文档介绍：THE DAWN OF A TO-MORROW
THE DAWN OF A TO-
MORROW
By FRANCES HODGSON T
1
THE DAWN OF A TO-MORROW
I
There are always two ways of looking at a thing, frequently there are
six or seven; but two ways of looking at a London fog are quite enough.
When it is thick and yellow in the streets and stings a man's throat and
lungs as he breathes it, an awakening in the early morning is either an
unearthly and grewsome, or a mysteriously enclosing, secluding, and
comfortable thing. If one awakens in a healthy body, and with a clear
brain rested by normal sleep and retaining memories of a normally
agreeable yesterday, one may lie watching the housemaid building the fire;
and after she has swept the hearth and put things in order, lie watching the
flames of the blazing and crackling wood catch the coals and set them
blazing also, and dancing merrily and filling corners with a glow; and in
so lying and realizing that leaping light and warmth and a soft bed are
good things, one may turn over on one's back, stretching arms and legs
luxuriously, drawing deep breaths and smiling at a knowledge of the fog
outside which makes half-past eight o'clock on a December morning as
dark as twelve o'clock on a December night. Under such conditions the
soft, thick, yellow gloom has its picturesque and even humorous aspect.
One feels enclosed by it at once fantastically and cosily, and is inclined to
revel in imaginings of the picture outside, its Rembrandt lights and orange
yellows, the halos about the street-lamps, the illumination of shop-
windows, the flare of torches stuck up over coster barrows and coffee-
stands, the shadows on the faces of the men and women selling and buying
beside them. Refreshed by sleep fort and surrounded by light,
warmth, and good cheer, it is easy to face the day, to confront going out
into the fog and feeling a sort of pleasure in its mysteries. This is one
way of looking at it, but only one.
The other way is marked by enormous d