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diff --git a/39725.txt b/39725.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e852b30 --- /dev/null +++ b/39725.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8621 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of William Morris, by Elizabeth Luther Cary + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: William Morris + Poet, Craftsman, Socialist + +Author: Elizabeth Luther Cary + +Release Date: May 18, 2012 [EBook #39725] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM MORRIS *** + + + + +Produced by Chris Curnow and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: _William Morris_] + + + + + WILLIAM MORRIS + + POET + CRAFTSMAN + SOCIALIST + + + BY + ELISABETH + LVTHER + CARY + + + ILLVSTRATED + + + G. P. PVTNAM'S SONS + THE KNICKERBOCKER PRESS + NEW YORK & LONDON + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1902 + BY + G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + + Published, October, 1902 + Reprinted, June, 1903; December, 1905 + + + The Knickerbocker Press, New York + + + + +PREFACE. + + +The personal life of William Morris is already known to us through Mr. +Mackail's admirable biography as fully, probably, as we shall ever know +it. My own endeavour has been to present a picture of Morris's busy career +perhaps not less vivid for the absence of much detail, and showing only +the man and his work as they appeared to the outer public. + +I have used as a basis for my narrative, the volumes by Mr. Mackail; +_William Morris, his Art, his Writings, and his Public Life_, by Aymer +Vallance; _The Books of William Morris_, by H. Buxton Forman; numerous +articles in periodicals, and Morris's own varied works. + +I wish to express my indebtedness to Mr. Bulkley of 42 East 14th Street, +New York City, for permission to reproduce a number of Morris patterns in +his possession, notably a fragment of the St. James's wall-paper. + +Much material for the letter-press and for the illustrations I have +obtained through the Boston Public Library. The _Froissart_ pages were +found there and most of the Kelmscott publications from which I have +quoted. + +The bibliography is that prepared by Mr. S. C. Cockerell for the last +volume of Mr. Morris issued by the Kelmscott Press, under the title of _A +Note by William Morris on His Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press_. To +the Cockerell bibliography have been added a few notes of my own. + +E. L. C. + +BROOKLYN, Sept. 10, 1902. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I.--BOYHOOD 1 + + II.--OXFORD LIFE 21 + + III.--FROM ROSSETTI TO THE RED HOUSE 46 + + IV.--MORRIS AND COMPANY 69 + + V.--FROM THE RED HOUSE TO KELMSCOTT 96 + + VI.--POETRY 114 + + VII.--PUBLIC LIFE AND SOCIALISM 146 + + VIII.--PUBLIC LIFE AND SOCIALISM (_Continued_) 174 + + IX.--LITERATURE OF THE SOCIALIST PERIOD 194 + + X.--THE KELMSCOTT PRESS 219 + + XI.--LATER WRITINGS 239 + + XII.--THE END 255 + + BIBLIOGRAPHY 269 + + INDEX 291 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS. + + + _Page_ + + _William Morris_ _Frontispiece_ + _From Life._ + + _Title-page of "The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine"_ _32_ + + _Portrait of Rossetti_ _36_ + _By Watts._ + + _Illustration by Rossetti to "The Lady of Shalott" in the + Moxon "Tennyson." The Head of Launcelot is a Portrait of + Morris_ _42_ + + _Portrait of Jane Burden (Mrs. Morris)_ _58_ + _By Rossetti_ + + _Wall-Paper and Cotton-Print Designs_ _60_ + + _"Acanthus" Wall-Paper_ + + _"Pimpernel" Wall-Paper_ + + _"African Marigold" Cotton-Print_ + + _"These designs must not be taken as exact as to colour + afterwards used, Mr. Morris using the colours to his + hand and afterwards superintending the actual colouring + in the course of manufacture, in most cases many + experimental trials being made before the desired + colouring was actually decided upon."_ + + _Reproduced from examples obtained by courtesy of Mr. + A. E. Bulkley._ + + _The Morris designs in this book were reproduced by permission + of Messrs. Morris & Company._ + + _"The Strawberry Thief" Design for Cotton-Print_ _66_ + + _Tulip Design for Axminster Carpet_ _70_ + + _Peacock Design for Coarse Wool Hangings_ _72_ + + _Painted Wall Decoration Designed by Morris_ _76_ + + _Painted Wall Decoration Designed by Morris_ _80_ + + _Design for St. James's Palace Wall-Paper_ _82_ + _Reproduced from sample obtained through courtesy of Mr. + Bulkley._ + + _Early Design for Morris Wall-Paper "Daisy and Columbine"_ _84_ + + _Chrysanthemum Design for Wall-Paper_ _84_ + + _Anemone Pattern for Silk and Wool Curtain Material_ _88_ + + _Portion of Hammersmith Carpet_ _90_ + + _Secretary Designed by the Morris Co._ _94_ + _In possession of Mr. Bulkley._ + + _Sofa Designed by the Morris Co._ _94_ + _In possession of Mr. Bulkley._ + + _Illustration by Burne-Jones for Projected Edition of "The + Earthly Paradise," Cut on Wood by Morris Himself_ _98_ + + _Kelmscott Manor House. Two views_ _100_ + + _Design by Rossetti for Window Executed by Morris & Co. + ("The Parable of the Vineyard")_ _110_ + + _Design by Rossetti for Stained-Glass Window Executed by + the Morris Co. ("The Parable of the Vineyard")_ _110_ + + _Morris's Bed, with Hangings Designed by Himself and + Embroidered by his Daughter_ _114_ + + _Kelmscott Manor House from the Orchard_ _118_ + + _Portrait of Edward Burne-Jones_ _120_ + _By Watts._ + + _William Morris_ _130_ + + _Picture by Rossetti in which the Children's Faces are + Portraits of May Morris_ _148_ + + _Honeysuckle Design for Linen_ _162_ + + _Washing Cloth at the Merton Abbey Works_ _174_ + + _Merton Abbey Works_ _174_ + + _Portrait of Mrs. Morris_ _200_ + _By Rossetti._ + + _Study of Mrs. Morris_ _216_ + _Made by Rossetti for picture called "The Day Dream."_ + + _Kelmscott Types_ _220_ + + _Page from Kelmscott "Chaucer." Illustration by + Burne-Jones. Border and Initial Letter by Morris_ _222_ + + _Title-page of the Kelmscott "Chaucer"_ _224_ + + _The Smaller Kelmscott Press-Mark_ _228_ + + _The Larger Kelmscott Press-Mark_ _228_ + + _Drawing by Morris of the Letter "h" for Kelmscott Type, + with Notes and Corrections_ _228_ + + _Specimen Page from the Kelmscott "Froissart"_ _234_ + _Projected Edition_ + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +BOYHOOD. + + +There is, perhaps, no single work by William Morris that stands out as a +masterpiece in evidence of his individual genius. He was not impelled to +give peculiar expression to his own personality. His writing was seldom +emotionally autobiographic as Rossetti's always was, his painting and +designing were not the expression of a personal mood as was the case with +Burne-Jones. But no one of his special time and group gave himself more +fully or more freely for others. No one contributed more generously to the +public pleasure and enlightenment. No one tried with more persistent +effort first to create and then to satisfy a taste for the possible best +in the lives and homes of the people. He worked toward this end in so many +directions that a lesser energy than his must have been dissipated and a +weaker purpose rendered impotent. His tremendous vitality saved him from +the most humiliating of failures, the failure to make good extravagant +promise. He never lost sight of the result in the endeavour, and his +discontent with existing mediocrity was neither formless nor empty. It was +the motive power of all his labour; he was always trying to make +everything "something different from what it was," and this instinct was, +alike for strength and weakness, says his chief biographer, "of the very +essence of his nature." To tell the story of his life is to write down the +record of dreams made real, of nebulous theories brought swiftly to the +test of experiment, of the spirit of the distant past reincarnated in the +present. But, as with most natures of similar mould, the man was greater +than any part of his work, and even greater than the sum of it all. He +remains one of the not-to-be-forgotten figures of the nineteenth century, +so interesting was he, so impressive, so simple-hearted, so nearly +adequate to the great tasks he set himself, so well beloved by his +companions, so useful, despite his blunders, to society at large. + +The unity that held together his manifold forms of expression was +maintained through the different periods of his life, making him a "whole +man" to a more than usual degree. From the earliest recorded incidents of +his childhood we gain an impression not unlike that made by his latest +years, and by all the interval between. The very opposite of Rossetti, +with whose "school" he has been so long and so mistakenly identified, his +nature was as single as his accomplishment was complex, and the only means +by which it is possible to get a just idea of both the former and the +latter is to regard him as a man of one preoccupation amounting to an +obsession, the reconstruction of social and industrial life according to +an ideal based upon the more poetic aspects of the Middle Ages. From first +to last the early English world, the English world of the thirteenth and +fourteenth centuries, was the world to which he belonged. "Born out of his +due time," in truth, he began almost from his birth to accumulate +associations with the time to which he should have been native and whose +far off splendour lured him constantly back toward it. + +The third of nine children, he was born at Walthamstow, in Essex, England, +on the 24th of March, 1834. On the Morris side he came of Welsh ancestry, +a fact accounting perhaps for the mingled gloom and romance of his +temperament. His father was a discount broker in opulent circumstances, +and his mother was descended from a family of prosperous merchants and +landed proprietors. On the maternal side a strong talent for music +existed, but in the Morris family no more artistic quality can be traced +than a devotion to general excellence, to which William Morris certainly +fell heir. For a time he was a sickly child, and used the opportunity to +advance his reading, being "already deep in the Waverley novels" when four +years old, and having gone through these and many others before he was +seven. + +In 1840 the family removed to Woodford Hall, a house belonging to the +Georgian period, standing in about fifty acres of park, on the road from +London to Epping, and here Morris led an outdoor life with the result of +rapidly establishing his health, steeping mind and sense in the sights and +sounds of nature dear to him forever after, and gaining intimate +acquaintance with the romantic and mediaeval surroundings by which his +whole career was to be influenced. The county of Essex was well adapted to +feed his prodigious appetite for antiquities. Its churches, in numbers of +which Norman masonry is to be found, its ancient brasses (that of the +schoolboy Thomas Heron being among many others within easy reach of +Woodford), and its tapestry-hung houses, all stimulated his inborn love of +the Middle Ages and started him fairly on that path through the thirteenth +century which he followed deviously as long as he lived. Even in his own +home, we are told, certain of the habits of mediaeval England persisted, +such as the brewing of beer, the meal of cakes and ale at "high prime," +the keeping of Twelfth Night, and other such festivals. The places he +lived in counted for much with him always, and the impressions of this +childish period remained, like all his later impressions, keen and +permanent. Toward the end of his life he printed at the Kelmscott Press +the carol _Good King Wenceslas_, which begins with a lusty freshness: + + Good King Wenceslas look'd out, + On the feast of Stephen, + When the snow lay round about, + Deep and crisp and even. + Brightly shone the moon that night, + Though the frost was cruel, + When a poor man came in sight + Gath'ring winter fuel. + +"The legend itself," he comments, "is a pleasing and genuine one, and the +Christmas-like quality of it, recalling the times of my boyhood, appeals +to me at least as a memory of past days." + +Beside angling, shooting, and riding, he very early occupied much of his +time with visits to the old churches, a pursuit of which he was never to +weary, studying their monuments and accumulating an amount of genuine +erudition concerning them quite out of proportion to his rather moderate +accomplishment along the ordinary lines of study. At an age when Scott was +scouring his native heath in search of Border ballads and antiquities, +this almost equally precocious boy was collecting rubbings from ancient +inscriptions, and picturing to himself, as he wandered about the region of +his home on foot or on horseback, the lovely face of England as it looked +in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. In one of the earliest of the +boyish romances that appeared in the _Oxford and Cambridge Magazine_, he +imagines himself the master-mason of a church built more than six +centuries before, and which has vanished from the face of the earth with +nothing to indicate its existence save earth-covered ruins "heaving the +yellow corn into glorious waves." His description of the carving on the +bas-reliefs of the west front and on the tombs shows with what loving +intensity he has studied the most minute details of the work of the +ancient builders in whose footsteps he would have rejoiced much to tread. +How far his family sympathised with his tastes it is impossible to say, +but probably not deeply. We have few hints of the personal side of his +home-life; we know that a visit to Canterbury Cathedral with his father +was among the indelible experiences of his first decade, and that he +possessed among his toys a little suit of armour in which he rode about +the park after the manner of a Froissart knight, and that is about all we +do know until we hear of the strong disapproval of his mother and one of +his sisters for the career that finally diverted his interest from the +Church for which they had designed him. + +His formal education began when he was sent at the age of nine to a +preparatory school kept by a couple of maiden ladies. There he remained +until the death of his father in 1847. In February, 1848, he went to +Marlborough College, a nomination to which his father had purchased for +him. The best that can be said for this school seems to be that it was +situated in a part of England ideally suited to a boy of archaeological +tastes, and was provided with an excellent archaeological and architectural +library. Here his eager mind browsed on the literature of English Gothic, +and his restless feet carried him far afield among pre-Celtic barrows, +stone circles, and Roman villas. Savernake Forest was close at hand and +he spent many of his holidays within it. It was doubtless the familiarity +with all aspects of the woods, due to his pilgrimages through Savernake +and Epping Forests and the long roving days idled away among their +shadows, that gave rise to the allusions in his books--early and late--to +woodland life. The passage through the thick wood and the coming at last +to the place where the trees thin out and the light begins to shimmer +through them is a constantly recurring figure of his verse and of his +prose. Frequently the important scene of a romance or of a long poem is +laid in a wildwood, as in the story entitled _The Wood beyond the World_, +or in _Goldilocks and Goldilocks_, the concluding poem of the volume of +_Poems by the Way_, in which the great grey boles of the trees, the +bramble bush, the "woodlawn clear," and the cherished oaks are as vivid as +the human actors in the drama. His heroes seldom fail of being deft +woodsmen, able to thread the tangle of underbrush by blind paths, and +observant of all the common sights and sounds of the woodland, rabbits +scuttling out of the grass, adders sunning themselves on stones in the +cleared spaces, wild swine running grunting toward close covert, hart and +hind bounding across the way. They know the musty savour of water dipped +from a forest brook, they know how to go straight to the yew sticks that +quarter best for bow-staves, they know the feeling of the boggy moss under +their feet, and the sound of the "iron wind" through the branches in the +depth of winter; there is no detail of wild wood life of which they are +ignorant. This intimacy with Nature in her most secluded moments, in her +shyest and most mysterious aspect, forms an element of inexpressible charm +in the lovely backgrounds against which Morris delighted to place his +visionary figures. He never tired of combining the impressions stored away +in his mind on his boyish rambles into pictures the delicate beauty of +which can hardly be overestimated. + +While he was at school, his already highly developed imagination found an +outlet in constant fable-making, his tales of knights and fairies and +miraculous adventures having a considerable popularity among his comrades, +with whom, however, he himself was not especially popular, making friends +with them only in a superficial fashion. Judging from the autobiographic +fragments occasionally found in his work, he was a boy of many moods, most +of them tinged with the self-conscious melancholy of his early poetry. +Sentiment was strong with him, and a peculiar reticence or detachment of +temperament kept him independent of others during his school years, and +apparently uninfluenced by the tastes or opinions of those about him, if +we except the case of his Anglo-Catholic proclivities, which obviously +were fed by the tendencies of the school, but which, so far from diverting +him from the general scheme of his individual interests, fitted into them +and served him as another link between the present and the much preferred +past. + +Outwardly he can hardly have seemed the typical dreamer he has described +himself as being. Beautiful of feature, of sturdy build, with a shouting +voice, extraordinary muscular strength, and a gusty temper, he impressed +himself upon his comrades chiefly by his impetuosity in the energetic game +of singlestick, by the surplus vigour that led him at times to punch his +own head with all his might to "take it out of himself," and by the +vehemence and enthusiasm of his argumentative talk. + +He was little of a student along the orthodox lines, and Marlborough +College was not calculated to increase his respect--never undue--for +pedagogic methods. A letter written when he was sixteen to his eldest and +favourite sister reflects quite fully his pre-occupations. It has none of +the genuine wit and literary tone of the juvenile letter written by +Stevenson to his father, presenting his claims for reimbursements. It +shows no such zest for bookish pursuits as Rossetti's letters, written at +the same age, reveal. But it is entirely free from the shallow flippancy +that frequently characterises the correspondence of a young man's second +decade--that characterised Lowell's, for example, to an almost painful +degree; nor has it a shade of the self-magnification to which any amount +of flippancy is preferable. It is straightforward and boyish, and +remarkable only as showing the thorough and intelligent method with which +its writer followed up whatever commanded his interest. Commencing with +the description of an anthem sung at Easter by the trained choir of +Blore's Chapel connected with his school, he passes on to an account of +his archaeological investigations, giving after his characteristic fashion +all the small details necessary to enable his correspondent to form a +definite picture of the places he had visited. After he had made one +pilgrimage to the Druidical circle and Roman entrenchment at Avebury, he +had learned of the peculiar method of placing the stones which, from the +dislocated condition of the ruins, had not been obvious to him. Therefore +he had returned on the following day to study it out and fix the original +arrangement firmly in his imagination, and, at the time of writing the +letter, was able to explain it quite clearly, a result, derived from the +expenditure of two holidays, that was completely satisfactory to him. He +winds up with a purely boyish plea for a "good large cake" and some +biscuit in addition to a cheese that had been promised him, and for paper +and postage stamps and his silkworm eggs and a pen box to be sent him from +home. + +At school he was "always thinking about home," and when the family moved +again to Walthamstow, within a short distance of his first home, and to a +house boasting a moat and a wooded island, he was eagerly responsive to +the poetic suggestions conveyed by these romantic accessories. When at +the end of 1851 he left school to prepare under a private tutor for +Oxford, he renewed his early familiarity with Epping Forest and spent most +of his holidays among the trees that had not apparently changed since the +time of Edward the Confessor. The great age of the wood and its peculiarly +English character made a profound impression upon him, and it is easy to +imagine the fury with which he must have received the suggestion, made +forty years later by Mr. Alfred Wallace, that in place of "a hideous +assemblage of stunted mop-like pollards rising from a thicket of scrubby +bushes," North American trees should be planted and a part of the forest +made into an "almost exact copy" of North American woodland. Indeed, a +suppressed but unmistakable fury breathes from the letters written to the +_Daily Chronicle_, as late as 1895, regarding the tree-felling that was +going on ruthlessly in the forest, destroying its native character and +individual charm. These letters, curiously recalling those written half a +century before concerning boyish excursions through the same region, are +well worth quoting here, where properly they belong, as they are inspired +by the earliest of the associations and ideals cherished by Morris to the +end of his life. They are fine examples of his own native character in +argument, his humbly didactic tone early caught from Ruskin and never +relinquished, his militant irony, his willingness to fortify his position +by painstaking investigation, his moral attitude toward matters artistic, +his superb rightness of taste in the special problem under discussion. +They show also how closely his memory had held through his manifold +interests the details that had appealed to him in his boyhood. The first +letter is dated April 23rd, and addressed to the editor of the _Daily +Chronicle_. + + "SIR: I venture to ask you to allow me a few words on the subject of + the present treatment of Epping Forest. I was born and bred in its + neighbourhood (Walthamstow and Woodford), and when I was a boy and + young man I knew it yard by yard from Wanstead to the Theydons, and + from Hale End to the Fairlop Oak. In those days it had no worse foes + than the gravel stealer and the rolling-fence maker, and was always + interesting and often very beautiful. From what I can hear it is years + since the greater part of it has been destroyed, and I fear, Sir, that + in spite of your late optimistic note on the subject, what is left of + it now runs the danger of further ruin. + + "The special character of it was derived from the fact that by far the + greater part was a wood of hornbeams, a tree not common save in Essex + and Herts. It was certainly the biggest hornbeam wood in these + islands, and I suppose in the world. The said hornbeams were all + pollards, being shrouded every four or six years, and were + interspersed in many places with holly thickets, and the result was a + very curious and characteristic wood, such as can be seen nowhere + else. And I submit that no treatment of it can be tolerable which does + not maintain this hornbeam wood intact. + + "But the hornbeam, though an interesting tree to an artist and + reasonable person, is no favourite with the landscape gardener, and I + very much fear that the intention of the authorities is to clear the + forest of native trees, and to plant vile weeds like deodars and + outlandish conifers instead. We are told that a committee of 'experts' + has been formed to sit in judgment on Epping Forest; but, Sir, I + decline to be gagged by the word 'expert,' and I call on the public + generally to take the same position. An 'expert' may be a very + dangerous person, because he is likely to narrow his views to the + particular business (usually a commercial one) which he represents. In + this case, for instance, we do not want to be under the thumb of + either a wood bailiff whose business is to grow timber for the market, + or of a botanist whose business is to collect specimens for a + botanical garden; or of a landscape gardener whose business is to + vulgarise a garden or landscape to the utmost extent that his patron's + purse will allow of. What we want is reasonable men of real artistic + taste to take into consideration what the essential needs of the case + are, and to advise accordingly. Now it seems to me that the + authorities who have Epping Forest in hand may have two intentions as + to it. First, they may intend to landscape-garden it, or turn it into + golf grounds (and I very much fear that even the latter nuisance may + be in their minds); or second, they may really think it necessary (as + you suggest) to thin the hornbeams, so as to give them a better chance + of growing. The first alternative we Londoners should protest against + to the utmost, for if it be carried out then Epping Forest is turned + into a mere place of vulgarity, is destroyed in fact. + + "As to the second, to put our minds at rest, we ought to be assured + that the cleared spaces would be planted again, and that almost wholly + with hornbeam. And, further, the greatest possible care should be + taken that not a single tree should be felled unless it is necessary + for the growth of its fellows. Because, mind you, with comparatively + small trees, the really beautiful effect of them can only be got by + their standing as close together as the emergencies of growth will + allow. We want a thicket, not a park, from Epping Forest. + + "In short, a great and practically irreparable mistake will be made + if, under the shelter of the opinion of 'experts,' from mere + carelessness and thoughtlessness, we let the matter slip out of the + hands of the thoughtful part of the public; the essential character of + one of the greatest ornaments of London will disappear, and no one + will have even a sample left to show what the great north-eastern + forest was like. I am, Sir, yours obediently, + + "WILLIAM MORRIS + + "Kelmscott House, Hammersmith." + +The second letter is written two or three weeks later, and shows Morris as +characteristically prompt and thorough in action as he is positive in +speech. + + "Yesterday," he says, "I carried out my intention of visiting Epping + Forest. I went to Loughton first, and saw the work that had been done + about Clay Road, thence to Monk Wood, thence to Theydon Woods, and + thence to the part about the Chingford Hotel, passing by Fair Mead + Bottom and lastly to Bury Wood and the wood on the other side of the + road thereby. + + "I can verify closely your representative's account of the doings on + the Clay Road, which is an ugly scar originally made by the lord of + the manor when he contemplated handing over to the builder a part of + what he thought was his property. The fellings here seem to me all + pure damage to the forest, and in fact were quite unaccountable to me, + and would surely be so to any unprejudiced person. I cannot see what + could be pleaded for them either on the side of utility or taste. + + "About Monk Wood there had been much, and I should say excessive, + felling of trees apparently quite sound. This is a very beautiful + spot, and I was informed that the trees there had not been polled for + a period long before the acquisition of the forest for the public; and + nothing could be more interesting and romantic than the effect of the + long poles of the hornbeams rising from the trunks and seen against + the mass of the wood behind. This wood should be guarded most + jealously as a treasure of beauty so near to 'the Wen.' In the Theydon + Woods, which are mainly of beech, a great deal of felling has gone on, + to my mind quite unnecessary, and therefore harmful. On the road + between the Wake Arms and the King's Oak Hotel there has been again + much felling, obviously destructive. + + "In Bury Wood (by Sewardstone Green) we saw the trunks of a great + number of oak trees (not pollards), all of them sound, and a great + number were yet standing in the wood marked for felling, which, + however, we heard had been saved by a majority of the committee of + experts. I can only say that it would have been a very great + misfortune if they had been lost; in almost every case where the + stumps of the felled trees showed there seemed to have been no reason + for their destruction. The wood on the other side of the road to Bury + Wood, called in the map Woodman's Glade, has not suffered from + felling, and stands as an object lesson to show how unnecessary such + felling is. It is one of the thickest parts of the forest, and looks + in all respects like such woods were forty years ago, the growth of + the heads of the hornbeams being but slow; but there is no difficulty + in getting through it in all directions, and it has a peculiar charm + of its own not to be found in any other forest; in short, it is + thoroughly _characteristic_. I should mention that the whole of these + woods are composed of pollard hornbeams and 'spear'--_i.e._, + unpolled--oaks. + + "I am compelled to say from what I saw in a long day's inspection, + that, though no doubt acting with the best intentions, the management + of the forest is going on the wrong tack; it is making war on the + natural aspect of the forest, which the Act of Parliament that + conferred it on the nation expressly stipulated was to be retained. + The tendency of all these fellings is on the one hand to turn over + London forest into a park, which would be more or less like other + parks, and on the other hand to grow sizable trees, as if for the + timber market. I must beg to be allowed a short quotation here from an + excellent little guidebook to the forest by Mr. Edward North Buxton, + verderer of the forest (Sanford, 1885). He says, p. 38: 'In the drier + parts of the forest beeches to a great extent take the place of oaks. + These "spear" trees will make fine timber for future generations, + provided they receive timely attention by being _relieved of the + competing growth of the unpicturesque hornbeam pollards_. Throughout + the wood between Chingford and High Beech, _this has been recently + done_, to the great advantage of the finer trees.' + + "The italics are mine, and I ask, Sir, if we want any further evidence + than this of one of the verderers as to the tendency of the fellings. + Mr. Buxton declares in so many words that he wants to change the + special character of the forest; to take away this strange, + unexampled, and most romantic wood, and leave us nothing but a + commonplace instead. I entirely deny his right to do so in the teeth + of the Act of Parliament. I assert, as I did in my former letter, that + the hornbeams are the most important trees in the forest, since they + give it its special character. At the same time I would not encourage + the hornbeams at the expense of the beeches, any more than I would the + beeches at the expense of the hornbeams. I would leave them all to + nature, which is not so niggard after all, even on Epping Forest + gravel, as _e. g._, one can see in places where forest fires have + denuded spaces, and where in a short time birches spring up self-sown. + + "The committee of the Common Council has now had Epping Forest in hand + for seventeen years, and has, I am told, in that time felled 100,000 + trees. I think the public may now fairly ask for a rest on behalf of + the woods, which, if the present system of felling goes on, will be + ruined as a natural forest; and it is good and useful to make the + claim at once, when, in spite of all disfigurements, the northern part + of the forest, from Sewardstone Green to beyond Epping, is still left + to us, not to be surpassed in interest by any other wood near a great + capital. I am, Sir, yours obediently, + + "WILLIAM MORRIS." + +These letters emphasise in a single instance what the close student of +Morris will find emphasised at every turn in his career,--the persistent +and strong influence over him of the tastes and occupations of his +boyhood. Unless this is kept constantly in mind, it is easy to fall into +the common error of regarding the various activities into which he threw +himself as separate and dissociated instead of seeing them as they were, +component parts of a perfectly simple purpose and unalterable ideal. With +most men who are on the whole true to the analogy of the chambered +nautilus and cast off the outworn shell of their successive phases of +individuality as the seasons roll, the effect of early environment and +tendency may easily be exaggerated, but Morris grew in the fashion of his +beloved oaks, keeping the rings by which his advance in experience was +marked; at the end all were visible. His education began and continued +largely outside the domain of books and away from masters. His wanderings +in the depths of the quaint and beautiful forest, his intimate +acquaintance with the nature of Gothic architecture, his familiarity with +Scott, his prompt adoption of Ruskin, all these formed the foundation on +which he was to build his own theory of life, and all were his before he +went up to Oxford. They prepared him for the many-sided profession, if +profession it can be called, which was to absorb and at last to exhaust +his mighty energy. It was the tangible surface of the world that most +inspired him in boyhood and in maturity. Loving so much even as a child +its aspects, its lights and shadows, the forms of trees and birds and +beasts, the changes of season, the lives of men living close to "the kind +soil" and in touch with it through hearty manual labour, it was but a step +to the occupations that finally engrossed him. He never got so far away +from the visions of his youth as to forget them. In one form or another he +was constantly trying to embody them that others might see them with his +eyes and worship them with his devotion. "The spirit of the new days, of +our days," says the old man in _News from Nowhere_, "was to be delight in +the life of the world, intense and almost overweening love of the very +skin and surface of the earth on which man dwells." + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +OXFORD LIFE. + + +Like the majority of the students who went up to Oxford in the fifties, +Morris matriculated with the definite intention of taking holy orders. +Unlike the majority, he was impelled not only by the sensuous beauty of +ritualistic worship, to which, however, no one could have been more keenly +alive than he, but by a genuine enthusiasm for a life devoted to high +purposes. A fine buoyant desire to better existing conditions and sweep as +much evil as possible off the face of the earth early inspired him. His +mind turned toward the conventual life as that which combined the mediaeval +suggestions always alluring to him with the moral beauty of holiness. He +planned a "Crusade and Holy Warfare against the Age," sang plain song at +daily morning service, read masses of mediaeval chronicles and +ecclesiastical Latin poetry, and hovered just this side of the Roman +Communion. Had the ecclesiology of the University been supported at that +time by an inward and spiritual grace sufficient to hold the heart of +youth to a sustained allegiance, there is little doubt that Morris would +have thrown himself ardently into the religious path. But Oxford had +become an indolent and indifferent mother to her children. The storm of +feeling aroused by the Tractarian movement had died down and the reaction +from it was evident. At Balliol Jowett's energy had made its mark, but at +Exeter, where Morris was, the educational system deserved (and received) +the contempt of an ambitious boy with an unusually large supply of +stored-up intellectual force seeking outlet and guidance. Nor was the +social life more stimulating to moral activity. The abuses recorded in +1852 by the University Commission were in essence so shameful that in the +light of that famous report "the sweet city with her dreaming spires" +seems to have only the beauty of the daughter of Helios, under whose +enchantments men were turned to swine for loving her. The clean mind and +honest nature of Morris revolted from the excesses that went on about him. +He wrote to his mother two years after his matriculation, defending the +proposition that his Oxford education had not been thrown away: "If by +living here and seeing evil and sin in its foulest and coarsest forms, as +one does day by day, I have learned to hate any form of sin and to wish to +fight against it, is not this well too?" It is proof of his purity of +taste and strength of will that, despite his ample means, the wanton +extravagance of the typical undergraduate had for him no allurement. It is +certain that he was never seen at those dinners which were pronounced by +an official censor "a curse and a disgrace to a place of Christian +education," and as certainly he played no part in the mad carnivals at +which novices were initiated into a curriculum of vice. Yet he could not +indeed say with any truth what Gibbon had said a hundred years before, +that the time he spent at Oxford was the most idle and unprofitable of his +whole life. If he felt, as Gibbon did, that his formal studies were +"equally devoid of profit and pleasure," and if he found nothing +ridiculous in Ruskin's bitter complaint that Oxford taught him all the +Latin and Greek that he would learn, but did not teach him that +fritillaries grew in Iffley meadow, he did find a little band of helpful +associates. With these he realised the priceless advantages which Mr. +Bagehot says cannot be got outside a college and which he sums up as found +"in the books that all read because all like; in what all talk of because +all are interested; in the argumentative walk or disputatious lounge; in +the impact of fresh thought on fresh thought, of hot thought on hot +thought; in mirth and refutation, in ridicule and laughter." The first of +the few strong personal attachments in the life of Morris dates from his +first day at Oxford. At the end of January, 1853, he went up for his +matriculation, and beside him at the examination in the Hall sat +Burne-Jones, who within a week of their formal entrance to the college +became his intimate. The friendship thus spontaneously formed on the verge +of manhood lasted until Morris died. In their studies, in their truant +reading, in their later aims and work, the two, diametrically as they +differed in aspect and in temperament and in quality of mind, were +sympathetic and dear companions. Together they joined a group of other +happily gifted men--Fulford, Faulkner, Dixon, Cormell Price, and +Macdonald--who met in one another's rooms for the disputatious lounge over +the exuberant ideals by which they were in common inspired. Tennyson, +Keats, and Shelley, Shakespeare, Ruskin, Carlyle, Kingsley, Thackeray, +Dickens, and Miss Yonge were the gods and half gods of their young and +passionate enthusiasm. The last, curiously enough, was an influence as +potent as any. The hero of her novel of 1853, _The Heir of Redclyffe_, was +the pattern chosen by Morris, according to Mr. Mackail's account, to build +himself upon. Singular as it seems to-day that any marked impression +should have been made upon an even fairly well-trained mind by a writer of +such slight literary quality, it is true that the author of _The Daisy +Chain_ counted among her devoted readers men of brilliant and dominant +intellectual power. She had the lucky touch to kindle in young minds that +fire of sympathy with which they greet whatever shows them their own +world, their age, themselves as they best like to see them. To Morris in +particular the young heir of Redclyffe made the appeal of a congenial +temperament in a position similar to his own. Like Morris, he was +headstrong and passionate, given to excessive bursts of rage and to +repentances not less excessive; like Morris, he united to his natural +pride an unnatural and slightly obtrusive humility; like Morris, he was +rich and beautiful, generous and lovable. It was no great wonder that +Morris, poring with his characteristic absorption over the pleasant pages +on which Guy Morville's chivalrous life is portrayed, said as Dromio to +Dromio, "Methinks you are my glass and not my brother; I see by you I am a +sweet-faced youth." + +Mr. Mackail notes with an accent of surprise that Kingsley was much more +widely read than Newman, thinking the choice a curious one in the case of +passionate Anglo-Catholics. So far as Morris was concerned, however, there +was little enough to relish in Newman's subtle theology and relentless +logic. The man to whom religion as a mere sentiment was "a dream and a +mockery" could hardly appeal to one to whom all life was a sentiment. +Kingsley, on the other hand, although he was anti-Catholic in temper, and +disposed to overthrow the illusions by which such romanticists as Scott, +such dreamers as Fouque, had surrounded the Middle Ages, picturing their +coarse and barbarous side with harsh realism, was happy in rendering the +charms of outdoor life and bold adventure, and the songs of the Crusaders +in his _Saint's Tragedy_ must have gone farther toward winning Morris than +pages of Newman's reasoning devotion. + +Gradually the monastic ideal faded before the brightness of art and +literature and the life of the world as these became more and more +impressed upon Morris's consciousness. To live in the spirit and in the +region of purely intellectual interests could not have been his choice +after the passing of the first fanatic impulse of youth to dedicate itself +to what is difficult, ignorant of the joy of choosing. Many influences +united to determine the precise form into which he should shape the future +that for all practical purposes was under his control. His interest in +pictorial art was stimulated by Burne-Jones, who was already making +fantastic little drawings, and studies of flowers and foliage. Of great +art he knew nothing until he spent the Long Vacation of 1854 in travelling +through Belgium and Northern France, where he saw Van Eyck and Memling, +who at once became to him, as they were to Rossetti, masters of +incontestable supremacy. On this trip he saw also the beautiful churches +of Amiens, Beauvais, and Chartres, which in his unbridled expansiveness of +phrase he called "the grandest, the most beautiful, the kindest, and most +loving of all the buildings that the earth has ever borne." The following +year he repeated the experience, with Burne-Jones and Fulford for +companions. This time the journey was to have been made on foot from +motives of economy, as Burne-Jones was poor and Morris embraced the habits +of poverty when in his company with unaffected delicacy of feeling. At +Amiens, however, Morris went lame, and, "after filling the streets with +imprecations on all boot-makers," bought a pair of gay carpet slippers in +which to continue the trip. These proved not to serve the purpose, and the +travellers were obliged to reach Chartres by the usual methods of +conveyance, Morris arguing with fury and futility in favour of skirting +Paris, "even by two days' journey, so as not to see the streets of it." +They had with them one book, _Keats_, and their minds were filled with the +poetic ideas of art as the expression of man's pleasure in his toil, and +of beauty as the natural and necessary accompaniment of productive labour, +which Ruskin had been preaching in _The Stones of Venice_ and in the +Edinburgh lectures. By this time they had become acquainted with the work +of the Pre-Raphaelites, and Burne-Jones had announced that of all men who +lived on earth the one he wanted to see was Rossetti. Morris had used his +spare time, of which we may imagine he had a considerable amount, in the +study of mediaeval design as the splendid manuscripts in the Bodleian +Library illustrate it. An architectural newspaper also formed part of his +regular reading outside of his studies. Thus primed for definite action, +on this holiday filled with stimulating interests and the delicious +freedom of roaming quite at will with the best of companions through the +sweet fertile country of Northern France, Morris put quite aside all aims +that had not directly to do with art. He and Burne-Jones, walking late one +night on the quays of Havre, discussed their plans. Both gave up once and +for all the idea of taking orders; both decided to leave Oxford as +quickly as they could; both were to be artists, Burne-Jones a painter and +Morris an architect. + +Although Morris was never to become a practising architect, this choice of +a profession at the beginning of his career is both characteristic and +significant. Buildings, as we have seen, had interested him from his +childhood. His favourite excursions, long and short, had been to the +region of churches. In the art of building he saw the means of elevating +all the tastes of man. Architecture meant to him "the art of creating a +building with all the appliances fit for carrying on a dignified and happy +life." It seemed to him even at the outset, before the word "socialism" +had come into his vocabulary, incredible that people living in pleasant +homes and engaged in making and using these appliances of which he speaks, +should lead lives other than dignified and happy. It was much more in +accordance with his ideal of a vocation, a ministry to man, that he should +contribute to the daily material comfort and pleasure of the world, that +he should make places good for the body to live in and fair for the eye to +rest upon, and therefore soothing to the soul, than that he should +construct abstract spiritual mansions of which he could at best form but a +vague conception. It was, then, with a certain sense of dedication, an +exchange of method without a change of spirit, that he gave up the thought +of holy orders and turned to the thought of furthering the good of +mankind by working toward the beauty and order of the visible world. + +From the point of view of his later interests as a decorator of houses, he +was showing the utmost wisdom in beginning with the framework, which must +exist before any decoration can be applied. "I have spoken of the popular +arts," he says himself, in one of his lectures, "but they might all be +summed up in that one word Architecture; they are all parts of that great +whole, and the art of house-building begins it all. If we did not know how +to dye or to weave; if we had neither gold nor silver nor silk, and no +pigments to paint with but half a dozen ochres and umbers, we might yet +frame a worthy art that would lead to everything, if we had but timber, +stone and lime, and a few cutting tools to make these common things not +only shelter us from wind and weather but also express the thoughts and +aspirations that stir in us. Architecture would lead us to all the arts, +as it did with the earlier men; but if we despise it and take no note of +how we are housed, the other arts will have a hard time of it indeed." + +And again: "A true architectural work," he says, "is a building duly +provided with all the necessary furniture, decorated with all due +ornament, according to the use, quality, and dignity of the building, from +mere mouldings or abstract lines to the great epical works of sculpture +and painting, which except as decorations of the nobler form of such +buildings cannot be produced at all. So looked upon, a work of +architecture is a harmonious, co-operative work of art, inclusive of all +the serious arts--those which are not engaged in the production of mere +toys or ephemeral prettinesses." + +Morris communicated his momentous decision to his family as soon as it was +made, and they received it with amazement and distress. While their origin +was not especially aristocratic, their tastes ran toward the symbols of +aristocracy. When Morris was nine years old, his father obtained a grant +of arms from the Heralds' College, and the son had no small liking for the +bearings assigned--bearings which included a horse's head erased argent +between three horseshoes. The horse's head he introduced on the tiles and +glass of the house he built for himself in later years, and he was in the +habit of making a yearly pilgrimage to the famous White Horse of the +Berkshire Downs, connecting it in some obscure way with his ancestry. In +England, during the fifties, nothing was less calculated to appeal to an +aristocratic tendency than any form of art considered as a profession. In +_The Newcomes_ Mr. Honeyman remarks with bland dignity to his aspiring +young relative; "My dear Clive, there are degrees in society which we must +respect. You surely cannot think of being a professional artist." In much +this spirit, apparently, Mrs. Morris received her son's announcement, +conveyed in a long and affectionate letter stating in detail the motives +that had led him to his resolution. After defending his chosen profession +at some length, calling it with characteristic avoidance of pompous +phraseology, "a useful trade," he dwells upon the moderation of his hopes +and expectations. He does not hope "to be great at all in anything," but +thinks he may look forward to reasonable happiness in his work. It will be +grievous to his pride and self-will, he says, to have to do just as he is +told for three long years, but "good for it, too," and he looks forward +with little delight to the drudgery of learning a new trade, but is pretty +confident of success, and is happy in being able to pay "the premium and +all that" without laying any fresh burden of expense upon his mother. +Finally he proposes taking as his master George Edmund Street, who was +living in Oxford as architect of the diocese, and whose enthusiasm for the +thirteenth century could hardly have failed to claim the sympathy of +Morris. Certainly it seemed precisely the fitting opportunity that +offered. There could have been no better moment for him to follow the +advice he so frequently gave to others--to turn his back upon an ugly age, +choose the epoch that suited him best, and identify himself with that. +Gothic to the core, he had come to Oxford, not, as Mr. Day has suggested, +to catch the infection of mediaevalism abroad there, but to assimilate and +thrive upon all the influences to which his independently mediaeval spirit +was acutely susceptible. Scott, Pugin, Shaw, Viollet-le-Duc, had broken +the way through popular prejudice, and Street was engaged at the time +Morris went to him in the work of restoring ancient churches and designing +Gothic buildings. "Restoration" had not then so evil a sound to Morris as +it later came to have. Some thirty years after, he was to say: "No man or +no body of men, however learned they may be in ancient art, whatever skill +in design or love of beauty they may have, can persuade, or bribe, or +force our workmen of to-day to do their work in the same way as the +workmen of King Edward I. did theirs. Wake up Theodoric the Goth from his +sleep of centuries and place him on the throne of Italy, turn our modern +House of Commons into the Witenagemote (or Meeting of the Wise Men) of +King Alfred the Great!