XXIII: An Early Morning by the Runnymede explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Nature and the Environment

  The chapter opens with a vivid description of the riverside at dawn, emphasizing the beauty and harmony of the natural world, which is central to the new society's values.

• Critique of Industrial Capitalism

  Ellen's speech directly contrasts the freedom and dignity of the present with the poverty, overwork, and ugliness of the past, embodying Morris's critique of capitalism.

• Pleasure in Work

  The haymakers work 'deliberately but well and steadily' and are 'noisy with merry talk,' illustrating the ideal of joyful, voluntary labor.

Characters to notice

• Guest

  The narrator wakes early, wanders to the riverside and hayfield, and engages in a heated debate with the old man about the past versus present, feeling both moved and uneasy.

• Ellen

  Ellen defends the new society passionately, contrasting the freedom and beauty of the present with the misery of the past, and is later seen as a fairy-like figure in the garden.

• Dick

  Dick jokes about the scene being like a fairy tale, calling Ellen a fairy and the old man a gnome, and shows affection for the idyllic morning.

• Clara

  Clara participates in the morning banter, dresses more simply to match Ellen, and asks demurely about the fairy comparison.

• Greylocks

  The old grumbler persists in his nostalgia for the past, arguing that the landscape has deteriorated, but is eventually silenced by Ellen's passionate defense.

Key passages

• “In the past times, when those big houses of which grandfather speaks were so plenty, we must have lived in a cottage whether we had liked it or not; and the said cottage, instead of having in it everything we want, would have been bare and empty.”

  In the old days, we would have been forced to live in a poor, empty cottage, not by choice but by necessity.

  Ellen contrasts the freedom of choice in the present with the enforced poverty of the past.

• “I work hard when I like it, because I like it, and think it does me good, and knits up my muscles, and makes me prettier to look at, and healthier and happier.”

  I choose to work hard because I enjoy it and it benefits my health and appearance.

  Ellen expresses the ideal of voluntary, joyful labor.

• “Look, guest; doesn't it all look like one of those very stories out of Grimm that we were talking about up in Bloomsbury? Here are we two lovers wandering about the world, and we have come to a fairy garden, and there is the very fairy herself amidst of it.”

  Dick compares the scene to a fairy tale, with Ellen as the fairy in a magical garden.

  Dick's playful remark highlights the idyllic, almost mythical quality of the new world.