways it is likely better than England in that it still has the competition and adventure he reads about in old literature. The group discusses books, with Clara arguing that there is not such a need for books now that life is so pleasant. Clara speaks out near the end of the meal, lashing out at the old man for grumbling and comparing her light skin to Ellen's tan arm. The meal ends with Ellen beginning to sing and the others joining in before they all go to bed, with William no longer fearing that he will wake up in another time.
Chapter 23: An Early Morning by Runnymead
William wakes early and goes out exploring. He wanders to a hay field where people are already working; he looks for Ellen but she is not among those working. However, he sees her up a hill with a basket, and Dick and Clara come out of the house as she arrives back. William goes down to the boat with Dick and Clara to arrange things and then they return to the house. They pause before entering the garden, seeing Ellen standing in the garden looking beautiful. Dick and Clara compare her to a fairy.
They go inside to eat and the old man again criticizes life and talks about the negative aspects of the changes since the old days. It comes out that the old man has learned some of what he knows from Old Hammond, Dick's kinsman. Ellen chimes in to give a lengthy speech supporting their current way of life, especially the choices they have about how they live. When the old man retorts with more criticism, William suggests that they set off up the river before it gets hot.
Chapter 24: Up the Thames: The Second Day
The group says goodbye to Ellen and her grandfather and William takes the sculls as they head up the Thames again. Dick points out various bits of architecture as they go, including Eton - which William knows to be prestigious schools for rich young boys and which Dick reveals is still used as a center for learning in the 21st century - and Windsor Castle. They stop to rest in Bisham; there aren't many people around because most are out working for the harvest, but two old men and one young man who stayed inside to do literary work ask them to stay until evening. In the evening, they go back in the boat with Dick sculling, and they keep going even once it has turned to night so that they can sleep at the home of Dick's friend, Walter Allen, in Maple-Durham.
When they arrive in Maple-Durham, Walter Allen is waiting outside his house to greet them. William and Dick notice that Walter seems upset about something and eventually Dick asks what is wrong. Walter responds with a story about how a man who was "bitten with love-madness" (162) over a girl who didn't love him back killed her lover with an axe. Since then, the whole village has felt badly and advised the man to go somewhere far away, but they don't believe he can go on his own. Furthermore, Walter thinks that he will have to be the one to do so. Dick and Walter change the subject by talking about where they plan to go, but William continues thinking about this predicament and the way the system of laws (or lack thereof) affects those who commit crimes and the communities around them.
Analysis
In Chapter 18, Old Hammond uses a metaphor concerning people being treated like workhorses, saying, "In the times which you are thinking of, and of which you seem to know so much, there was no hope; nothing but the dull jog of the mill-horse under compulsion of collar and whip" (126). However, this points to an ironic hypocrisy in News from Nowhere in the fact that people (including William's guide Dick) still own horses, perhaps among other animals that are forced to do work for them. Though England's society has accepted that all people should have complete freedom over their interests and their work, they do not extend these rights to other animals, and seem unaware of this hypocrisy.
While many topics of public interest such as education, women's rights, criminal justice, and foreign relations are covered in News from Nowhere, religion is discussed only briefly. Morris seems to suggest that atheism would logically follow socialism, writing, "More akin to our way of looking at life was the spirit of the Middle Ages, to whom heaven and the life of the next world was such a reality, that it became to them a part of the life upon the earth; which accordingly they loved and adorned, in spite of the ascetic doctrines of their formal creed, which bade them contemn it. But that also, with its assured belief in heaven and hell as two countries in which to live, has gone, and now we do, both in word and in deed, believe in the continuous life of the world of men, and as it were, add every day of that common life to the little stock of days which our own mere individual experience wins for us: and consequently we are happy" (128). Similar to the lack of a formal criminal justice system, Morris seems to believe that a genuine interest in having a pleasurable and meaningful life and helping others to do so as well would eliminate a need for formal religion.
Morris foreshadows the end of the story through a quote spoken by Dick in Chapter 19, writing, "I was half suspecting as I was listening to the Welshmen yonder that you would presently be vanishing away from us, and began to picture my kinsman sitting in the hall staring at nothing and finding that he had been talking a while past to nobody" (131). Indeed, in Chapter 32, William will find himself invisible to all of his new friends, called back to the 19th century to wonder at whether what he witnessed in the 21st century was a dream or a vision. Dick's suggestion makes William very uncomfortable and unhappy, calling both the character and the reader to compare once again the "dirty and miserable" (131) 19th century and all the pleasures William has been experiencing in the 21st century.
In Chapter 21, Dick finally allows William to don clothing made in the 21st century, rather than the clothing that time traveled with him from the 19th century. This is a major shift for William because it allows him to fully blend in with the people of this new society, so long as he keeps his age a secret. Not only does clothing allow one to blend in in a foreign society, but it also shows William taking the ideals of beauty and pleasure shown through people's clothing choices in the 21st century into his own identity.
Ellen's grandfather is the first voice of dissent to socialism the reader meets, and it is especially jarring because it is held by someone who did not grow up in capitalism and thus has not had this view inculcated in him by his parents, teachers, or government. However, it seems that these views have come from reading literature from the 19th century and earlier, and noticing a lack of adventure stemming from competition no longer existing. Morris seems to suggest that literature from previous time periods can be influential on contemporary political thought, perhaps especially in negative ways.