--no less a feat is the restoration of an ancient +building." In 1855, however, he had not fully arrived at this conviction. +It was then the period of "fresh hope and partial insight" which, +regarding it retrospectively, he says, "produced many interesting +buildings and other works of art, and afforded a pleasant time indeed to +the hopeful but very small minority engaged in it, in spite of all +vexations and disappointments." There seemed no reason to suppose that, +helped as he was by his predilections and by his environment, he could not +become the master-builder of the house beautiful that constantly haunted +his imagination. + +He was not to begin at once, however. In deference to his mother's wish he +went through his final term, passed in the Final Schools without +difficulty, and, together with his companions--The Brotherhood as they +now called themselves,--gave distinction to his last year at the +University, where despite all drawbacks he had been aboundingly happy, by +founding the since famous little _Oxford and Cambridge Magazine_. + +[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF "THE OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE MAGAZINE"] + +Like the Pre-Raphaelite _Germ_, this periodical aimed at an unusually high +standard. It was printed at the Chiswick Press with some pretensions to +typographical beauty. Each number had upon its title-page an ornamental +heading designed by one of Charles Whittingham's daughters and engraved by +Mary Byfield. On the green wrappers the name of the magazine was printed +in the old-fashioned type which the Chiswick Press was the first to +revive, and although, unlike _The Germ_, it was not illustrated, +photographs of Woolner's medallions of Carlyle and Tennyson were mounted +to bind with it and sold at a shilling apiece to subscribers. The price of +each number was also a shilling, and twelve monthly numbers appeared, +making it thrice as long lived as its prototype, _The Germ_. The financial +responsibility, says Mr. Mackail, was undertaken wholly by Morris, and he +at first attempted the general control. This he was soon glad to +relinquish, paying a salary of a hundred pounds a year to his editor. The +title, which in full read _The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, Conducted by +Members of the Two Universities_, indicates rather more co-operation than +existed, the magazine being conducted entirely by Oxford men and fully +two-thirds written by them. The tone of the contributions was to be +impeccable. "It is unanimously agreed," wrote Price, "that there is to be +no shewing off, no quips, no sneers, no lampooning in our Magazine." +Politics were to be almost eschewed, "Tales, Poetry, friendly Critiques, +and social articles" making up the body of the text. + +First among the contributors in quantity and regularity of supply was +Morris. During his second year at the University he had discovered that he +could write poetry, and had communicated the fact to his companions +without loss of time. Canon Dixon, recalling the very thrilling occasion +of his reading his first poem to the group gathered in the old Exeter +rooms occupied by Burne-Jones, affirms that he reached his perfection at +once, that nothing could have been altered for the better, and also quotes +him as saying, "Well, if this is poetry, it is very easy to write." He was +not one to let a capability fust in him unused. Poetry and prose, equally +easy to him, poured after this from his pen, giving expression with some +confusion and incoherence to his boyish raptures over the things he best +loved and most thought about. During the twelve months of the magazine's +life he contributed to it five poems, eight prose tales, a review of +Browning's _Men and Women_, and two special articles, one on a couple of +engravings by Alfred Bethel and one on the Cathedral at Amiens. In all +this early work, filled with superabundant imagery, self-conscious, +sensuous, unsubstantial, pictorial, we have Morris the writer as he was +at the beginning and much as he was again at the end. His first strange +little romances pass before the eyes as his late ones do, like strips of +beautiful fabric, deeply dyed with colours both dim and rich, and printed +with faintly outlined figures in postures illustrating the dreamy events +of dreamy lives. Many of the pages echo with the sound of trumpets and the +clash of arms, but the echo is from so far away that the heart of the +reader declines to leap. Passionate emotions are portrayed in passionate +language. Men and women love and die with wild adventure. Splendid +sacrifices are made, and dark revenges taken. But the effect is of +marionettes, admirably costumed and ingeniously managed yet inevitably +suggesting artifice and failing to suggest life. Nevertheless Morris wrote +in the fashion commonly supposed to impart vitality if nothing else to +composition. He sat up late of nights, after the manner of young writers, +and let his words stand as they fell hot and unpremeditated on the page. +The labour of learning the art, as his favourite, Keats, learned it, by +indefatigable practice in finding the perfect word, the one exquisite +phrase, was quite outside his method. As long as he lived, he preferred +rewriting to revising a manuscript. The austerity of mind that leads to +impatience of superfluous colour or tone, and that dreads as the plague +superfluous sentiment, was foreign to him, nor did he ever acquire it as +even the Epicurean temperament may do by ardent self-restraint. In most +of the romances and poems the scene is laid somewhat vaguely but +unmistakably in the Middle Ages. We rarely surprise the young writer in a +date, but the atmosphere is that of the thirteenth century though with +many thirteenth-century characteristics left out. The incidents appeal to +what Bagehot calls "that kind of boyish fancy which idolises mediaeval +society as the 'fighting time.'" The distinction lies in the fertility and +beauty of the descriptions. On nearly every page is some passage that has +the quality of a picture. In _The Hollow Land_, in _Gertha's Lovers_, in +_Svend and his Brethren_, and especially in the article on the Amiens +Cathedral, are exquisite landscapes and backgrounds against which the +personages group themselves with perfect fittingness. "I must paint Gertha +before I die," said Burne-Jones, after Morris himself was dead, recalling +the charm of this story which was written in his company, under the +willows by the riverside. "The opening and the closing sentences always +invited me in an indescribable way, but the motive _par excellence_ was +that of Gertha after death, in the chapter entitled 'What Edith the +Handmaiden Saw from the War Saddle,' where the beautiful queen lies on the +battle-field with the blue speedwell about her pale face, while a soft +wind rustles the sunset-lit aspens overhead." + +[Illustration: _Portrait of Rossetti_ + +_By Watts_] + +To his genius for evoking a scene from memory or imagination with a grace +and delicacy missing in the designs he was later to make with tools more +rebellious than words, Morris added a singular ability to convey to +his readers the most significant quality of what he admired, to impress +them with the feature that had most impressed him. The fancy for gold, +inspired perhaps by study of mediaeval illumination, runs like a glittering +thread through the story of _Svend and his Brethren_. Cissela's gold hair, +her crown of gold, the golden ring she breaks with her lover, the gold +cloth over which she walks across the trampled battle-field, the samite of +purple wrought with gold stars, the golden letters on the +sword-blade,--all these recur like so many bright accents from which the +attention cannot escape. Again, in the description of Amiens Cathedral, we +get from simple verbal repetition the effect of massive modelling, the +sense of weight in the design as Morris felt it in one of the sculptured +figures of the niches: "A stately figure with a king's crown on his head, +and hair falling in three waves over his shoulders; a very kingly face +looking straight onward; a great jewelled collar falling heavily to his +elbows: his right hand holding a heavy sceptre formed of many budding +flowers, and his left just touching in front the folds of his raiment that +falls heavily, very heavily to the ground over his feet. Saul, King of +Israel." In another passage describing with minute detail the figures of +the Virgin and Child, a similar emphasis is laid on the quality of +restfulness. "The two figures are very full of rest; everything about them +expresses it from the broad forehead of the Virgin, to the resting of the +feet of the Child (who is almost self-balanced) in the fold of the robe +that she holds gently, to the falling of the quiet lines of her robe over +her feet, to the resting of its folds between them." And if the effect to +be rendered is one of colour, a touch of finer eloquence is added to this +somewhat crude method. The final passage of the account of the great +Cathedral is a genuine triumph of poetic observation, carrying the fancy +of the reader lightly over the silvery loveliness of the picture as it lay +before the boy enraptured by it: "And now, farewell to the church that I +love, to the carved temple-mountain that rises so high above the +water-meadows of the Somme, above the grey roofs of the good town. +Farewell to the sweep of the arches, up from the bronze bishops lying at +the west end, up to the belt of solemn windows, where, through the painted +glass, the light comes solemnly. Farewell to the cavernous porches of the +west front, so grey under the fading August sun, grey with the +wind-storms, grey with the rain-storms, grey with the beat of many days' +sun, from sunrise to sunset; showing white sometimes, too, when the sun +strikes it strongly; snowy-white, sometimes, when the moon is on it, and +the shadows growing blacker; but grey now, fretted into deeper grey, +fretted into black by the mitres of the bishops, by the solemn covered +heads of the prophets, by the company of the risen, and the long robes of +the judgment-angels by hell-mouth and its flames gaping there, and the +devils that feed it; by the saved souls and the crowning angels; by the +presence of the Judge, and by the roses growing above them all forever." + +The review of Browning's _Men and Women_, then recently published, is more +valuable as testifying to the impression produced by Browning upon his +young contemporary, than for any especial illumination it throws upon the +poems themselves. Browning was popular with the students of Oxford long +before he gained his wider audience, and although Morris did not follow +him far in his investigation of the human soul and came heartily to +dislike "his constant dwelling on sin and probing of the secrets of the +heart," he placed him at the time of writing his criticism "high among the +poets of all time" and he "hardly knew whether first or second in our +own," and his defence of him, bristling with ejaculations, and couched in +boyish phrases, shows in part a more than boyish divination. "It does not +help poems much to _solve_ them," he says, after what, in truth, is a +somewhat disastrous attempt to interpret the meaning of _Women and Roses_, +"because there are in poems so many exquisitely small and delicate turns +of thought running through their music, and along with it, that cannot be +done into prose, any more than the infinite variety of form, and shadow, +and colour in a great picture can be rendered by a coloured woodcut." It +was "a bitter thing" to him to see the way in which the poet had been +received by "almost everybody," and he assured his little world that what +the critics called obscurity in Browning's poems resulted from depth of +thought and greatness of subject on the poet's part, and on his readers' +part, "from their shallower brains and more bounded knowledge," if not +indeed from "mere wanton ignorance and idleness," and to this kind of +obscurity one had little right to object. It was the first tilt in the +lists, the beginning of the long combat against the Philistines upon which +Morris entered with high resolve and firm conviction, which he lustily +enjoyed, and in which despite many a broken lance he bore himself as a +bold and skilful knight. + +In the little tale called _The Hollow Land_, written for the magazine just +before it "went to smash," to use Burne-Jones's expressive phrase, an +amusingly significant sentence occurs: "Then I tried to learn painting," +says the hero, "till I thought I should die, but at last learned through +very much pain and grief." Here it is not difficult to recognise an +autobiographic touch. Painting was already beginning to beckon Morris away +from the profession he had so recently chosen. At the end of 1855, during +the Christmas vacation, and just before Morris entered Street's office, +Burne-Jones had made a visit to London, where at a monthly meeting at the +Working Men's College he for the first time saw Rossetti, and later heard +him rend in pieces the opinions of those who differed with him, and +stoutly support his infrangible theory that all men should be painters. +How ready Burne-Jones was to yield himself to this potent influence, how +promptly Rossetti's vivid and original temperament acted upon his admirer, +is clear from the latter's description, written many years after, of the +first encounter--the young undergraduate sitting half-frightened, +embarrassed and worshipping, among strangers, eating thick bread and +butter, and listening to speeches about the progress of the college, until +the entrance of his idol, whose sensitive, gentle, indolent face, with its +flickering of humour and the fire of genius, entirely satisfied his poetic +imagination. The great qualities of Rossetti in those days revealed +themselves in his face, and his imperious will and keen intellect were no +less obvious in his talk. Burne-Jones returned to Oxford with the idea of +dedicating himself to art more than ever firmly fixed in his mind. +Rossetti had approved the drawings which he had brought to him for +consideration, and had pronounced the seven months still to elapse before +he could take his degree time too valuable to waste outside of art, +counselling him to fling the University and all its works behind him and +begin painting at once. With mingled delight and terror Burne-Jones, in +spite of small means and weak health, followed his leader, who, however +rash to advise, was not one to neglect his charge, and who worked loyally +to bring him through with triumph, criticising, teaching, approving, +encouraging without stint, and presently, after his own inimitable +fashion, bringing patrons to him, bidding them buy, which obediently they +did. + +It was inevitable that Morris should be stirred to emulation by this step +on the part of his friend. After Burne-Jones went to London to begin +painting under Rossetti's direction, Morris spent nearly all his Sundays +with him at his lodgings in Chelsea. These holidays were full of +excitement. It was a glorious little world that opened out under +Rossetti's enthusiastic, dogmatic, and continuous talk and argument. +Morris was deeply impressed by his notion that everyone should be a +painter, and after Street moved his office to London and Morris and +Burne-Jones took lodgings together, the former tried the characteristic +experiment of combining painting with architecture, attempting to get six +hours a day at his drawing in addition to his office work. It is +interesting to find him writing at this juncture that he cannot enter into +politico-social subjects with any interest, that things are in a muddle +and that he has no power to set them right in the smallest degree, that +_his_ work is the embodiment of dreams in one form or another. What +Rossetti thought of his two disciples is seen in a letter written by him +to William Allingham in December, 1856, when Morris had been nearly a year +with Street. He found both "wonders after their kind." "Jones is doing +designs which quite put one to shame," he wrote, "so full are they of +everything--Aurora Leighs of art. He will take the lead in no time." +Morris he deemed "one of the finest little fellows alive--with a touch of +the incoherent, but a real man," and "in all illumination and work of +that kind" he considered him quite unrivalled by anything modern that he +knew. With a guide thus confident and inspiring, it is not strange that +Morris presently yielded to the spell, and renounced architecture to +pursue painting as an end and aim in itself, although, like the hero of +his romance, he learned with much pain and grief. + +[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION BY ROSSETTI TO "THE LADY OF SHALOTT" IN THE +MOXON "TENNYSON." THE HEAD OF LAUNCELOT IS A PORTRAIT OF MORRIS] + +Rossetti's service to Morris is difficult to estimate. For a brief period +his influence over him was supreme. Perhaps in the work and temper of this +Italian, Morris saw more deeply into the heart of the mediaeval world than +all his churches and illuminated manuscripts could help him to see. At all +events, he was for the time close to genius and dominated by it. His +devotion to his master partook of the violence inseparable from his +temperament. He was soon ready to say, when Burne-Jones complained that he +worked better in Rossetti's manner than in his own: "I have got beyond +that; I want to imitate Gabriel as much as I can." But he was never to be +for very long under any personal influence. Nor could he be persuaded by +the most brilliant eloquence in the world that good could be got out of +doing what he did not enjoy; and he never enjoyed any labour that required +long patience and persistent concentration of effort. Without being +fickle, his mind was so restless as to produce the effect of fickleness +and to preclude the possibility of his doing really great work. While he +was trying, under Rossetti's stimulating but peremptory rule, to master a +painter's methods he became gloomy and despondent. "How long Rossetti's +daily influence might have kept him labouring at what he could not do," +writes Mr. Mackail with a tinge of bitterness, "when there was work all +round that he could do, on the whole, better than any man living, it is +needless to inquire." But that Rossetti did manage to keep him for a +couple of years at the study of painting cannot be counted a misfortune. +Probably that experience, together with his brief term under Street, did +as much as anything to save his design from mediocrity and imitativeness. +He did not make himself an architect, and he never learned to draw +anything that remotely resembled the actual structure of the human form, +but he must have gained through his study some knowledge of the inviolable +laws of art that he could not have gained by passive observation however +keen, or by sympathy however ardent. Rossetti can hardly have been the +best master for him. His own nature was too undisciplined, and he had as +few of the academic virtues as any man on record of the same technical +ability. But his was the supreme faculty of rousing enthusiasm. It may be +doubted whether any other painter in England could have kept Morris at the +appointed and impossible task for so long a time. It is easy to imagine +how the impatient spirit of the latter rebelled against the slow process +of learning to draw the human figure in its complicated and subtle beauty +of construction and surface. The fact that he stopped so far short of +satisfactory accomplishment seems to account for many of the defects to be +found in his later designs, which at their best were never to be entirely +beautiful, though full of zest and freedom. His tendency to drop any +branch of his work as soon as it became tedious to him, to turn to +something else, kept his creative impulse continually fresh and effective; +but kept him also from achieving the penetrating distinction of artistic +self-possession. Whatever helped him in any degree toward this +self-possession, whatever he got in the way of discipline of mind and +hand, should be acknowledged by his admirers with gratitude, and it is but +just to recognise in Rossetti the one man who seems to have kept the +prodigious impetuosity of Morris down without promptly losing hold upon +his interest. Add to this the clear vision of a romantic ideal which all +who worked with Rossetti were privileged to share, and the constant +inspiration of the drama of sentiment and emotion rendered in his colour +and line and in his exotic treatment of form, and we must own that nowhere +else could Morris have found such food for an imagination already +quickened by influences reaching it from a remote time and an alien world. +Nowhere else could he have come so close to the concealed mysteries of the +human soul, despite the disillusionment he was bound to feel in daily +contact with a character as contradictory as it was compelling. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +FROM ROSSETTI TO THE RED HOUSE. + + +Although a blight of discouragement seems to have fallen upon Morris under +Rossetti's tuition, there were some blithe compensations. Not the least of +these was the fitting up of the rooms at 17 Red Lion Square where he and +Burne-Jones took quarters. "Topsy and I live together," wrote Burne-Jones, +"in the quaintest room in all London, hung with brasses of old knights and +drawings of Albert Duerer." For the furniture, Morris, who, Rossetti said, +was "bent on doing the magnificent," made designs to be carried out in +deal by a carpenter of the neighbourhood. Everything was very large and +heavy, intensely mediaeval, and doubtless rather ugly in an honest fashion, +but in the end it was furniture to be coveted, for it offered great spaces +for decoration, and Rossetti as well as Morris and Burne-Jones painted on +it subjects from Chaucer and Dante and the Arthurian stories. The panels +of a cupboard glowed with Rossetti's beautiful pictures representing Dante +and Beatrice meeting in Florence and meeting in Paradise, and on the wide +backs of the chairs he painted scenes from some of the poems Morris had +written. The wardrobe was decorated by Burne-Jones with paintings from +_The Prioress's Tale_. On the walls of the room were hung, no doubt, the +several water-colours bought from Rossetti, to the lovely names of which +Morris promptly wrote ballads. An owl was co-tenant with the young +artists, and they were served and also criticised by a housemaid of +literary ambitions. In this highly individual apartment, where, curiously +enough, Rossetti and his friend Deverell had had their studio together +five or six years before, life was not all labour and striving. There +were, moreover, holidays spent at the Zooelogical Gardens, evenings at the +theatre, night-long sessions in Rossetti's rooms, and excursions on the +Thames. One of the latter is vividly described in Dr. Birkbeck Hill's +_Letters of Gabriel Rossetti to William Allingham_, giving a joyous +picture of Morris at the mercy of his ungovernable temper. The party, +consisting of Hill, Morris, and Faulkner, had started out to row down the +Thames from Oxford to a London suburb. By the time they had reached Henley +they had spent all their money except enough for Faulkner's return ticket +to Oxford, where he was to attend a college meeting. For this he departed, +promising to bring back a supply of money in the evening. "The weather was +unusually hot," writes Dr. Hill, "Morris and I sauntered along the +river-side. I have not forgotten the longing glances he cast on a large +basket of strawberries. He had always been so plentifully supplied with +money that he bore with far greater impatience than I did this privation. +At last the shadows had grown long and the heat was more bearable. We went +with light hearts to the railway station to meet our comrade. 'Well, +Faulkner,' cried out Morris, cheerfully, 'how much money have you +brought?' Our friend gave a start. 'Good heavens,' he replied, 'I forgot +all about it.' Morris thrust both his hands into his long dark curly hair, +tugged at it wildly, ground his teeth, swore like a trooper, and stamped +up and down the platform--in fact, behaved just like Sinbad's captain when +he found that his ship was driving upon the rocks. His outbursts of rage, +I hasten to say, were always harmless. They left no sullenness behind, and +as each rapidly passed away he was ready to join in a hearty laugh at it. +Faulkner, who was not the most patient of men, noticed that passengers, +station-master, porters, engine-driver, and stoker were all gazing in +astonishment. He, too, lost his temper, and, though in a far lower key, +stormed back. Morris soon quieted down, and a council of war was held. He +fortunately had a gold watch-chain on which he raised enough to pay all +needful expenses. I remember well how the rest of our journey we rowed by +many a tavern on the bank as effectually constrained as ever was Ulysses +not to listen to its siren call. It was through no earthly paradise that +the young poet and artist passed on the afternoon of our last day." When +they landed they had just a penny among them, and were still some six or +seven miles from their destination, so they were obliged to hire a cab and +trust to good fortune for not coming to a turnpike gate before arriving at +Red Lion Square. + +About this time also Rossetti and Morris made an excursion to Oxford for +the purpose of visiting Benjamin Woodward, the architect and Rossetti's +friend. Mr. Woodward had recently erected a building for the Oxford Union, +a society composed of past and present members of the University. In +exhibiting the building to Rossetti it was suggested that the blank +stretch of wall which ran around the top of the Debating Room afforded an +admirable opportunity for decoration, and Rossetti with prompt enthusiasm +evolved a plan for a cooeperative enterprise. He and Morris, with several +other willing spirits,--Burne-Jones, of course, Arthur Hughes, Valentine +Prinsep, Spencer Stanhope, and J. Hungerford Pollen,--were to go up to +Oxford in a body. Each was to choose a subject from the _Morte d'Arthur_, +and execute it to the best of his ability on the walls of the Debating +Room. The whole affair was to be a matter of a few weeks. The artists +offered their services for nothing; their expenses (which turned out to be +as free as their offer) were to be paid by the Union. It is easy to +imagine the ensuing bustle and ardour. Rossetti eagerly managing, Morris +delighted with the charmingly mediaeval situation,--a few humble painters +working together piously, without hope of glory or thought of gain,--the +others following their leader with lamb-like docility. Had their knowledge +of methods been equal to their zeal, the walls of the Debating Room must +have become the loveliest of realised visions and the delight of many +generations. The young workmen sat for each other, Morris, Burne-Jones, +and Rossetti all possessing fine paintable heads. They clambered up and +down endless ladders to gain a satisfactory view of their performance, and +attacked the most stupendous difficulties with patience and ingenuity. The +faces in the subject undertaken by Burne-Jones were painted, for example, +in three planes at right angles to one another, owing to the projection of +a string-course of bricks straight across the space to be filled by the +heads of the figures. Some studies by Rossetti have been preserved, and +show that his part at least of the decoration was conceived in a fresh +poetic spirit, with fulness and quaintness of expression and suggestion. +But the congenial band had entered upon their labours with a carelessness +that can only be described as wanton. Not one of them knew how to paint in +tempera, and the new damp walls were smeared over with a thin coat of +white lime wash laid upon the bare bricks as sole preparation for a sort +of water-colour painting that blossomed like a flower under the gifted +hands of the artists, and faded