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Up The River
`I beg your pardon,' said the Mole, pulling himself together with an effort. `You must think me very rude; but all this
is so new to me. So--this--is--a--River!' 'THE River,' corrected the Rat.And you really live by the river? What a jolly life!'
`By it and with it and on it and in it,' said the Rat. `It's brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, and food
and drink, and (naturally) washing. It's my world, and I don't want any other. What it hasn't got is not worth having, and
what it doesn't know is not worth knowing. Lord! the times we've had together! Whether in winter or summer, spring or autumn,
it's always got its fun and its excitements. When the floods are on in February, and my cellars and basement are brimming
with drink that's no good to me, and the brown water runs by my best bedroom window; or again when it all drops away and,
shows patches of mud that smells like plum-cake, and the rushes and weed clog the channels, and I can potter about dry shod
over most of the bed of it and find fresh food to eat, and things careless people have dropped out of boats!'
It is with that description of The River, by The Water Rat, that we welcome you to this website, dedicated to the places,
and to Kenneth Grahame himself, the places that came to make up much of The Wind in The Willows. Not only The Wind in
The Willows, but Grahame's other books as well, we've included the complete e-text of his The Pagan Papers, indeed if you
read The Papers carefully you can find hints of what was to come in The Wind in The Willows
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