Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1878 - Inland voyage

Changed Times. 197
aged it between sleep and waking ; and mean-
while the brain had a whole holiday, and went
to sleep. We took in, at a glance, the larger
features of the scene ; and beheld, with half an
eye, bloused fishers and dabbling washerwomen
on the bank. Now and again we might be half
wakened by some church spire, by a leaping
fish, or by a trail of river grass that clung about
the paddle and had to be plucked off and thrown
away. But these luminous intervals were only
partially luminous. A little more of us was
called into action, but never the whole. The
central bureau of nerves, what in some moods
we call Ourselves^ enjoyed its holiday without
disturbance, like a Government Office. The
great wheels of intelligence turned idly in the
head, like fly-wheels, grinding no grist. I have
gone on for half an hour at a time, counting my
strokes and forgetting the hundreds. I flatter
myself the beasts that perish could not underbid