almost as soon away. The effect at the +time was so brilliant as to make the walls, according to Mr. Coventry +Patmore's contemporaneous testimony, "look like the margin of an +illuminated manuscript," but in the course of a few months the colours had +sunk into the sponge-like surface to such an extent that the designs were +already dim and indistinguishable. + +Morris, with characteristic promptness, was the first on the field, and +his picture was finished in advance of any of the others. He was, however, +no better instructed than his companions in the special requirements of +his material, and presently all that was left of his painting was the head +of his brave knight peering over the tops of multitudinous sunflowers. The +decoration of the ceiling was also assigned to him, and he made his design +for it in a single day. Later, in 1875, he repainted it, but most of the +art of this merry period has receded into complete oblivion. The stay in +Oxford lengthened into months as complications increased, and finally the +enterprise was abandoned with the work unfinished. It had led, however, to +an event of paramount importance to Morris, and of considerable importance +to Rossetti--the meeting with Miss Burden, who was to figure in so many of +Rossetti's symbolic pictures, and who became the wife of Morris. Her +remarkable beauty had attracted the attention of the young men one night +at the little Oxford theatre. "My brother was the first to observe her," +writes William Rossetti; "her face was at once tragic, mystic, passionate, +calm, beautiful, and gracious--a face for a sculptor and a face for a +painter--a face solitary in England, and not at all like that of an +English woman, but rather of an Ionian Greek." In Rossetti's portrait of +her at eighteen, painted shortly after this meeting, we see the grave, +unusual features almost precisely as they are drawn with words in a poem +by Morris, entitled _Praise of My Lady_, which Mr. Mackail says was +written during a visit to the Manchester Exhibition of 1857, but which +assuredly is no earlier than the date of his acquaintance with Jane +Burden. The description, Pre-Raphaelite in its detail, runs through the +first half of the poem: + + My Lady seems of ivory + Forehead, straight nose, and cheeks that be + Hollow'd a little mournfully. + Beata mea Domina! + + Her forehead, overshadow'd much + By bows of hair, has a wave such + As God was good to make for me. + Beata mea Domina! + + Not greatly long my lady's hair, + Nor yet with yellow color fair, + But thick and crisped wonderfully; + Beata mea Domina! + + Heavy to make the pale face sad, + And dark, but dead as though it had + Been forged by God most wonderfully; + Beata mea Domina! + + Of some strange metal, thread by thread, + To stand out from my lady's head, + Not moving much to tangle me. + Beata mea Domina! + + Beneath her brows the lids fall slow, + The lashes a clear shadow throw + Where I would wish my lips to be. + Beata mea Domina! + + Her great eyes, standing far apart, + Draw up some memory from her heart, + And gaze out very mournfully; + Beata mea Domina! + + So beautiful and kind they are, + But most times looking out afar, + Waiting for something, not for me. + Beata mea Domina! + + I wonder if the lashes long + Are those that do her bright eyes wrong, + For always half tears seem to be. + Beata mea Domina! + + Lurking below the underlid, + Darkening the place where they lie hid-- + If they should rise and flow for me! + Beata mea Domina! + + Her full lips being made to kiss, + Curl'd up and pensive each one is; + This makes me faint to stand and see. + Beata mea Domina! + +It was the force of this attraction that kept Morris long at Oxford after +Rossetti and Burne-Jones had returned to London, leaving the walls of the +Oxford Union to their sad fate. But it was no love in idleness for him, +rather a time of many beginnings. He was carving in stone, modelling in +clay, making designs for stained glass windows, even "doing worsted +work," in Rossetti's contemptuous phrase for his efforts at reviving the +lost art of embroidery, with a frame made from an old model and wools dyed +especially for him. Most of all he was writing poetry, the proper +occupation of a lover so aesthetically endowed. Early in 1858 he had _The +Defence of Guenevere_, a collection of thirty poems, ready to bring out. +Save for a slim little pamphlet entitled _Sir Galahad: A Christmas +Mystery_, the contents of which were included in it, it was his first +volume and, like Swinburne's _Rosamond_ published two years later, it was +dedicated to Rossetti. + +In this youthful, fantastic, emotional poetry we get the very essence of +the writer's early spirit without the strange shadow of foreboding, the +constant sense of swiftly passing time, that comes into the poetry of his +maturity. Technically, the poems could hardly be more picturesquely +defective than they are. The one giving the volume its name is nearly +unintelligible in parts, even when the reader is aware of the incidents of +Guenevere's story, and prepared to interpret the hysterical ravings of a +woman overcome by sorrow, shame, and love. + +But no poems, except Rossetti's own, have so suggested romantic art in +strange shapes and unbridled colour. They, too, like the wall-paintings of +that early and unrivalled time, resemble the margins of an illuminated +manuscript, reminding one of nothing in nature, but flashing the richness +of mediaeval symbolism upon the imagination in more or less awkward forms. +If Morris could not "imitate Gabriel" in his pictures, he could at least +imitate Gabriel's pictures in his poems. From the _Beata Beatrix_, from +the _Ghirlandata_, from the _Proserpine_, from almost any of Rossetti's +paintings of women, these curious and affected lines, for example, might +have been gleaned: + + See through my long throat how the words go up + In ripples to my mouth; how in my hand + The shadow lies like wine within a cup + Of marvellously colour'd gold. + +In _The Eve of Crecy_ we have the glitter of gold and the splendour of +material things, rendered with a childish abandon, as in the prose +romances: + + Gold on her head and gold on her feet, + And gold where the hems of her kirtle meet, + And a golden girdle round my sweet;-- + Ah! qu'elle est belle, La Marguerite. + + Yet even now it is good to think + + * * * * * + + Of Margaret sitting glorious there, + In glory of gold and glory of hair, + And glory of glorious face most fair; + Ah! qu'elle est belle, La Marguerite. + +The full hues that had for the decorators of mediaeval missals a religious +significance recur again and again in lines that have much more to do with +earth than with heaven, and show less concern with the human soul than +with the human heart. Damozels hold scarlet lilies such as Maiden +Margaret bears "on the great church walls;" ladies walk in their gardens +clad in white and scarlet; the vision of Christ appears to Galahad "with +raiment half blood-red, half white as snow"; angels appear clad in white +with scarlet wings; scarlet is the predominating colour throughout, if we +except gold, which serves as background and ornament to everything. Next +to scarlet comes green, which Morris was later to call "the workaday +colour," and we find occasional patches of blue and of grey in painted +boats and in hangings. The following stanza shows a favourite method of +emphasising the prevailing colour of a poem: + + The water slips, + The red-bill'd heron dips, + Sweet kisses on red lips, + Alas! the red rust grips, + And the blood-red dagger rips, + Yet, O knight, come to me! + +For pure incoherence, the quality that Rossetti discerned in Morris at +their first meeting, the song from which this stanza is taken is +unsurpassed. Yet an emotional effect is gained in it. What we chiefly miss +in the little craft sailing under such vivid colours, is that +"deep-grasping keel of reason" which, Lowell says, "alone can steady and +give direction" to verse. Excitable and impatient, in pursuit of a vague +ideal, gifted with the power to bring out the pictorial quality of +detached scenes, but without a fine metrical sense, and averse to lucid +statement, the young poet introduced himself to the world as a symbolist +in the modern acceptation of the word. One of his poems, _Rapunzel_, has +been said to forecast Maeterlinck's manner and spirit, and the general +characteristics of the poem--a fairy tale somewhat too "grown-up" in +treatment--certainly suggest the comparison. In all this work physical +characteristics play an important part. Long hands with "tenderly shadowed +fingers," "long lips" that "cleave" to the fingers they kiss, lips "damp +with tears," that "shudder with a kiss," lips "like a curved sword," warm +arms, long, fair arms, lithe arms, twining arms, broad fair eyelids, long +necks, and unlimited hair, form an equipment somewhat dangerous for a poet +with anything short of genius to sustain him. For themes Morris had gone +chiefly to the Arthurian stories and to the chronicles of Froissart. His +style, he himself thought, was more like Browning's than anyone else's, +though the difference that lay between him and Browning even at the +beginning forbade any essential likeness. Browning's effort was always to +render an idea which was perfectly clear in his own mind. His volubility +and obscurity and roughness frequently arose from his over-eagerness to +express his idea in a variety of ways, leading him to break off with half +statements and begin afresh, to throw out imperfect suggestions and follow +them with others equally imperfect. But all his stutterings and broken +sentences failed to disguise the fact that an intellectual conception +underlay the turbulent method, giving substance and life to the poem +however much it might lack grace and form. With Morris the intellectual +conception was as weak as with Browning it was strong, and apparently +existed chiefly to give an excuse for the pictures following one another +in rapid succession through every poem, short or long, dramatic or lyric, +of both his youth and maturity. In this early volume there was, to be +sure, an obvious effort toward rendering psychological effects. Most of +the longer poems are miniature dramas with a march toward some great event +in the lives of the actors. The author observes the dramatic requirement +of sinking himself in the identity of his characters. Knights are slain +and ladies die of love and witch-bound maidens are rescued by their +princes without the sounding of a personal note on the part of their +creator. And in two instances, _Sir Peter Harpdon's End_ and _The Haystack +in the Floods_, there is ruddy human blood in the tortured beings whose +extremity moves the reader with a genuine emotion. In these two poems the +voice might indeed be the voice of Browning, though the hand is still +unmistakably the hand of Morris. In the main, however, the appeal that is +made is to the imagination concerned with the visible aspect of +brilliantly coloured objects and with the delirious expression of +overwrought feelings. + +[Illustration: _Portrait of Jane Burden (Mrs. Morris)_ + +_By Rossetti_] + +One defect, calculated to interfere with a warm reception of the volume on +the part of the general public, Morris shared with Browning, possessing +even more than Browning the merit attending it. Familiarity with the +art and literature of the Middle Ages made it natural for him to preserve +the thin new wine of his youthful poetry in the old bottles of the defunct +past, using motives and scenes and accessories alien to our modern life, +and only dimly understood by the modern reader. The true spirit of that +past it is hardly necessary to say he did not revive,--no writer has ever +revived the true spirit of any age antecedent to his own,--and Morris, +with his remarkable faculty for eliminating from his mental conceptions +whatever did not please his taste, was wholly unfitted by temperament, +however well fitted by his acquirements, to carry through successfully a +task so tremendous. + +_The Defence of Guenevere_ was received by the public without enthusiasm. +About half an edition of five hundred copies was sold and given away, and +the remainder lingered for a dozen years or more until the publication of +_The Earthly Paradise_ stimulated the interest of readers in the previous +work of its author. + +Whatever disappointment Morris may have felt must soon have given way to +the excitement of the plunge he now made into a new life and the most +intense personal interests. On the twenty-sixth of April, 1859, he was +married to Jane Burden, and after a brief interval of travel he began to +build the beautiful house which he then supposed would be his home for the +rest of his days. + +His personal attractiveness at this time was keenly felt by his +companions. He had been "making himself," as the phrase is, since his +childhood, and if Stevenson's dictum--to know what you like is the +beginning of wisdom and of old age--be applied to him he can never have +been wholly ignorant or a child. Knowledge of what he liked, and even more +definitely of what he did not like, was his earliest as well as his most +notable acquirement. But he was a boy, too, in his excessive restless +vitality, and hitherto with all his enthusiasms he had been a somewhat +cold boy. Just now he was beginning to "take a fancy for the human," as +one of his friends put it. He was connecting his vague schemes and +ambitions with a personal and practical enterprise. His ideals dropped +from a region always too rare for them to an atmosphere of activities and +interests in which the vast general public could breathe as easily as he. +In building his new home to his fancy he was unconsciously laying the +corner-stones of the many homes throughout England into which his +influence was afterward to enter. He was just twenty-five, filled with +energy, generous impulse, honesty, and kindness. The bourgeois touch which +his biographer declares was inherent in his nature was far from obvious as +yet. Society for its own sake he liked little, and was not above getting +out of unwelcome invitations by subterfuge, if fair means would not avail. +He affected a Bohemian carelessness in dress, and his hair was uniformly +wild. His language was generally forcible, often violent, always +expressive. He lived in the company of his intimates and cared for nothing +beyond the range of his fixed interests. The remark made long after--"Do +you suppose that I should see anything in Rome that I can't see in +Whitechapel?"--was perfectly indicative of his mood toward everything that +failed to arouse his intellectual curiosity. But the places and things +that did arouse it were never tawdry or valueless, and his reasons for +caring for them, of which he was always remarkably prolific, were such as +appeal strongly to the mind in which homely associations hold a constant +place. It must be an out and out classicist who fails to detect in himself +a pulsation of sympathy in response to the wail which Morris once sent +home from Verona: "Yes, and even in these magnificent and wonderful towns +I long rather for the heap of grey stones with a grey roof that we call a +house north-away." + +[Illustration: "ACANTHUS" WALL-PAPER, "PIMPERNEL" WALL-PAPER, "AFRICAN +MARIGOLD" COTTON-PRINT + +WALL-PAPER AND COTTON-PRINT DESIGNS + +(_Reproduced from examples obtained by courtesy of Mr. A. E. Bulkley_)] + +His first house, in which he took unlimited delight, was not, however, a +heap of grey stones, but a structure of brick, its name, the Red House, +indicating its striking and then unusual colour. Its architect was Philip +Webb, who had been an associate of Morris during the brief period passed +in Mr. Street's office. Situated not far from London, on the outskirts of +the village of Upton and in the midst of a pleasant orchard, whose trees +dropped their fruit into its windows, the Red House wore an emphatically +Gothic aspect. It was L-shaped, with numerous irregularities of plan, and +entirely without frippery of applied ornament. Its great sloping roof, the +pointed arches of its doorways, the deep simple porches, the large hall, +with its long table in place of an entrance alley the open-timbered roof +over the staircase, the panelled screen dividing the great hall from a +lesser one,--all these were characteristic of the old English house before +the day of Italian invasion, while the mobile Gothic style, adapting +itself readily to individual needs, prevailed. It stood among the old and +gnarled trees, only two stories in height, but with an effect of rambling +spaciousness and hospitality, and the garden that lay close to it was as +individual and old-fashioned as itself. Morris prided himself, Mr. Mackail +tells us, on his knowledge of gardening, and his advice to the Birmingham +Society of Artists in one of the lectures of his later years shows how +thoughtfully he considered the subject. As he always acted so far as he +could upon his theories, we may be fairly sure that the Red House garden +was planned in conformity with the ideal place sketched in this lecture, +and may assume in it a profusion of single flowers mixed to avoid great +masses of colour, among them the old columbine, where the clustering doves +are unmistakable and distinct, the old china aster, the single snowdrop, +and the sunflower, these planted in little squares, divided from each +other by grassy walks, and hedged in by wild rose or sweet-briar +trellises. We may be sure the place contained no curiosities from the +jungle or tropical waste, that everything was excluded which was not +native to the English soil, and that ferns and brakes from the woodland +were not enticed from the place of their origin to take away the +characteristic domestic look of a spot that ought to seem "like a part of +the house." "It will be a key to right thinking about gardens," says +Morris, "if you consider in what kind of places a garden is most desired. +In a very beautiful country, especially if it be mountainous, we can do +without it well enough, whereas in a flat and dull country we crave after +it, and there it is often the very making of the homestead; while in great +towns, gardens both private and public are positive necessities if the +citizens are to live reasonable and healthy lives in body and mind." + +Passing from this first necessity of reasonable and healthy living through +the rose-masked doorway into the Red House itself, we find it equally +suggestive of its master's personal tastes and beliefs. For everything +Morris had his persuasive reason. His windows had small leaded panes of +glass, because the large windows found "in most decent houses or what are +so called," let in a flood of light "in a haphazard and ill-considered +way," which the indwellers are "forced to obscure again by shutters, +blinds, curtains, screens, heavy upholsteries, and such other nuisances." +By all means, therefore, fill the window with moderate-sized panes of +glass set in solid sash bars--"we shall then at all events feel as if we +were indoors on a cold day"--as if we had a roof over our heads. The fact +that small windows were used in mediaeval times and must therefore of +necessity be superior is not brought forward in this argument, and the +charm of the reasoning is not marred by any reminder of the actual +conditions of which small heavily leaded windows are a survival--such as +the fortress style of building belonging to a warlike time, and the great +costliness of glass, and the inability to support large panes by leads. + +Morris could always be trusted to support his fundamental liking for a +thing by a host of assurances as to its sensible merits and practical +advantages, but the mere fact that he liked it was quite sufficient for +his own satisfaction of mind. When one of his comrades once suggested to +him that personal feeling ought not to count for too much, and that not +liking a thing did not make it bad, he replied: "Oh, don't it though! What +we don't like _is_ bad." And he had a fashion which must have produced an +irritating effect upon some of his hearers, of declaring that the people +who did not hold his ideas must be unhealthy either in body or mind or +both. Certainly the aspect of the Red House suggested health within its +walls. With a slight stretch of imagination one could argue from its +furnishings that its master was a northerner, a middle-class man, the +admirer of a rough age, a sturdy art, a plain habit of life; that he was a +worker whose dreams tormented him to speedy and vigorous action, a +creature whose vitality was too great even for his strong frame and +physical power. He liked a massive chair, and well he might, for one of +his amusements was to twist his legs about it in such a way that a lightly +built affair must instantly succumb. He liked a floor that he could stamp +on with impunity; he liked a table on which he could pound with his fists +without danger to its equilibrium. In the Red House these requirements +were fully met. In the lecture called _The Beauty of Life_ is an account +of the fittings "necessary to the sitting-room of a healthy person." +Beside the table that will "keep steady when you work upon it," and the +chairs "that you can move about," the good floor, and the small carpet +"which can be bundled out of the room in two minutes," there must be "a +bookcase with a great many books in it," a bench "that you can sit or lie +upon," a cupboard with drawers, and, "unless either the bookcase or the +cupboard be very beautiful with painting or carving," pictures or +engravings on the wall, "or else the wall itself must be ornamented with +some beautiful and restful pattern," then a vase or two, and fireplaces as +unlike as possible to "the modern mean, miserable, and showy affairs, +plastered about with wretched sham ornament, trumpery of cast iron, and +brass and polished steel, and what not--offensive to look at and a +nuisance to clean." To these necessaries, "unless we are musical and need +a piano, in which case as far as beauty is concerned we are in a bad way," +we can add very little without "troubling ourselves, and hindering our +work, our thought, and our rest." + +In accordance with these opinions, but with a fulness and richness of +ornament not suggested by the simplicity of their expression, the pleasant +building at Upton gradually took on great beauty and individuality. The +walls were hung with embroidered fabrics worked by Mrs. Morris and her +friends, or painted by Burne-Jones, who, undeterred by the Oxford episode, +started an elaborate series of mural decorations in illustration of the +wonderful adventures of Sire Degravant, the hero of an ancient romance. +Another series of scenes from the War of Troy was started for the walls of +the staircase, and although both schemes were abandoned, enough was done +to give an effect of splendour to the rooms. Up to the large drawing-room +came the ponderous and mighty settle which had cost so many expletives in +the course of its adjustment to the old room in Red Lion Square, and which +was now embellished by a balcony at the top to which a stairway led up. +All minor accessories were thoughtfully considered and for the most part +designed by Morris or by friends pressed into service at his eager demand. +He found little to content him in the articles of commerce on sale at the +orthodox shops in the early sixties. "In looking at an old house," he says +in one of his books, "we please ourselves by thinking of all the +generations of men that have passed through it, remembering how it has +received their joy and borne their sorrow and not even their folly has +left sourness on it; and in looking at a new house if built as it +should be, we feel a pleasure in thinking how he who built it has left a +piece of his soul behind him to greet the newcomers one after another, +long after he is gone." Such an impress he left upon the Red House, so +that no one passing it or even hearing of it can fail to think of it as +belonging to William Morris, whoever may have the fortune to live in it +hereafter, and fall heir to the associations with which he invested it. + +[Illustration: "THE STRAWBERRY THIEF" DESIGN FOR COTTON PRINT] + +During the time of building and furnishing he was exuberantly happy and +wholly in his element. Turning constantly from one thing to another, yet +keeping along the line of his united interests, giving his magnificent +energy free scope in doing and accomplishing, seeing grow into visible +form the theories and tastes so dear to his heart, letting out his +enthusiasms and carrying others along on their current, setting a +practical example in what he believed to be of the deepest importance by +requiring for himself artistic handicraft, acting out a vigorous protest +against the mechanical arts and the shams of the commercial world,--all +this was meat and drink to him, and out of it grew an enterprise +representing what to the public has been probably the most valuable side +of his many-sided career, the establishment of a firm engaged in various +forms of decorative art. At about this time he adopted, after the fashion +of the master-workman of the Middle Ages, a device or legend expressive in +one way or another of his aim. He chose the one used by Van Eyck, "Als +ich kanne,"--if I can,--and distributed it in French translation and in +English over his house, on windows and tiles and in tapestry hangings. The +modesty of the words was no doubt as sincere in his case as in the case of +the old Flemish painter who excelled all his contemporaries, but the +extent to which he could and did in the new business on which he was about +to enter has been the wonder of his followers. