The River Thames appears as part of the Oxford landscape through which Edward and Florence Ponting walk together. Its narrative significance lies in the conversations that take place along its route: the setting gives their discussions of personal feeling and future ambitions a shared, everyday context.

Setting and Use

Edward and Florence walk over Port Meadow and upstream along the River Thames to the Perch or the Trout, where they stop for a pint. The account presents the river as part of a route they take together rather than as the site of a single defining event.

Conversations Along the River

Their walks provide room for two kinds of conversation. When they are not discussing their feelings—a subject Edward is beginning to find cloying—they talk about their ambitions. Edward describes his plans to write short histories of figures briefly associated with greater men; Florence speaks of the future she wants for the Ennismore Quartet and the intensity of its musical work. The river route thus accompanies both a strain in their emotional conversations and their exchange of hopes for their working lives.