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +MORRIS AND COMPANY. + + +The formation of the firm of "Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, & Company," as +it was first called, appears to have been highly incidental in character, +despite the assertion of Morris himself in a letter to his old tutor, that +he had long meant to be a decorator, and to that end mainly had built his +fine house. "One evening a lot of us were together," says Rossetti, in the +account given by Mr. Watts-Dunton, "and we got to talking about the way in +which artists did all kinds of things in olden times, designed every kind +of decoration and most kinds of furniture, and someone suggested--as a +joke more than anything else--that we should each put down five pounds and +form a company. Fivers were blossoms of a rare growth among us in those +days, and I won't swear that the table bristled with fivers. Anyhow the +firm was formed, but of course there was no deed or anything of that kind. +In fact it was a mere playing at business, and Morris was elected manager, +not because we ever dreamed he would turn out a man of business, but +because he was the only one among us who had both time and money to spare. +We had no idea whatever of commercial success, but it succeeded almost in +our own despite." + +In the mind of Morris it doubtless promised to be the sort of association +about which he was constantly dreaming; a group of intelligent craftsmen +interested in making the details of daily life as full as possible of +beauty, each man fitted to his task and loving it, each in his way a +master-workman of the guild, counting his craft honourable and spending +his best thought and labour on it. There was ground enough for faith in +the artistic if not in the commercial outcome of the enterprise. The +associates, beside Morris, Rossetti, and Burne-Jones, were Madox-Brown, +then an artist of established reputation, Webb, the architect of the Red +House, who was also a designer of furniture and ornament; Peter Paul +Marshall, to whom Mr. William Rossetti ascribes the first suggestion of +the formation of the firm, a "capable artist" although an amateur; and +Charles Faulkner of the Oxford group, who had followed his mates to London +unable to endure the loneliness of Oxford without them. They proposed to +open what Rossetti called "an actual shop," and sell whatever their united +talent produced. "We are not intending to compete with ----'s costly +rubbish or anything of that sort," Rossetti wrote to his friend Allingham, +"but to give real good taste at the price as far as possible of ordinary +furniture." + +[Illustration: TULIP DESIGN FOR AXMINSTER CARPET] + +In the Spring of 1861, premises were taken over a jeweller's shop at 8 Red +Lion Square. Two floors and a part of the basement were used by the firm, +and about a dozen men and boys were presently employed. There were regular +weekly meetings carried on with the boisterousness of youth and high +spirits, but with thorough efficiency, nevertheless, where plans that were +to modify and influence the household decoration of all England were gaily +formed and put into practice. + +The prospectus, in which Mr. Mackail discerns Rossetti's "slashing hand +and imperious accent," was not entirely calculated to mollify rival +decorators, calling attention to the fact that attempts at decorative art +up to that time had been crude and fragmentary, and emphasising the want +of some one place where work of "a genuine and beautiful character could +be obtained." The new firm pledged itself to execute in a business-like +manner: + +"I. Mural Decoration, either in Pictures or in Pattern Work, or merely in +the arrangement of Colours, as applied to dwelling-houses, churches, or +public buildings. + +"II. Carving generally, as applied to Architecture. + +"III. Stained Glass, especially with reference to its harmony with Mural +Decoration. + +"IV. Metal Work in all its branches, including jewellery. + +"V. Furniture, either depending for its beauty on its own design, on the +application of materials hitherto overlooked, or on its conjunction with +Figure and Pattern Painting. Under this head is included Embroidery of all +kinds, Stamped Leather, and ornamental work in other such materials, +besides every article necessary for domestic use." + +Clearly this was not the usual thing, nor was the business conducted in +the usual way. According to Mr. William Rossetti, the young reformers +adopted a tone of "something very like dictatorial irony" toward their +customers, permitting no compromise, and laying down the law without +concession to individual taste or want of taste. You could have things +such as the firm chose them to be or you could go without them. + +The finance of the company began, Mr. Mackail says, with a call of one +pound per share and a loan of a hundred pounds from Mrs. Morris of Leyton. +In 1862 a further call of nineteen pounds a share was made on the +partners, raising the paid-up capital to one hundred and forty pounds, +which "was never increased until the dissolution of the firm in 1874." A +few hundred pounds additional were loaned by Morris and his mother. Each +piece of work contributed by any member of the firm was paid for at the +time, and Morris as general manager received a salary of a hundred and +fifty pounds a year. + +[Illustration: PEACOCK DESIGN FOR COARSE WOOL HANGINGS] + +It is obvious that with this slender financial basis the business required +the utmost energy, industry, skill, and talent to keep it from being +promptly wrecked on the very uncertain coast of public opinion. During +the first year all the members of the firm were active, although even at +the first Morris led the rest. A stimulus was provided by the +International Exhibition of 1862, whither they sent examples of their +work, at the cost, wrote Faulkner, of "more tribulation and swearing to +Topsy than three exhibitions will be worth." The exhibits attracted +attention, and were awarded medals, in the case of the stained glass, "for +artistic qualities of colour and design," and in the case of the +furniture, hangings, and so forth, for the "closeness with which the style +of the Middle Ages was rendered." It happened that the chief work in +stained glass in the exhibit of the firm consisted of a set of windows +designed by Rossetti, and giving, according to a Belgian critic, "an +impression of colour, dazzling and magnificent, velvety and harmonious, +resembling the Flemish stained glass windows decorating the Gothic +cathedrals." Thus, fortunately, the first appearance of the firm was +distinguished by the splendour which Rossetti alone among the group of +workers could achieve, but his interest and activity shortly flagged and +were absorbed in his individual work outside the company. + +At first, despite the lordly prospectus, there were occasional blunders. +Dr. Birkbeck Hill tells of a study table and an arm-chair, neither one of +which was so thorough a piece of workmanship as the firm would have turned +out later on, and Mr. Hughes remembers a sofa with a long bar beneath +projecting six inches at each end so that it tripped up anyone who +hastily went round it. These, however, were blunders of a kind soon +remedied by experience. So long as the associates kept up their enthusiasm +there were among them ample skill to grapple with technicalities, and +ample artistic faculty to defy all ordinary competition. Whoever dropped +behind from time to time in this most essential quality of enthusiasm it +was never Morris, and all accounts agree in attributing to his energy and +industry and unutterable zest the success of the novel and interesting +experiment. "He is the only man I have known," said Rossetti once, "who +beats every other man at his own game." The men he had to beat at this +game of decoration were for the most part unworthy foes. Decorative art +was at a low ebb in the early Victorian age, the age of antimacassars, +stucco, and veneer. From this cheap vulgarity and pretentiousness Morris +turned back--as he was wont to do on every occasion that offered +excuse--to the thirteenth century as the purest fount of English +tradition, where, if anywhere, could be found models showing logical +principles of construction and genuine workmanship. His companions either +caught from him the infection of the mediaeval attitude or were already in +sympathy with it, and the work of the firm took on an emphatically Gothic +aspect from the beginning. How great or how important a part each member +played in the sum of the production is very difficult to estimate owing to +the cooeperative plan by which several artists frequently united in +executing one and the same piece of work. Sometimes Burne-Jones would +draw the figures, Webb the birds, and Morris the foliage for a piece of +drapery or wall-paper. Again portions of separate designs would be used +over and over in different combinations for different places. This free +cooeperation, this moving about within the limits of a general plan, suited +the restless spirit of Morris, and chimed also with his profound +admiration for the way in which the mediaeval works of art were brought +about, no one man standing high above the others or trying to preserve his +name and the fame of his performance. Working for the pleasure of the work +was of the very essence of his philosophy, and nothing could be more +unjust than the sneers from time to time launched at him because his +venture proved a commercial triumph. Perhaps it would be going too far to +say that money-getting was never in his mind, but there is no question +that it was never first in his mind, and never in the slightest degree +crowded his desire to put forth sincere, fine work, worth its price to the +last detail, and worthy of praise and liking without regard to its price. +There was not the slightest suggestion of pose or sham of any kind in his +thought when he wrote, as he often did, against the greed of gain and in +praise of the kind of labour that may be delighted in without regard to +pounds and pence. He could say quite faithfully that he shared the +humility of the early craftsmen, of whom he speaks with reverence. + +"In most sober earnest," he says in one of his lectures, "when we hear it +said, as it often is said, that extra money payment is necessary under all +circumstances to produce great works of art, and that men of special +talent will not use those talents without being bribed by mere gross +material advantages, we, I say, shall know what to reply. We can appeal to +the witness of those lovely works still left to us, whose unknown, unnamed +creators were content to give them to the world, with little more extra +wages than what their pleasure in their work and their sense of usefulness +in it might bestow on them." There is no room for doubt that he approached +his work in precisely the spirit here described by him. He was willing to +exercise his faculties on the humblest undertakings, with no other aim +than to make a common thing pleasant to look upon and agreeable to use. +Half a century ago "craft" was not the fashionable word for the kind of +work with which the firm chiefly concerned itself, and in doing the +greater part of what he did Morris was merely writing himself down, in the +language of the general public, an artisan. Conforming to the truest of +principles he raised his work by getting under it. Nothing was too +laborious or too lowly for him. Pride of position was unknown to him in +any sense that would prevent him from indulging in manual labour. His real +pride lay in making something which he considered beautiful take the place +of something ugly in the world. If it were a fabric to be made lovely with +long disused or unfamiliar dyes, his hands were in the vat. If tapestry +were to be woven, he was at the loom by dawn. In his workman's blouse, +steeped in indigo, and with his hair outstanding wildly, he was in the +habit of presenting himself cheerfully at the houses of his friends, +relying upon his native dignity to save appearances, or, to speak more +truly, not thinking of appearances at all, but entirely happy in his role +of workman, though frankly desirous that the business should prosper +beyond all danger of the "smash" that would, he owned, "be a terrible +nuisance." "I have not time on my hands," he said, "to be ruined and get +really poor." It was to the peculiar union of the ideal and the practical +in his nature that his success in the fields on which he ventured is due. + +[Illustration: PAINTED WALL DECORATION DESIGNED BY MORRIS] + +It must be admitted, however, that while his soul and vigour found vent in +his designing and in the journeyman work--"delightful work, hard for the +body and easy for the mind"--at which he was so ready to lend a hand, his +artistic product lacked somewhat in the qualities that come from the +exercise of the higher intellectual gifts. It was more than an attempt to +revive old Gothic forms; it was an adoption of old forms with an infusion +of modern spirit; but it missed the native and personal character of work +growing out of contemporaneous conditions and tastes. Imaginative +craftsman as he was, Morris was never quite an artist in the strict sense +of the word. He had a fine sense of colour and, within certain limits, a +right feeling for pattern; but his invention was too exuberant for +repose, and he displayed in the greater part of his work an ornamental +luxuriance that destroyed dignity and simplicity of effect. He did not +like the restraints of art, and he seems to have been incapable of +entering the sphere of abstract thought in which the principles governing +great art are found. "No schools of art," he says with his superbly +inaccurate generalisation, "have ever been contented to use abstract lines +and forms and colours--that is, lines and so forth without any meaning." +Such ornament he deemed "outlandish." He wanted his patterns, especially +his wall-paper patterns, to remind people of pleasant scenes: "of the +close vine trellis that keeps out the sun by the Nile side; or of the wild +woods and their streams with the dogs panting beside them; or of the +swallows sweeping above the garden boughs toward the house eaves where +their nestlings are, while the sun breaks the clouds on them; or of the +many-flowered summer meadows of Picardy,"--all very charming things to +think about, but as really pertinent to wall-paper designing as the +pleasant memory of a hard road with a fast horse speeding over it would be +to the designing of a carpet. He preached the closest observation of +nature and the most delicate understanding of it before attempting +conventionalisation, but he did not hesitate to break all the laws of +nature in his designs when he happened to want to do so. He did not +hesitate, as Mr. Day has said, to make an acorn grow from two stalks or to +give a lily five petals. Fitness in ornament was one of his fundamental +principles, and he made his designs for the place in which they were to be +seen and with direct reference to the limitations of opportunities of that +place. It was never his way to turn a wall-paper loose on the market for +any chance purchaser. He must know, if possible, something of the walls to +which the design was to be applied and of the room in which it was to +live, and he then adapted his design to his idea of what was required. +This idea, however, was commonly much influenced by certain pre-conceived +theories. He believed, for example, that there should be a sense of +mystery in every pattern designed. This mystery he tried to get, not by +masking the geometrical structure upon which a recurring pattern must be +based, but by covering the ground equably and richly, so that the observer +may not "be able to read the whole thing at once." Thus many of his +designs are so over-elaborated as to give the effect of restlessness, +whereas "rest" was the word oftenest on his lips in connection with +domestic art. In common with most designers who derive their ideals from +mediaeval sources, he was less impressed by the tranquillity gained from +calm clean spaces, the measure, order, and stateliness brought about by +the simple relation of abstract lines, the repose of the rhythmical play +of mass in perfect proportion, undisturbed by decorative detail, than by +the charm of highly vitalised imagery. But though he erred on the side of +luxuriance--while preaching simplicity--he never allowed his design to +sink into vulgarity or petty picturesqueness. He might be intricate but he +was not vague. "Run any risk of failure rather than involve yourself in a +tangle of poor weak lines that people can't make out," he says. "Definite +form bounded by firm outline is a necessity for all ornament. You ought +always to go for positive patterns when they may be had." They might +always be had from him. And it is due to his positive quality, his +uncompromising certainty of the rightness of the thing that he is doing, +that even when he is most imitative he gives an impression of originality, +and is in fact original in the sense that he has thought out for himself +the methods and motives of the ancient art by which he is consciously and +intentionally influenced. + +[Illustration: PAINTED WALL DECORATION DESIGNED BY MORRIS] + +Finish, it need hardly be said, was not prized by him. It was one of his +assumptions that "the better is the enemy of the good," and he preferred +the roughness of incompleteness to the suavity of perfect workmanship. He +dreaded the suggestion of the machine that lurks in the polished surface +and the perfect curve. Nor did he at any time believe in the subdivision +of labour by which a workman learns to do one thing with the utmost +efficiency, holding that no workman could enjoy such specialised work, and +therefore, of course, could not through it give pleasure to others. The +following is the creed which, according to his "compact with himself," +he made it a duty to repeat when he and his fellow-men came together to +discuss art: + +"We ought to get to understand the value of intelligent work, the work of +men's hands guided by their brains, and to take that, though it be rough, +rather than the unintelligent work of machines or slaves though it be +delicate; to refuse altogether to use machine-made work unless where the +nature of the thing compels it, or where the machine does what mere human +suffering would otherwise have to do; to have a high standard of +excellence in wares and not to accept make-shifts for the real thing, but +rather to go without--to have no ornament merely for fashion's sake, but +only because we really think it beautiful, otherwise to go without it; not +to live in an ugly and squalid place (such as London) for the sake of mere +excitement or the like, but only because our duties bind us to it--to +treat the natural beauty of the earth as a holy thing not to be rashly +dealt with for any consideration; to treat with the utmost care whatever +of architecture and the like is left us of the times of art." + +[Illustration: DESIGN FOR ST. JAMES'S PALACE WALL-PAPER + +(_Reproduced by courtesy of Mr. Bulkley_)] + +Wall-papers were among the earliest staple products of the firm in Red +Lion Square, although Morris always regarded them in the light of a +compromise; an altogether unsatisfactory substitute for the hand-painting, +or tapestry or silk or printed cotton hangings, which he considered the +proper covering for the bare walls which, of course, no one not in "an +unhealthy state of mind and probably of body also" could endure to leave +bare. The first to be designed, the _Trellis_ paper, was the combined work +of Morris and Webb, the former being responsible for the rose-trellis +intended, we may suppose, to bring with it pleasant recollections of +gardens in June and inspired by his own sweet garden at Upton, the latter +for the birds that cling to the lattice or dart upward among the heavily +thorned stems. In the early papers the designs were very simple and +direct, often more quaint than beautiful, as in the case of the well-known +_Daisy_ paper, and depending greatly on the colouring for the +attractiveness they possessed. Later came such intricate patterns as the +_Pimpernel_, the _Acanthus_, so elaborate as to require a double set of +blocks and no less than thirty-two printings, and the paper designed for +St. James's Palace, as large and magnificent as the environment in which +it was to be placed demanded. It is quite obvious from these designs that +Morris did not regard his wall-hangings as backgrounds but as decorations +in themselves. As a matter of fact he did not fancy pictures for his +walls. After his early burst of enthusiasm over Rossetti's paintings he +bought few pictures if any, and they do not seem ever to have entered into +his schemes of decoration. The wall of a room was always important to him, +and despite his discontent with paper coverings for it, he was anxious to +have such coverings as ornamental as possible, admitting them to be useful +"as things go," and treating them in considerable detail in his lectures +on the decorative arts. He advised making up for the poverty of the +material by great thoughtfulness in the design: "The more and the more +mysteriously you interweave your sprays and stems, the better for your +purpose, as the whole thing has to be pasted flat upon a wall and the cost +of all this intricacy will but come out of your own brain and hand." +Concerning colour he was equally specific. In his lecture +characteristically called _Making the Best of It_, in which with an accent +of discouragement he endeavours to show his audience how at the time of +his speaking to make a middle-class home "endurable," he lays down certain +rules which indicate at one and the same time his mastery of his subject +and the incommunicability of right taste in this direction, although many +of his ideas may be pondered to great advantage by even the mind untrained +in colour schemes. He begins with his usual preliminary statement as to +the health of those who disagree with him. "Though we may each have our +special preferences," he says, "among the main colours, which we shall do +quite right to indulge, it is a sign of disease in an artist to have a +prejudice against any particular colour, though such prejudices are common +and violent enough among people imperfectly educated in art, or with +naturally dull perceptions of it. Still colours have their ways in +decoration, so to say, both positively in themselves, and relatively to +each man's way of using them. So I may be excused for setting down some +things I seem to have noticed about these ways." After thus establishing +friendly relations with his audience, he instructs them that yellow is a +colour to be used sparingly and in connection with "gleaming materials" +such as silk; that red to be at its finest must be deep and full and +between crimson and scarlet; that purple no one in his senses would think +of using bright and in masses, and that the best shade of it tends toward +russet; green, he continues, must seldom be used both bright and strong. +"On the other hand," he adds, "do not fall into the trap of a dingy, +bilious-looking yellow-green, a colour to which I have a special and +personal hatred, because (if you will excuse my mentioning personal +matters) I have been supposed to have somewhat brought it into vogue." +Dingy colours were abhorred by him in all cases, and his patience with +those customers who demanded them was extremely limited. Blue was his +"holiday colour," and "if you duly guard against getting it cold if it +tend toward red, or rank if it tends toward green," you "need not be much +afraid of its brightness." + +[Illustration: EARLY DESIGN FOR MORRIS WALL-PAPER "DAISY AND COLUMBINE"] + +[Illustration: CHRYSANTHEMUM DESIGN FOR WALL-PAPER] + +From his hatred of mechanical methods grew his preferences among the +lesser arts. He once complained that he never could see any scene "with a +frame as it were around it," and the less necessity there was for bounding +and limiting his design the happier he was in making it. Embroidery he +loved, for here the worker had an almost absolutely free hand. There was +no "excuse" in embroidery for anything short of striking beauty. "It is +not worth doing," he said, "unless it is either very copious and rich, +or very delicate--or both. For such an art nothing patchy or scrappy, or +half-starved should be done." Tapestry-weaving stood next in freedom of +method, and this was not only a favourite art with him, but one which he +carried to an extraordinary degree of perfection, he and Burne-Jones +combining their designs to produce results coming nearer to the old Arras +effects than to the work of modern weavers. In tapestry-weaving Morris +used the _haute lisse_ or "high loom," the weaver holding apart with his +left hand the threads of the warp which stands upright before him as with +his right hand he works his bobbins in and out, seeing the picture he is +making in a mirror placed on the other side of the loom. The interest of +Morris in the weaving craft is said to have been first awakened by the +sight of a man in the street selling toy models of weaving machines, one +of which he promptly bought for experimental purposes. It was many years +before he could find a full-sized loom of the kind he wanted, which had +become obsolete or nearly so, and which was the only style of loom he +would consider using as it was most like the looms on which the splendid +fabrics of mediaeval times had been woven. By such difficulties he was +rarely baffled. In the case of his tapestries the method he proposed to +revive had died out in Cromwell's time and there was no working model +which could be used as a guide. But there was an old French official +handbook that came in his way, from which he was able to pick up the +details of the craft and this sufficed. His personal familiarity with his +process is apparent in his various discussions of it. He speaks with the +authority of a workman whose hand has held the tool. This practical and +positive knowledge saved him from the sentimentalism into which his +theories might otherwise have led him. He designed his patterns fully +aware of the way in which they were going to behave in the process of +application. When in 1882 he was called upon to give evidence before the +Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the subject of technical +instruction, he urged the necessity of this working-knowledge on the part +of every designer. "I think it essential," he said, "that a designer +should learn the practical way of carrying out the work for which he +designs; he ought to be able to weave himself." In all his talk about art +he tried to tell people how to do only the things he himself had done, in +which he differed widely and wholesomely from his master Ruskin whose +teachings were so often on his lips. The activity of his hand was a needed +and to a great extent an effective check upon the activity of his +sentiment. But--like Ruskin here--he found it hard to stay long away from +the moral or emotional significance of the art he was discussing. The art +that speaks to the mind he did not completely understand. The art that +speaks to the senses he abundantly explained. The amazingly ingenious +point of view from which he defends his preoccupation with what he has +named "the lesser arts" is displayed in the following passage, beginning +with the almost inevitable formula: + +"A healthy and sane person being asked with what kind of art he would +clothe his walls, might well answer, 'with the best art,' and so end the +question. Yet out on it! So complex is human life, that even this +seemingly most reasonable answer may turn out to be little better than an +evasion. For I suppose the best art to be the pictured representation of +men's imaginings: what they have thought has happened to the world before +their time, or what they deem they have seen with the eyes of the body or +the soul; and the imaginings thus represented are always beautiful indeed, +but oftenest stirring to men's passions and aspirations and not seldom +sorrowful or even terrible. + +"Stories that tell of men's aspirations for more than material life can +give them, their struggle for the future welfare of the race, their +unselfish love, their unrequited service; things like this are the +subjects for the best art; in such subjects there is hope surely, yet the +aspect of them is likely to be sorrowful enough: defeat, the seed of +victory, and death, the seed of life, will be shown on the face of most of +them. + +"Take note, too, that in the best art all these solemn and awful things +are expressed clearly and without any vagueness, with such life and power +that they impress the beholder so deeply that he is brought face to face +with the very scenes, and lives among them for a time: so raising his life +above the daily tangle of small things that wearies him to the level of +the heroism which they represent. This is the best art, and who can deny +that it is good for us all that it should be at hand to stir the emotions; +yet its very greatness makes it a thing to be handled carefully, for we +cannot always be having our emotions deeply stirred: that wearies us body +and soul; and man, an animal that longs for rest like other animals, +defends himself against that weariness by hardening his heart and refusing +to be moved every hour of the day by tragic emotions,--nay, even by beauty +that claims his attention overmuch. Such callousness is bad, both for the +arts and our own selves, and therefore it is not so good to have the best +art forever under our eyes, though it is abundantly good that we should be +able to get at it from time to time. + +"Meantime, I cannot allow that it is good for any hour of the day to be +wholly stripped of life and beauty, therefore we must provide ourselves +with lesser (I will not say worse) art with which to surround our common +work-a-day or restful times; and for those times I think it will be enough +for us to clothe our daily and domestic walls with ornament that reminds +us of the outward face of the earth, of the innocent love of animals, or +man passing his days between work and rest as he does. I say with ornament +that reminds us of these things and sets our minds and memories at work +easily creating them; because scientific representation of them would +again involve us in the problems of hard fact and the troubles of life, +and so once more destroy our rest for us." + +[Illustration: ANEMONE PATTERN FOR SILK AND WOOL CURTAIN MATERIAL] + +Was ever a craftsman of the ancient guilds so at pains to make clear the +propriety and usefulness of his wood-carving or enamelling or niello! Like +the early workman, however, he moved with marvellous facility from one +branch of his art to another. From wall-papers it was but a step to cotton +prints which in a way were the playthings of a mind at leisure. They might +be as gay as one chose to make them, and "could not well go wrong so long +as they avoided commonplace and kept somewhat on the daylight side of +nightmare." From the weaving of hangings to the weaving of carpets was a +step as easily taken, and when the impulse seized him to carry on the +great but dying art of Persia in this direction, Morris so effectively +applied himself to mastering the conditions under which the beautiful +Eastern carpets were brought to their perfection as to produce at least +one example--that called _The Buller's Wood Carpet_--that fairly competes +with the splendour of its prototypes. Stained glass for a time baffled +him. "His was not the temperament," says one of his critics, "patiently to +study the chemistry of glass colour; or to prove by long experiment the +dependence to be placed upon a flux." Although many windows were made by +the firm, the larger number of them designed by Burne-Jones, Morris being +responsible for the colour, he never seemed to forget that he had come +near to being worsted in his fight with the technical difficulties of this +most difficult art, and economised his enthusiasm for it accordingly. +Hand-painted tiles, however, which he was the first to introduce into +England, were favourites with him, and in them he perpetuated some of his +attempts at drawing the human figure. Furniture, though an important +feature of the work undertaken by the firm, did not appeal to him, and he +left it to his associates. His experiments in vegetable dyes produced +interesting results, although here also his technical knowledge was not +entirely adequate to his task. In connection with his textile work he +early felt the imperative necessity of having finer colours than the +market offered. To get them as he wanted them he was obliged to go back as +far as Pliny, but this was a small matter to one whose mind was always +ready to provide him with an Aladdin's carpet. Back to Pliny he went to +learn old methods, and in addition he called to his aid ancient herbals +and French books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, finally +setting up his own vats and becks and very literally plunging in. At first +he complained of "looking such a beast," but his enthusiasm soon overcame +this rather remarkable display of concern for his personal appearance, and +he wrote most joyously of working in sabots and blouse in the dye-house +"pretty much all day long." Out of his vats came the blue of his +indigo, the red of his madder, the yellow of weld or Persian berry, the +rich brown of walnut juice, making beautiful combinations, which, when +they faded, changed into paler tints of the same colour and were not +unpleasant to look upon. The aniline dyes, which in 1860 were the latest +wonder of science, and in a very crude stage of their development, called +out his most picturesque invective. Each colour was hideous in itself, +crude, livid, cheap, and loathed by every person of taste, the "foul blot +of the capitalist dyer." In brief, the invention supposed to be for the +benefit of an art "the very existence of which depends upon its producing +beauty" was "on the road; and very far advanced on it, towards destroying +all beauty in the art." The only thing to do was to turn one's back on the +chemical dyes, relegate them to a museum of scientific curiosities, and go +back "if not to the days of the Pharaohs yet at least to those of +Tintoret." It was highly characteristic of him that he chose the remedy of +"going back" in place of progressing with the new material as far as +possible. + +[Illustration: PORTION OF HAMMERSMITH CARPET] + +His work with silks and with wools was naturally greatly enriched by his +use of his own full, soft and brilliant colours, and his personal +attention to the art of dyeing counted for so much that one of his most +accomplished pupils in embroidery is quoted by Mr. Mackail as saying that +she promptly felt the difference when Morris ceased to dye with his own +hands, that the colours became more monotonous and prosy and the very +lustre of the silk was less beautiful. It is, however, difficult to +impress yourself upon the public precisely as you are, whatever vigour +your personality may have. Morris, with his intense love of bright full +hues, has come down as the promoter of the so-called "aesthetic" dulness of +colour, and his name has been especially associated with the peacock blue +and the "sage-green" to which he had an especial aversion. It was one of +his doctrines that a room should be kept cheerful in tone, and how happily +he could carry out this doctrine is seen in more than one of the rooms +decorated by the firm. A visitor to Stanmore Hall, for example, has noted +the delicate tones of the painted ceilings as looking like embroidery on +old white silk, giving a bright yet light and aerial effect, and forming +with the woodwork of untouched oak an impression of delightful gayety. + +That Morris made himself a master of so many crafts and grappled even so +successfully as he did with the technical difficulties involved would be +somewhat remarkable had he attempted none of the other undertakings in +which he gained for himself a name to be remembered. His eagerness to +express his ideals in a practical form led him on indefinitely. To the +very last a new world to conquer roused his spirit and made him tingle to +be off. For a man with the trace of the plodder in him such a career would +have been an impossible one, but Morris went blithely from craft to craft +by a series of leaps and bounds. He stayed with each just long enough to +understand its working principles and to make himself efficient to teach +others its peculiar virtues and demands, and he then passed on. "Each +separate enterprise on which he entered," says one of his biographers, +"seems for a time to have moved him to extraordinary energy. He thought it +out, installed it, set it going, designed for it, trained men and women in +the work to be done, and then by degrees, as the work began to run +smoothly and could be trusted to go on without him, his interest became +less active: a new idea generated in his mind, or an old one burst into +bud, and his energies burst out afresh in some new doing." As time went on +he had less and less practically to do with the firm of which he was the +head and of which he continued to the end to be the consulting adviser. He +gathered about him cooeperators who not only were sympathetic with his +methods but absorbed his style. His distinction as a designer was neither +so great nor so personal that it could not to a considerable degree be +communicated, and this accounts for the enduring quality of his influence +which has been handed down to us through others without too much +subtracted from it, with many of the characteristics most to be cherished +still present. Greater decorators have existed, indeed, but it may be +questioned if anyone has been quite so inspiriting; has had the matter +quite so much at heart. He persuaded the multitude from the intensity of +his own conviction, and he persuaded them on the whole toward good things +and toward beauty. He made other men's ideas his own but he adopted them +body and soul. He followed his own fashion, inveighing with vigour and +frequently with logic against nearly all the fashions of his time. It is +not surprising that he himself became the great fashion of the nineteenth +century in matters of decoration. And this certainly was what he wanted, +in the sense of wanting everyone in England to see as he did the +possibilities of household art and to share in furthering them by turning +their backs upon the sham art with which the commercial world was largely +occupied. But he made no effort toward gaining the patronage of those +unwilling to admit that what he disliked was intolerable. His was never a +conciliatory policy. The following passage from his lecture on _The Lesser +Arts_ reveals his attitude in his own phrasing: + +"People say to me often enough: If you want to make your art succeed and +flourish, you must make it the fashion: a phrase which I confess annoys +me: for they mean by it that I should spend one day over my work to two +days in trying to convince rich, and supposed influential people, that +they care very much for what they really do not care in the least, so that +it may happen according to the proverb: _Bell-wether took the leap and we +all went over_; well, such advisers are right if they are content with the +thing lasting but a little while: say till you can make a little money, if +you don't get pinched by the door shutting too quickly: otherwise they are +wrong: the people they are thinking of have too many strings to their +bow, and can turn their backs too easily on a thing that fails, for it to +be safe work trusting to their whims: it is not their fault, they cannot +help it, but they have no chance of spending time enough over the arts to +know anything practical of them, and they must of necessity be in the +hands of those who spend their time in pushing fashion this way and that +for their own advantage. + +[Illustration: SOFA DESIGNED BY THE MORRIS CO. + +(_Reproduced by courtesy of Mr. Bulkley_)] + +[Illustration: SECRETARY DESIGNED BY THE MORRIS CO. + +(_Reproduced by courtesy of Mr. Bulkley_)] + +"Sirs, there is no help to be got out of these latter, or those who let +themselves be led by them: the only real help for the decorative arts must +come from those who work in them: nor must they be led, they must lead. + +"You whose hands make those things that should be works of art, you must +all be artists, and good artists too, before the public at large can take +real interest in such things; and when you have become so, I promise you +that you shall lead the fashion; fashion shall follow your hands +obediently enough." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +FROM THE RED HOUSE TO KELMSCOTT. + + +While Morris was developing the industries of the firm with essential +steadiness, despite the rapid transitions from one pursuit to another, he +was going through a variety of personal experiences, some of which +involved his disappointment in deeply cherished plans. For one thing, and +this perhaps the most grievous, he was obliged to give up the Red House +upon which so much joyous labour had been spent. Several causes +contributed to the unhappy necessity, chief among them an attack of +rheumatic fever that made him sensitive to the bleak winds which the +exposed situation of the building invited. The distance between London and +Upton became also a serious matter after his illness, as he found it +almost impossible to make the daily journeys required by his attention to +the business. Several compromises were thought of, the most enticing being +the removal of the works from Red Lion Square to Upton, and the addition +of a wing to the Red House for Burne-Jones and his family; but in the end +the beautiful house was sold, Morris, after leaving it, never again +setting eyes upon it. + +[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION BY BURNE-JONES FOR PROJECTED EDITION OF "THE +EARTHLY PARADISE," CUT ON WOOD BY MORRIS HIMSELF] + +The first move was to Queen Square, London, where Morris and the business +became house-mates in the autumn of 1865, remaining together there, with +more or less interruption, for seven years. Queen Square is in Bloomsbury, +not far from the British Museum, and a part of the ugly London +middle-class region for which Morris had so little liking, but as a place +to carry on the rapidly increasing work of the firm it possessed great +advantages. The number of the house was 26, and adjacent buildings and +grounds were used for the workshops. At this time Mr. George Warrington +Taylor was made business manager for the company, and Morris gained by his +accession much valuable time, not only for designing and experimenting, +but for the literary work that again began to claim his attention. He was +still, however, a familiar figure in "the shop," acting as salesman, +showman, designer, or manual labourer. His aspect as he strode along the +streets of the dull neighbourhood must have been refreshing. Those who +knew him have repeatedly described him as the image of a sea-captain in +general appearance. He wore habitually a suit of navy-blue serge cut in +nautical fashion, and his manner was bluff and hearty as that of the +proverbial seaman. Mr. Mackail gives a breezy picture of him in his +workman's blouse, hatless, with his ruddy complexion and rocking walk, +bound for the Faulkners' house where once upon a time a new maid took him +for the butcher. To have seen him in these days was to have seen one of +his own ideal workmen out of _News from Nowhere_. As a master of men he +seems to have been singularly successful, despite the temper which led him +at times to commit acts of positive violence. His splendid zest for work +must have been stimulating and to a degree contagious. Merely to be in the +company of one who thought hearty manual labour so interesting and so +pleasant and so heartily to be desired by everyone, must have had its +vivifying effect. He was stating the simple truth when he said that he +should die of despair and weariness if his daily work were taken from him +unless he could at once make something else his daily work, and he is +constantly drawing persuasive pictures of the charm of the various +handicrafts--that of weaving for example, his description of which would +invite the most discontented mind. He does not call the weaver's craft a +dull one: "If he be set to doing things which are worth doing--to watch +the web growing day by day almost magically, in anticipation of the time +when it is to be taken out and one can see it on the right side in all its +well-schemed beauty--to make something beautiful that will last out of a +few threads of silk and wool, seems to me not an unpleasant way of earning +one's livelihood, so long only as one lives and works in a pleasant place, +with work-day not too long, and a book or two to be got at." His own +weavers were some of them boys trained in the shop from a condition of +absolute ignorance of drawing and of the craft to such an efficiency as +enabled them to weave the Stanmore tapestry, one panel of which took two +years to the making, and which was of the utmost elaboration and +magnificence of design. The exigencies of the business presently made it +necessary to devote the whole of the premises in Queen Square to the work +going on there, and the Morris family removed in 1872 to a small house +between Hammersmith and Turnham Green, near Chiswick Lane, Morris +retaining a couple of rooms in the Queen Square house for his use when +busy there. Even the extended quarters soon proved insufficient, however, +and in 1877 rooms were taken in Oxford Street for showing and selling the +work of the firm, the manufacturing departments being still ensconced in +Queen Square. In 1881 these also were transferred to more suitable +premises. The dyeing and cotton-printing demanded workshops by the side of +some stream of clear water "fit to dye with," and after much search Morris +found an ideal situation on the banks of the little Wandle River, near +Wimbledon. There were the ruins of Merton Abbey where the Barons once gave +their famous answer "Nolumus leges Angliae mutari," and there manufactures +had been carried on for centuries. In the long low-roofed worksheds on the +river's bank his workmen could move about in ample space, practising +ancient methods of dyeing, printing, and weaving, seven miles from Charing +Cross. It is anything but a typical manufactory that has been depicted by +visitors to the Merton Abbey works. We read of an old walled garden gay +with old-fashioned flowers and shrubs, of the swift little Wandle River +rushing along between the buildings, its trout leaping under the windows, +a water-wheel revolving at ease, hanks of yarn, fresh from the vats, +drying in the pure air, calico lying "clearing" on the meadow grass in an +enclosure made by young poplar trees, a sunlit picture of peaceful work +carried on by unharried workers among surroundings of fresh and wholesome +charm. Women and men were both employed, some of them old and not all of +them competent, but none of them overworked or underpaid. Though Morris +had somewhat scant courtesy of manner toward those who worked for and with +him, he had at least the undeviating desire to promote their welfare. If +he expected work of his work-people, as certainly he did, he expected it +only under the most healthful and agreeable conditions. Judging others by +himself, he could not conceive anyone as happy in idleness, but neither +did he expect anyone to be happy without leisure. In his own business he +proved what the nineteenth century found hard to believe, that honest, +thorough, and artistic workmanship, accomplished under reasonable +exactions by people enjoying their occupation, could be combined with +commercial prosperity. That the products of such labour could not be +bought by the poorer classes was due, he argued, to a social order wrong +at the root. The time when art could be made "by the people and for the +people, as a happiness to the maker and the user," was a far-off dream. + +[Illustration: _Kelmscott Manor House_] + +Shortly before Morris abandoned Queen Square as a place of residence, he +discovered for himself a "heaven on earth," in which he could spend his +vacations from town, and free himself from the contamination of London +streets. This was Kelmscott Manor House, which he rented--at first jointly +with Rossetti--in 1871, and in which he took infinite satisfaction for the +remainder of his life. The beautiful old place was in its way as +characteristic of him and of his tastes as the Red House had been, and has +become intimately associated with him in the minds of all who knew him +during his later years, his passion for places investing those for which +he cared with a sentiment not to be ignored or slighted in making up the +sum of his interests. For a couple of years Rossetti was an inmate of +Kelmscott Manor, and through his letters many vivid glimpses of it are +obtained. The village of Kelmscott was at the time no more than a hamlet +containing a hundred and seventeen people, and situated two and a half +miles from the nearest town, Lechlade, to whose churchyard Shelley lent +distinction by writing a poem there. The nearest station-town was +Farringdon, so far off that the carrier who brought railway parcels to the +occupants of the Manor charged six shillings and sixpence for each trip. +"Thus," writes Rossetti, who was chronically short of money, "a good deal +of inconvenience tempers the attractions of the place." Nothing, however, +unless the presence of Rossetti, who was "unromantically discontented" +there, tempered them for Morris. In an article for _The Quest_ for +November, 1895, he describes the house in the most minute detail, +accentuating its charms with a touch of comment for each that falls like a +caress. The roofs are covered with the beautiful stone slates of the +district, "the most lovely covering which a roof can have." The +"battering" or leaning back of the walls is by no means a defect but a +beauty, "taking from the building a rigidity which otherwise would mar +it," and the stout studded partitions of the entrance passage are "very +agreeable to anyone who does not want cabinet work to supplant carpentry." +To the building of it all must have gone, he thinks, "some thin thread of +tradition, a half-anxious sense of the delight of meadow and acre and wood +and river, a certain amount (not too much, let us hope) of common-sense, a +liking for making materials serve one's turn, and perhaps at bottom some +little grain of sentiment." And from Rossetti we hear of the primitive +Kelmscott church "looking just as one fancies chapels in the _Mort +d'Arthur_," of clouds of starlings sinking in the copses "clamourous like +mill-waters at wild play," of "mustering rooks innumerable," of a +"delicious" garden and meadows leading to the river brink, of apple +blossoms and marigolds and arrow-heads and white lilies "divinely +lovely," of an island by the boat-house rich in wild periwinkles, and of +many another exquisite aspect of a place whose unvexed quietness was +nevertheless powerless to soothe the turmoil of that tormented soul. + +[Illustration: _Kelmscott Manor House_] + +To realise fully how Morris himself felt toward it, one must turn to his +description in _News from Nowhere_. There he is supposed to see it through +the kindly mist of time, returning to it from a regenerate and beautified +world, and his problem is to write of it with the penetrating eloquence +and melancholy associated with remembered happiness. It is supremely +characteristic of him that he could perfectly strike this note while still +living in hale activity upon the spot he is to praise with the tenderness +of reminiscence. The great virtue of his temperament lay in this peculiar +intensity of realisation. He needed neither loss nor change to spur his +sensibility and awaken his recognition of the worth or special quality of +what he loved. Vital as few men are, he seems, nevertheless, always to +have dwelt in sight of death and to have grasped life as though the next +moment he was to be torn from it. The burden of the song which Ogier the +Dane hears on a fair May morning: + + Kiss me love! for who knoweth + What thing cometh after death? + +so often quoted in evidence of his fainting and dejected spirit, embodies +indeed the sentiment of his attitude toward the pleasures and +satisfactions to be drawn from the visible and perishable world, but does +not hint at the energy with which he seized those pleasures, the +sturdiness with which he filled himself with those satisfactions. When +_News from Nowhere_ was written, Morris had lived the better part of +twenty years in close relation with the Kelmscott house, but custom had +not staled for him its infinite variety. This is what he writes of it and +of its surroundings in his romance of _An Epoch of Rest_: He and his +companions have approached it by way of the river. + +"Presently we saw before us a bank of elm trees, which told us of a house +amidst them. In a few minutes we had passed through a deep eddying pool +into the sharp stream that ran from the ford, and beached our craft on a +tiny strand of limestone gravel, and stepped ashore. + +"Mounting on the cart-road that ran along the river some feet above the +water, I looked round about me. The river came down through a wide meadow +on my left, which was grey now with the ripened seeding grasses; the +gleaming water was lost presently by a turn of the bank, but over the +meadow I could see the gables of a building where I knew the lock must be. +A low wooded ridge bounded the river-plain to the south and south-east, +whence we had come, and a few low houses lay about its feet and up its +slope. I turned a little to my right and through the hawthorn sprays and +long shoots of the wild roses could see the flat country spreading out +far away under the sun of the calm evening, till something that might be +called hills with a look of sheep pastures about them bounded it with a +soft blue line. Before one, the elm boughs still hid most of what houses +there might be in this river-side dwelling of men; but to the right of the +cart-road a few grey buildings of the simplest kind showed here and there. + +"I had a mind to say that I did not know the way thither, and that the +river-side dwellers should lead: but almost without my will my feet moved +on along the road they knew. The raised way led us into a little field +bounded by a backwater of the river on one side: on the right hand we +could see a cluster of small houses and barns and a wall partly overgrown +with ivy, over which a few grey gables showed. The village road ended in +the shallow of the aforesaid backwater. We crossed the road, and again +almost without my will my hand raised the latch of a door in the wall, and +we stood presently on a stone path which led up to the old house to which +fate in the shape of Dick had so strangely brought me in this world of +men. My companion gave a sigh of pleased surprise and enjoyment, nor did I +wonder, for the garden between the wall and the house was redolent of the +June flowers, and the roses were rolling over one another with that +delicious superabundance of small well-tended gardens which at first sight +takes away all thought from the beholder save that of beauty. The +blackbirds were singing their loudest, the doves were cooing on the +roof-ridge, the rooks in the high elm trees beyond were garrulous among +the young leaves, and the swifts wheeled, whining, about the gables. And +the house itself was a fit guardian for all the beauty of this heart of +summer. + +"Once again Ellen echoed my thoughts as she said: 'Yes, friend, this is +what I came out to see; this many-gabled old house built by the simple +country-folk of the long-past times, regardless of all the turmoil that +was going on in cities and courts, is lovely still amidst all the beauty +which these latter days have created; and I do not wonder at our friends +'tending it so carefully and making much of it. It seems to me as if it +had waited for these happy days, and held in it the gathered crumbs of +happiness of the confused and turbulent past.' + +"She led me up close to the house and laid her shapely sun-browned hand +and arm upon the lichened wall as if to embrace it, and cried out: 'O me! +O me! How I love the earth and the seasons and weather, and all the things +that deal with it and all that grows out of it,--as this has done!' + +"We went in and found no soul in any room as we wandered from room to +room--from the rose-covered porch to the strange and quaint garrets +amongst the great timbers of the roof, where of old time the tillers and +herdsmen of the manor slept, but which a-nights seemed now, by the small +size of the beds, and the litter of useless and disregarded +matters--bunches of dying flowers, feathers of birds, shells of +starling's eggs, caddis worms in mugs and the like,--seemed to be +inhabited for the time by children. + +"Everywhere there was but little furniture, and that only the most +necessary, and of the simplest forms. The extravagant love of ornament +which I had noted in this people elsewhere, seemed here to have given +place to the feeling that the house itself and its associations was the +ornament of the country life amidst which it had been left stranded from +old times, and that to reornament it would but take away its use as a +piece of natural beauty. + +"We sat down at last in a room over the wall which Ellen had caressed, and +which was still hung with old tapestry, originally of no artistic value, +but now faded into pleasant grey tones which harmonised thoroughly well +with the quiet of the place, and which would have been ill supplanted by +brighter and more striking decoration. + +"I asked a few questions of Ellen as we sat there, but scarcely listened +to her answers, and presently became silent, and then scarce conscious of +anything but that I was there in that old room, the doves crooning from +the roofs of the barn and dovecot beyond the window opposite." + + * * * * * + +In 1878 Morris took a London house on the Upper Mall, Hammersmith, which +he occupied alternately with Kelmscott Manor. This place, which Mr. +Mackail describes as "ugly without being mean," was also on the banks of +the river, and Morris gained much satisfaction from the thought that the +water flowing by it had come in its due course past the beloved Kelmscott +garden. A somewhat inconvenient touch of sentiment caused him to give his +Hammersmith home the name of "Kelmscott House" in compliment to the home +actually situated at Kelmscott, the latter being distinguished by the +title of "Manor," a title that seems to belong to it by courtesy alone. + +From the great fondness felt by Morris for these places on which he +lavished his art until they spoke more eloquently than his words of the +aims and theories so dear to him, the domesticity of his life would +naturally be inferred. Nor was he an eager traveller judged by modern +standards. Nevertheless, he managed to find time for some extended trips +just as he found time for everything that came in his way with an appeal +to his liking. The most important of these was a voyage to Iceland, made +in company with Faulkner and two other friends during the summer of 1871, +just after the acquisition of Kelmscott Manor, in which he left Rossetti. +His mind was ripe for the experience. He had already published +translations from the Icelandic sagas made in collaboration with Mr. +Magnusson, and his interest in the bracing Northern literature was +reaching its height. Long years after, Rossetti said of him, "There goes +the last of the Vikings!" and his mood in visiting Iceland was not unlike +that of a modernised Viking returning to his home. Thoughts of the +country's great past were constantly with him. The boiling geysers, the +conventional attraction for tourists who "never heard the names of Sigurd +and Brunhild, of Njal, or Gunnar, or Grettir, or Gisli, or Gudrun," were a +source of irritation to him. His pilgrimages to the homes of the ancient +traditions were the episodes of his journey worth thinking about, and +about them he thought much and vigorously, seeing in imagination the +figures of the old heroes going about summer and winter, attending to +their haymaking and fishing and live stock, eating almost the same food +and living on the same ground as the less imposing Norsemen of the +present. "Lord!" he writes, "what littleness and helplessness has taken +the place of the old passion and violence that had place here once--and +all is unforgotten; so that one has no power to pass it by unnoticed." His +two months spent among the scenes of the greater sagas left him with an +intense impression of a land stern and terrible, of toothed rocks and +black slopes and desolate green, a land that intensified his melancholy by +its suggestion of short-lived glory and early death, and intensified also +his enjoyment of life by the sense of adventure, the rugged riding, and +the fresh keen air. One of the important events of the trip was the +exploration of the great cave at Surts-hellir, and twenty years after, +many of its incidents were embodied in the book called _The Story of the +Glittering Plain_, wherein Hallblithe and the three Seekers make their +way through the stony tangle of the wilderness seeing "nought save the wan +rocks under the sun." + +Two years later he made a still more adventurous journey across the arid +tableland occupying the central portion of Iceland and across the northern +mountains to the sea. It was highly characteristic of him that for the +time he yielded himself utterly to the influence of the strange and awful +land upon his imagination, and that for years afterward his writing was +flooded by the impressions that continually swept back upon his mind as he +reverted to these experiences. Mr. Mackail gives an amusing instance of +the way in which the interest uppermost with him became an obsession +leading to the most childlike extravagances. During a holiday tour in +Belgium he came to a place where neither French nor English was spoken. He +therefore "made a desperate effort at making himself understood by +haranguing the amazed inn-keeper in Icelandic." His first visit to Italy, +made between the first and second visits to Iceland, took faint hold upon +him, nor was the second Italian journey, made some years later, and marked +by a troublesome attack of gout, notably successful. He was a man of the +North as surely as Rossetti was a man of the South, and it would have been +a renaissance indeed that could have turned him into a Florentine or a +Venetian. + +[Illustration: DESIGN BY ROSSETTI FOR WINDOW EXECUTED BY MORRIS & CO. +(_THE PARABLE OF THE VINEYARD_)] + +[Illustration: DESIGN BY ROSSETTI FOR STAINED-GLASS WINDOW EXECUTED BY THE +MORRIS CO. (_THE PARABLE OF THE VINEYARD_)] + +During this middle period of his life, at the height of his great +activity, an event occurred involving the element of tragedy, if the +breaking of friendships be accounted tragic. In 1875 the firm was +dissolved. Following Mr. Mackail's account of the circumstances that led +to the dissolution, we find that the business had become one in which +Morris supplied practically all the capital, invention, and control. It +was also the chief source of his income. On the other hand, his partners +might find themselves at any time seriously involved in the liabilities of +a business which was rapidly extending. Hence the desirability of the +dissolution and reconstitution of the firm. But in connection with this +step an embarrassing situation arose. Under the original instrument, each +partner had equal rights in the assets of the firm. After the first year +or two the profits had never been divided, and the six partners of Morris, +for the hundred and twenty pounds by which they were represented in the +contributed capital at the beginning, had now claims on the business for +some seven or eight thousand pounds. If these claims were insisted upon, +Morris would be placed in a position of considerable financial difficulty. +Burne-Jones, Webb, and Faulkner refused to accept any consideration. "The +other three," says Mr. Mackail, "stood on the strict letter of their legal +rights." Naturally the relations between Morris and the latter became +grievously strained, and with Rossetti the break was absolute and +irremediable. In passing out of Morris's life, as he then did, he +certainly left it more serene, but with him went also the vivifying +influence of his genius. In considering the very unfortunate part played +by him in the conflict among the members of the firm, it is fair to give a +certain weight to details emphasised in Mr. William Rossetti's account as +modifying--to a slight degree, it is true, but still modifying--the sordid +aspect of Rossetti's action. Madox Brown, who was one of the partners +wishing not to forego their legal rights, was getting on in years and was +a comparatively poor man. He had always counted on the firm "as an +important eventual accession to his professional earnings." No one +familiar with Rossetti's character can doubt that a desire to stand by his +old friend and teacher in such a matter would have a strong influence with +him. To his brother's mind, his attitude was throughout "one of +conciliation," with the wish "to adjust contending claims had that but +been possible." "He himself," says Mr. William Rossetti, "retired from the +firm without desiring any compensation for his own benefit. A sum was, +however, assigned to him. He laid it apart for the eventual advantage of a +member of the Morris family, but, ere his death, circumstances had induced +him to trench upon it not a little." It is easy to imagine circumstances +trenching upon any sum of money under Rossetti's direct control, and in +the absence of any testimony the reader acquainted with his prodigal +disposition may very well be pardoned for doubting whether any member of +the Morris family became appreciably the richer for his impulse. +Nevertheless, it is a reasonable conclusion that he was not actuated by a +sordid motive in opposing the essentially just claim made by Morris, but +was to his own mind acting in accordance with the demands of a friendship +older and closer than that between him and Morris. It must be noted, +however, that a reconciliation was effected in the course of time between +Morris and Madox Brown, while in Rossetti's case the wound never healed. +The outcome of the negotiations was that Madox Brown was bought out, +"receiving a handsome sum," says Mr. William Rossetti, and the business +went on under the sole management and proprietorship of Morris. + +In addition to the annoyance and real trouble of mind caused Morris by +these transactions, he had the further anxiety at about this time of a +breakdown of a serious and permanent nature in the health of his eldest +daughter. This he took deeply to heart, losing spirits to a marked degree, +but nothing human had power to stay his fertile brain and busy hand. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +POETRY. + + +Intent as he was upon the artistic success of his work in decoration, and +ardent in giving time and thought to achieving this success, Morris was +far from excluding poetry from the sum of his occupations. The five years +following his marriage (1859-1864), indeed, were barren of any important +literary work. He had planned, somewhat anticipating the large scale of +his later verse, a cycle of twelve poems on the Trojan War, but he +completed only six of the twelve, and the project was presently abandoned. +After the Red House was sold, however, and he was back in London with the +time on his hands saved from the daily journey, he began at once to make +poetry of a form entirely different from anything he had previously +written. The little sheaf of poems contained in his early volume had been +put together by the hand of a boy. The poem published in June, 1867, under +the title _The Life and Death of Jason_, was the work of a man in full +possession of his faculty. It was simple, certain, musical, and +predestined to speedy popularity, even Tennyson, with whom Morris was +not a favourite, liking the Jason. It flowed with sustained if monotonous +sweetness through seventeen books in rhymed pentameter, occasionally +broken by octosyllabic songs. Although published as a separate poem, on +account of the length to which it ran, apparently almost in despite of its +author's will, it had been intended to form part of the series called _The +Earthly Paradise_, the first division of which followed it in 1868. This +ambitious work was suggested by Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_, and consists +of no fewer than twenty-four long narrative poems, set in a framework of +delicate descriptive verse containing passages that are the very flower of +Morris's poetic charm. The scheme of the arrangement is interesting. A +little band of Greeks, "the seed of the Ionian race," are found living +upon a nameless island in a distant sea. Hither at the end of the +fourteenth century--the time of Chaucer--come certain wanderers of +Germanic, Norse, and Celtic blood who have set out on a voyage in search +of a land that is free from death, driven from their homes by the +pestilence sweeping over them. Hospitably received, the wanderers spend +their time upon the island entertaining their hosts with the legends +current in their day throughout Western Europe, and in turn are +entertained with the Hellenic legends which have followed the line of +living Greek tradition and are told by the fourteenth-century islanders in +the mediaeval form and manner proper to them at that time. Among the +wanderers are a Breton and a Suabian, and the sources from which the +stories are drawn have a wide range. They were at first, indeed, intended +to represent the whole stock of the world's legends, but this field was +too vast for even the great facility of Morris, and much was set aside. At +the end we find _The Lovers of Gudrun_, taken from the Laxdaela Saga of +Iceland, and bearing witness in the grimness of its tragedy and the +fierceness of its Northern spirit to the powerful influence of the +Icelandic literature upon the mind of Morris. It is the only story in the +collection which has dominated his dreamy mediaevalism and struck fire from +his pen. + +[Illustration: _Morris's Bed, with Hangings designed by himself and +embroidered by his Daughter_] + +In _The Earthly Paradise_ we have all the qualities that make its author +dear to most of his readers. The mind is steeped in the beauty of imagery, +and content to have emotion and thought lulled by the long, melancholy +swing of lines that seem like the echo of great poetry without its living +voice. Such poetry is what Morris wished his decorations to be--the +"lesser art" that brings repose from the quickening of soul with which a +masterpiece is greeted. The spirit revealed through the fluent murmur of +the melodious words is very true to him and lies at the root of all his +efforts toward making life fair to the eyes and soothing to the heart. The +"unimpassioned grief," the plaintive longing with which he regarded the +fleeting and unsatisfying aspects of a world so beautiful and so +sorrowful, never found more exquisite expression than in passage after +passage of this pellucid and lovely verse. The flight from death and the +seeking after eternal life on this material globe constitute a theme that +had for him a singular fitness. No one could have rendered with more +sensitive appreciation the mood of men who set their life at an unmeasured +price. No one could have expressed the dread of dying with more poetic +sympathy. The preludes to the stories told on the island are poems +addressed to the months of the changing year, and not one is free from the +grievous suggestion of loss or the weary burden of fear and dejection. +Read without the intervening narratives, they wrap the mind in an +atmosphere of foreboding. There is no welcome unaccompanied by the shadow +of farewell. There is no leaping of the heart to meet sunshine and fair +weather without its corresponding faintness of shrinking from the clouds +and darkness certain to follow. With a brave determination to seize +exultation on the wing, he cries to March: + + Yea, welcome March! and though I die ere June, + Yet for the hope of life I give thee praise, + Striving to swell the burden of the tune + That even now I hear thy brown birds raise, + Unmindful of the past or coming days; + Who sing: "O joy! a new year is begun: + What happiness to look upon the sun!" + +But what follows? The sure reminder of the silence that shall come after +the singing: + + Ah, what begetteth all this storm of bliss + But Death himself, who crying solemnly, + E'en from the heart of sweet Forgetfulness, + Bids us "Rejoice, lest pleasureless ye die. + Within a little time must ye go by. + Stretch forth your open hands, and while ye live + Take all the gifts that Death and Life may give." + +And in the stanzas for October, written, Mr. Mackail tells us, in memory +of a happy autumn holiday, we have the most poignant note of which he was +capable: + + Come down, O Love; may not our hands still meet, + Since still we live to-day, forgetting June, + Forgetting May, deeming October sweet-- + --O hearken, hearken! through the afternoon, + The grey tower sings a strange old tinkling tune! + Sweet, sweet, and sad, the toiling year's last breath, + Too satiate of life to strive with death. + + And we too--will it not be soft and kind, + That rest from life, from patience and from pain; + That rest from bliss we know not when we find; + That rest from Love which ne'er the end can gain?-- + Hark, how the tune swells, that erewhile did wane? + Look up, Love!--ah, cling close and never move! + How can I have enough of life and love? + +June, the high tide of the year, he selects as the fitting month in which +to tell of something sad: + + Sad, because though a glorious end it tells, + Yet on the end of glorious life it dwells. + +In February he asks: + + Shalt thou not hope for joy new born again, + Since no grief ever born can ever die + Through changeless change of seasons passing by? + +[Illustration: _Kelmscott Manor House from the Orchard_] + +Thus across the charming images of French romance, Hellenic legend, and +Norse drama, falls the suggestion of his own personality, and it is due to +this pervading personal mood or sentiment that _The Earthly Paradise_ has +a power to stir the imagination almost wholly lacking to his later work. +It cannot be said that even here he is able to awaken a strong emotion. +But the human element is felt. A warm intelligence of sympathy creeps in +among dreams and shadows, the reader is aware of a living presence near +him and responds to the appeal of human weakness and depression. It is +because Morris in the languid cadences of _The Earthly Paradise_ spoke +with his own voice and took his readers into the confidence of his +hopeless thoughts, that the book will remain for the multitude the chief +among his works, the only one that portrays for us in its most +characteristic form the inmost quality of his temperament. Nor does he +seem to have had for any other book of his making quite the intimate +affection he so frankly bestowed upon this. The final stanzas in which the +well-known message is sent to "my Master, Geoffrey Chaucer," confide the +autobiographic vein in which it was written. Says the Book of its maker: + + I have beheld him tremble oft enough + At things he could not choose but trust to me, + Although he knew the world was wise and rough: + And never did he fail to let me see + His love,--his folly and faithlessness, maybe; + And still in turn I gave him voice to pray + Such prayers as cling about an empty day. + + Thou, keen-eyed, reading me, mayst read him through, + For surely little is there left behind; + No power great deeds unnameable to do; + No knowledge for which words he may not find; + No love of things as vague as autumn wind-- + Earth of the earth lies hidden by my clay, + The idle singer of an empty day. + +Written at great speed, one day being marked by a product of seven hundred +lines, the last of _The Earthly Paradise_ was in the hands of the printers +by the end of 1870, and Morris was free for his Icelandic journey and new +interests. + +[Illustration: _Portrait of Edward Burne-Jones_ + +_By Watts_] + +He was no sooner home from Iceland than he set to work upon a curious +literary experiment--a dramatic poem of very complicated construction, +called _Love is Enough, or the Freeing of Pharamond: A Morality_, the +intricate metrical design of which is interestingly explained by Mr. +Mackail. Rossetti and Coventry Patmore both spoke in terms of enthusiasm +of its unusual beauty. The story is that of a king, Pharamond, who has +been gallant on the field and wise on the throne, but is haunted by +visions of an ideal love sapping his energy and driving peace from his +heart. He deserts his people, and with his henchman, Oliver, wanders +through the world until he encounters Azalais, a low-born maiden, who +satisfies his dream. He returns to find that his people have become +estranged from him and he abdicates at once, to retire into obscurity with +his love. There has been an obvious struggle on the part of the poet +to obtain a strong emotional effect, and certain passages have indeed the +"passionate lyric quality" ascribed to them by Rossetti; but as a drama it +hardly carries conviction. The songs written to be sung between the scenes +have nevertheless much of the haunting beauty soon to be lost from his +work, and of these the following is a felicitous example: + + Love is enough: it grew up without heeding + In the days when ye knew not its name nor its measure, + And its leaflets untrodden by the light feet of pleasure + Had no boast of the blossom, no sign of the seeding, + As the morning and evening passed over its treasure. + + And what do ye say then?--that Spring long departed + Has brought forth no child to the softness and showers; + That we slept and we dreamed through the Summer of flowers; + We dreamed of the Winter, and waking dead-hearted + Found Winter upon us and waste of dull hours. + + Nay, Spring was o'er happy and knew not the reason, + And Summer dreamed sadly, for she thought all was ended + In her fulness of wealth that might not be amended, + But this is the harvest and the garnering season, + And the leaf and the blossom in the ripe fruit are blended. + + It sprang without sowing, it grew without heeding, + Ye knew not its name and ye knew not its measure, + Ye noted it not 'mid your hope and your pleasure; + There was pain in its blossom, despair in its seeding, + But daylong your bosom now nurseth its treasure. + +Although Morris planned a beautifully decorated edition of the poem which +was highly valued by him, its failure to impress itself upon the public +was no great grief to him, and he put it cheerfully out of mind to devote +himself to translation and to Icelandic literature. + +The surprising task to which he first turned was a verse translation of +Virgil's _AEneid_, in which he attempted to give the closest possible +rendering of the Latin and to emphasise the romantic side of Virgil's +genius. He followed with an almost word-for-word accuracy the lines and +periods of the original using, and he threw over the poem a glamour of +romance, but Mr. Mackail says truly that he had taken his life in his +hands in essaying a classic subject with his inadequate training and +unclassic taste. The same authority, who on this subject, certainly, is +not to be disputed by the lay reader, considers the result a success from +Morris's own point of view, declaring that he "vindicated the claim of the +romantic school to a joint ownership with the classicists in the poem +which is not only the crowning achievement of classical Latin, but the +fountain-head of romanticism in European literature." The opposing critics +are fairly represented by Mr. Andrew Lang, who, in this case as in many +another, is an ideal intermediary between scholar and general reader. + +"There is no more literal verse-translation of any classic poem in +English," he says, "but Mr. Morris's manner and method appear to me to be +mistaken. Virgil's great charm is his perfection of style and the +exquisite harmony of his numbers. These are not represented by the +singularly rude measures and archaistic language of Mr. Morris. Like Mr. +Morris, Virgil was a learned antiquarian, and perhaps very accomplished +scholars may detect traces of voluntary archaism in his language and +style. But these, if they exist, certainly do not thrust themselves on the +notice of most readers of the _AEneid_. Mr. Morris's phrases would almost +seem uncouth in a rendering of Ennius. For example, take + + 'manet alta mente repostum + Judicium Paridis, spretaeque injuria formae.' + +This is rendered in a prose version by a fine and versatile scholar, 'deep +in her soul lies stored the judgment of Paris, the insult of her slighted +beauty.' Mr. Morris translates: + + 'her inmost heart still sorely did enfold + That grief of body set at naught by Paris' doomful deed.' + +Can anything be much less Virgilian? Is it even intelligible without the +Latin? What modern poet would naturally speak of 'grief of body set at +naught,' or call the judgment of Paris 'Paris' doomful deed'? Then 'manet +alta mente repostum' is strangely rendered by 'her inmost heart still +sorely did enfold.' This is an example of the translation at its worst, +but defects of the sort illustrated are so common as to leave an +impression of wilful ruggedness, and even obscurity, than which what can +be less like Virgil? Where Virgil describes the death of Troilus, 'et +versa pulvis inscribitus hasta' ('and his reversed spear scores the +dust'), Mr. Morris has 'his wrested spear a-writing in the dust,' and +Troilus has just been 'a-fleeing weaponless.' Our doomful deed, is that to +be a-translating thus is to write with wrested pen, and to give a +rendering of Virgil as unsatisfactory as it is technically literal. In +short, Mr. Morris's _AEneid_ seems on a par with Mr. Browning's +_Agamemnon_. But this," Mr. Lang is careful to add, "is a purely personal +verdict: better scholars and better critics have expressed a far higher +opinion of Mr. Morris's translation of Virgil." + +Mr. Lang's whimsical despair over the affectations of language which +abound in the translation of the _AEneid_ with less pertinence than in many +other writings of Morris where also they abound, recalls the remonstrance +that Stevenson could not resist writing out in the form of a letter +although it was never sent on its mission. Acknowledging his debt to +Morris for many "unforgettable poems," the younger writer and more +accomplished student of language protests against the indiscriminate use +of the word _whereas_ in the translations from the sagas. "For surely, +Master," he says, "that tongue that we write, and that you have +illustrated so nobly, is yet alive. She has her rights and laws, and is +our mother, our queen, and our instrument. Now in that living tongue, +_where_ has one sense, _whereas_ another." + +The translation of the _AEneid_ was published under the title of _The +AEneids_, in the autumn of 1875. Morris had written a good part of it in +the course of his trips back and forth on the Underground Railway, using +for these first drafts a stiff-covered copybook, which was his constant +companion. In the summer of the same year he had brought out a volume of +the translations from the Icelandic which he was making in collaboration +with Mr. Magnusson, calling it _Three Northern Love-Stories and Other +Tales_. He had still, he declared "but few converts to Saga-ism," and he +regarded his translating from the Icelandic as a pure luxury, adopting it +for a Sunday amusement. During the winter of 1875-76, however, he was +embarked on a cognate enterprise of the utmost importance to him, although +he thought, and with truth, that his public would be indifferent to it. +This was the epic poem which he called _The Story of Sigurd the Volsung_, +based on the Volsunga Saga, the story of the great Northern heroes told +and re-told from generation to generation, polished and perfected until +the final form, in which it preserves the traditions of the people who +cherish it, is the noblest attained in the Icelandic legends. Morris had +published a prose translation of the saga in 1870, and the following +passage from his preface shows how deeply his emotions were stirred by his +subject: + +"As to the literary quality of this work we might say much," he writes, +"but we think we may well trust the reader of poetic insight to break +through whatever entanglement of strange manners or unused element may at +first trouble him, and to meet the nature and beauty with which it is +filled: we cannot doubt that such a reader will be intensely touched by +finding amidst all its wildness and remoteness such startling realism, +such subtlety, such close sympathy with all the passions that may move +himself to-day. In conclusion, we must again say how strange it seems to +us, that this Volsung Tale, which is in fact an unversified poem, should +never before have been translated into English. For this is the Great +Story of the North, which should be to all our race what the tale of Troy +was to the Greeks--to all our race first, and afterwards, when the change +of the world has made our race nothing more than a name of what has +been--a story too--then should it be to those that come after us no less +than the Tale of Troy has been to us." + +In the course of the following six years, during which he was constantly +increasing his intimacy with the literature of the North, an impulse not +unlike that which tempted Tennyson toward the _Idylls of the King_ led him +to try the winning of a wider audience for the tale of great deeds and +elemental passions by which he himself had been so much inspired. In the +prose translation he had given the Volsunga Saga to the public as it had +been created for an earlier public of more savage tastes and fiercer +tendencies. Now he proposed to divest it of some of the childish and ugly +details that formed a stumbling block to the modern reader (though +plausible and interesting enough to those for whom they were invented), +and to add to the "unversified poem" rhyme and metre, emphasising the +essential points and such characteristics of the actors as most appealed +to him. A comparison of the saga with the poem will show that in his +effort to preserve the heroic character of the antique conception by +accentuating everything pleasing, leaving out much of the rudeness and +cruelty, and adorning it with copious descriptive passages, he robs the +story of a great part of the wild life stirring in its ancient forms, and +more or less confuses and involves it. The modern poem really requires for +its right understanding a mind more instructed in its subject than the +prose translation of the old saga, and readers to whom the latter is +unfamiliar may find a plain outline of the story not superfluous. + +In the translation, the origin of the noble Volsung race, of which Sigurd +is the flower and crown, is traced to Sigi, called the son of Odin, and +sent out from his father's land for killing a thrall. He is fortunate in +war, marries a noble wife, and rules over the land of the Huns. His son is +named Rerir. Volsung is the son of Rerir, and thus the great-grandson of +Odin himself. He marries the daughter of a giant, and the ten sons and one +daughter of this union are strong in sinew and huge in size, the Volsung +race having the fame of being "great men and high-minded and far above the +most of men both in cunning and in prowess and all things high and +mighty." Volsung becomes in his turn king over Hunland, and builds for +himself a noble Hall in the centre of which grows an oak-tree whose limbs +"blossom fair out over the roof of the hall," and the trunk of which is +called Branstock. + +The poem opens with the description of a wedding-feast held in this Hall +for Signy, King Volsung's daughter, who has been sought in marriage by +Siggeir, King of the Goths, a smaller and meaner race than the Volsungs. +Signy is not content with her fate, but her father has deemed the match to +be a wise one, and, eminent in filial obedience as in all things else, she +yields. From this point for some distance saga and poem march together +save for certain minor changes intended to increase Signy's charm. During +the feasting a one-eyed stranger enters the Hall and thrusts his sword up +to its hilt into the tree-trunk, saying that who should draw the sword +from the trunk should have it for his own and find it the best he had ever +borne in his hand. This, of course, is Odin. Siggeir tries to draw the +sword, and after him his nobles, and then the sons of King Volsung, but +none succeeds until Sigmund, the twin of Signy, draws it lightly forth as +an easy task. Siggeir is wroth and offers to buy the sword for thrice its +weight in gold, but Sigmund will not part with it, and Siggeir sets sail +for home in dudgeon, though concealing his feelings from the Volsungs and +inviting them cordially to visit him in Gothland. Signy reads the future, +and implores her father to undo the marriage and let Siggeir depart +without her. (In the poem Morris has her offer herself as a sacrifice if +her father will but remain in his kingdom and decline Siggeir's +invitation.) King Volsung, however, insists on keeping his troth, and +Signy and Siggeir depart, followed in due time by King Volsung and his +sons and nobles in response to Siggeir's request. What Signy prophesied +comes to pass and King Volsung falls at the hands of the Goths while his +ten sons are taken captive. Now Signy prays her husband that her brothers +be put for a time in the stocks, since home to her mind comes "the saw +that says _Sweet to eye while seen_." Siggeir is delighted to consent +though he deems her "mad and witless" to wish longer suffering for her +brothers. Here the poem departs from the original in that Morris puts the +idea of the stocks into the mind of Siggeir in answer to Signy's +suggestion that her brothers be spared for a little time. Sigmund and the +rest of the brothers are taken to the wildwood, and a beam is placed on +their feet, and night by night for nine nights a she-wolf comes to devour +one of them. (In the poem Morris hastens matters somewhat by having two +wolves appear each night to despatch the brothers two at a time.) Each +morning Signy sends a messenger to the wildwood who brings back the woeful +news. Finally she thinks of a ruse, and on the tenth night the messenger +is sent to smear the face of Sigmund, now the sole remaining brother, with +honey, putting some also into his mouth. When the wolf comes she licks his +face, and then puts her tongue into his mouth to get the last delicious +drop. Sigmund promptly closes his teeth upon her tongue and in the +struggle that ensues Sigmund's bonds are burst and the wolf escapes, +leaving her tongue between his teeth. This incident was probably not +sufficiently heroic to please Morris, and in the poem no mention is made +of Signy's clever device, Sigmund gaining his freedom in a more dignified +fashion and the details being slurred over lightly, with a vague and +general allusion to snapping "with greedy teeth." Sigmund dwells in the +wildwood in hiding, and Signy sends to him in turn her two sons by King +Siggeir, that he may test their fitness to help avenge the fate of her +family. Here again Morris mitigates the stern temper of Signy for a more +womanly type. In the saga when Signy finds that the boys are not stout +enough of heart to accomplish her purpose she bids Sigmund kill them at +once: "Why should such as they live longer?" In the poem, however, when +Signy sends her son to Sigmund he is delivered with the diplomatic message +that if his heart avail not he may "wend the ways of his fate," and when +it is found that his heart does not avail, he is returned in safety to his +mother, Sigmund awaiting the slow coming of the competent one. + +[Illustration: _William Morris_ + +_From painting by Watts_] + +The story of the birth of Sinfjotli, in whose veins runs unmixed the blood +of the Volsungs, is given a certain dignity not accorded it in Wagner's +familiar version of the legend as Mr. Buxton Forman, Morris's most devoted +critic, has pointed out, but true to the account in the original saga. The +saga is followed, also, in the burning of Siggeir's Hall by Sigmund +and Sinfjotli, but the Signy who kisses her brother in "soft and sweet" +farewell certainly fails to recall to the mind the vengeful creature of +the original. Sigmund returns to the Hall of the Volsungs with Sinfjotli, +and marries Borghild. Presently Sinfjotli sails abroad with the brother of +Queen Borghild, Gudrod by name, and kills him for reason--as given in the +translation--of their rivalry in loving "an exceeding fair woman." In the +poem, however, Morris records a shabby trick played upon Sinfjotli by +Gudrod in the dividing of their spoils of battle, making this the cause of +the duel in which Gudrod was killed. Sinfjotli returns to his home with +the news of Gudrod's death, and Borghild in revenge poisons him. Sigmund +then sends her away and takes for his wife fair Hiordis, meeting his death +at the hand of Odin himself, who appears to him in battle and shatters the +sword he had drawn in his youth from the Volsung Branstock. As he lies +dying he tells Hiordis that she must take good care of their child, who is +to carry on the Volsung tradition, and must guard well the shards of +Odin's sword for him. Then comes the carrying away of Hiordis by a +sea-king to his kingdom in Denmark, and here ends, rightly speaking, the +epic of Sigmund's career, which, as Mr. Mackail has said, is a separate +story neither subordinate to nor coherent with the later epic of Sigurd, +but which Morris could not forbear uniting to it. Sigurd the Volsung, the +golden-haired, the shining one, the symbol of the sun, is born of Hiordis +in the home of King Elf, and fostered by Regin, an aged man and "deft in +every cunning save the dealings of the sword." When Sigurd has grown to be +a boy of high mind and stout heart, Regin urges him to ask of King Elf a +horse. This he does, and is sent to choose one for himself. He chooses the +best horse in the world and names him, Greyfell in the poem, Grani in the +prose. Regin now presses him to attack Fafnir the "ling-worm," or dragon, +who guards a vast hoard of treasure in the desert. According to the saga, +Sigurd is not ashamed to own to a slight hesitation in attacking a +creature of whose size and malignity he has heard much, but in the poem he +is ready for the deed, merely hinting that "the wary foot is the surest +and the hasty oft turns back." Thereupon follows the tale of the treasure +told by Regin with great directness in the prose, and with much +circumlocution in the poem. + +When Sigurd learns that Fafnir is the brother of Regin, and is keeping him +out of his share of treasure belonging to them both, on which, however, a +curse is laid, he pities Regin, and promises that if he will make him a +sword worthy of the deed he will kill Fafnir for him. This Regin attempts +to do and fails until Sigurd brings him the shards of Odin's mighty sword, +his inheritance from his father Sigmund. With a sword forged from the +shards and named by him "the Wrath," Sigurd sets out on Greyfell, +accompanied by Regin, to attack the dragon. The description in the poem of +the ride across the desert is rich in the fruits of Morris's own +experience, and reflects very closely his impressions of the mournful +place of "short-lived eagerness and glory." Sigurd and Regin ride to the +westward. + + ... and huge were the mountains grown + And the floor of heaven was mingled with that tossing world of stone; + And they rode till the moon was forgotten and the sun was waxen low, + And they tarried not though he perished, and the world grew dark below. + Then they rode a mighty desert, a glimmering place and wide, + And into a narrow pass high-walled on either side + By the blackness of the mountains, and barred aback and in face + By the empty night of the shadow; a windless silent place: + But the white moon shone o'erhead mid the small sharp stars and pale, + And each as a man alone they rode on the highway of bale. + + So ever they wended upward, and the midnight hour was o'er, + And the stars grew pale and paler, and failed from the heaven's floor, + And the moon was a long while dead, but where was the promise of day? + No change came over the darkness, no streak of the dawning grey; + No sound of the wind's uprising adown the night there ran: + It was blind as the Gaping Gulf ere the first of the worlds began. + +The fight with the dragon, the roasting of the dragon's heart, the tasting +of the blood by Sigurd, and his instant knowledge of the hearts of men and +beasts and of the speech of birds, follow with close adherence of poem to +saga, the most marked divergence being the substitution of eagles for the +woodpeckers who sing to Sigurd of his future. Through his new +accomplishment Sigurd is able to read Regin's heart, and sees therein a +traitorous intent, therefore he kills Regin, loads Greyfell with the +treasure, and rides to the mountain where Brynhild, the warrior maiden +struck with slumber by Odin in punishment for disobedience to him, is +lying in her armour guarded by flames. Sigurd wins through the fire, and +awakens her, and they hold loving converse together on the mountain, +Brynhild teaching him wisdom in runes and in the saga, bringing him beer +in a beaker, "the drink of love," although in the poem this hospitable +ceremony is omitted. After a time they part, plighting troth, and later, +when they meet at the home of Brynhild in Lymdale, they again exchange +vows of faith. + +Then Sigurd rides to a realm south of the Rhine, where dwell the Niblung +brothers with their sister Gudrun and their fierce-hearted mother, +Grimhild, who brews for Sigurd a philter that makes him forget the vows he +exchanged with Brynhild and become enamoured of Gudrun. Completely under +the power of the charm, he weds the latter and undertakes to woo and win +Brynhild for her brother Gunnar. This he does by assuming Gunnar's +semblance, and riding once more through the fire that guards Brynhild, +reminding her of her oath to marry whomever should perform this feat, and +returning to his own form after gaining her promise for Gunnar. This ruse +is made known to Brynhild (after she has wedded Gunnar) by Gudrun, who is +not averse to marring the peace of the greatest of women, and Brynhild +makes the air ring with her wailing over the woeful fact that Gudrun has +the braver man for her husband. In the saga she is a very outspoken lady +and in a wild temper, and even in the poem her grief fails in noble and +dignified expression. At her instigation Sigurd is killed by Gunnar and +his brethren. The vengeance brings no happiness, however, and Brynhild +pierces her breast with a sword that she and Sigurd may lie on one funeral +pyre! Lovers of Wagner opera will remember that the story as there told +ends with this climax, but Morris carries it on to Gudrun's marriage with +King Atli, Brynhild's brother, and to the struggle between him and the +Niblungs for the fatal treasure, which results in the murder of the +Niblungs (Gudrun's brothers) and the irrevocable loss of the treasure. +Although Gudrun has approved Atli's deed, she finds she can no longer +abide with him after it has been accomplished, and accordingly sets fire +to his house and throws herself into the sea. Morris omits the grewsome +incident of the supper prepared for Atli by Gudrun from the roasted hearts +of their children whom she had killed, and also leaves out the subsequent +account of the bringing ashore of Gudrun and the wedding and slaying of +Swanhild, her daughter by Sigurd. + +To the poetic and symbolic elements of this strange old saga, Morris has +been abundantly sensitive. The curse attending the desire for gold, which +is the pointed moral of the saga, is brought out, not dramatically, but +by allusions and suggestions, not always apparent at a casual reading. The +conception of Sigurd as the sun-god destroying the powers of darkness and +illuminating a shadowy world is constantly hinted at, as when he threatens +Regin with the light he sheds on good and ill, and when Regin, looking +toward him as he sits on Greyfell, sees that the light of his presence +blazes as the glory of the sun. The heroism of Sigurd, his role as the +ideal lover and warrior and spiritual saviour of his race, is perhaps +over-emphasised. As King Arthur certainly lost in interest by Tennyson's +re-creation of him, so Sigurd is more lovely and fair and golden and +glorious in the poem than in the saga, and considerably less human and +attractive withal. In fact, none of the characters in the poem--all so +intensely alive to Morris himself--lives in quite a like degree for his +readers. His power to probe beneath externals and rouse emotions of +spiritual force was curiously limited. There are indications in his +biography that his business with crafts and "word-spinning," as he called +it, served him as a kind of armour, protecting him from the wounds of +feelings too poignant to handle freely, too deadly to invite. We read of +his agony of apprehension, for example, when in Iceland he did not hear +from his home for a considerable period. "Why does not one drop down or +faint or do something of that sort when it comes to the uttermost in such +matters!" he exclaims. But in his writing it is mainly the surface of the +earth and the surface of the mind with which he deals. It is in the nature +of his genius, says one of his most accomplished critics, to dispense with +those deeper thoughts of life which for Chaucer and for Shakespeare were +"the very air breathed by the persons living in their verse." +Nevertheless, his service to English literature, in translating the +Northern sagas as none but a poet could have translated them, was very +great, and his _Story of Sigurd_ is in many respects a splendid +performance. In writing it he endeavoured to infuse into his style the +energy and passion of the literature from which he drew his material, and +to brace it with the sturdy fibre of the Icelandic tongue. His efforts to +de-Latinise his sentences had already lent his translations a vigour +lacking in his earlier work. He had captured something of the Northern +freshness corresponding very truly to his external aspect if not to the +workings of his brain. The chief defect from which his story of Sigurd +suffers lies in the extreme garrulity of the narrative. A single passage, +set by the side of the translation, will suffice to show the manner in +which a direct statement is smothered and amplified until the reader's +brain is dull with repetition, and the episode or description is extended +to three or four times its original length. Thus in the saga we are told +that after Sigurd had eaten of the dragon's heart "he leapt on his horse +and rode along the trail of the worm Fafnir, and so right unto his +abiding-place; and he found it open, and beheld all the doors and the +gear of them that they were wrought of iron; yea, and all the beams of the +house; and it was dug down deep into the earth: there found Sigurd gold +exceeding plenteous, and the sword Rotti; and thence he took the Helm of +Awe, and the Gold Byrny, and many things fair and good. So much gold he +found there, that he thought verily that scarce might two horses, or three +belike, bear it thence. So he took all the gold and laid it in two great +chests, and set them on the horse Grani, and took the reins of him, but +nowise will he stir, neither will he abide smiting. Then Sigurd knows the +mind of the horse, and leaps on the back of him, and smites spurs into +him, and off the horse goes even as if he were unladen." + +From this comparatively unvarnished tale Morris evolves the following: + + Now Sigurd eats of the heart that once in the Dwarf-king lay, + The hoard of the wisdom begrudged, the might of the earlier day. + Then wise of heart was he waxen, but longing in him grew + To sow the seed he had gotten, and till the field he knew. + So he leapeth aback of Greyfell, and rideth the desert bare, + And the hollow slot of Fafnir that led to the Serpent's lair. + Then long he rode adown it, and the ernes flew overhead, + And tidings great and glorious of that Treasure of old they said, + So far o'er the waste he wended, and when the night was come + He saw the earth-old dwelling, the dread Gold-wallowers home. + On the skirts of the Heath it was builded by a tumbled stony bent; + High went that house to the heavens, down 'neath the earth it went, + Of unwrought iron fashioned for the heart of a greedy king: + 'Twas a mountain, blind without, and within was its plenishing + But the Hoard of Andvari the ancient, and the sleeping Curse unseen, + The Gold of the Gods that spared not and the greedy that have been. + Through the door strode Sigurd the Volsung, and the grey moon and the + sword + Fell in on the tawny gold-heaps of the ancient hapless Hoard: + Gold gear of hosts unburied, and the coin of cities dead, + Great spoil of the ages of battle, lay there on the Serpent's bed: + Huge blocks from mid-earth quarried, where none but the Dwarfs have + mined, + Wide sands of the golden rivers no foot of man may find, + Lay 'neath the spoils of the mighty and the ruddy rings of yore: + But amidst was the Helm of Aweing that the Fear of earth-folk bore, + And there gleamed a wonder beside it, the Hauberk all of gold, + Whose like is not in the heavens nor has earth of its fellow told: + There Sigurd seeth moreover Andvari's Ring of Gain, + The hope of Loki's finger, the Ransom's utmost grain; + For it shone on the midmost gold-heap like the first star set in the + sky, + In the yellow space of even when the moon-rise draweth anigh. + Then laughed the Son of Sigmund, and stooped to the golden land, + And gathered that first of the harvest and set it on his hand; + And he did on the Helm of Aweing, and the Hauberk all of gold,-- + Whose like is not in the heavens nor has earth of its fellow told: + Then he praised the day of the Volsungs amid the yellow light, + And he set his hand to the labour and put forth his kingly might; + He dragged forth gold to the moon, on the desert's face he laid + The innermost earth's adornment, and rings for the nameless made; + He toiled and loaded Greyfell, and the cloudy war-steed shone, + And the gear of Sigurd rattled in the flood of moonlight wan; + There he toiled and loaded Greyfell, and the Volsung's armour rang + 'Mid the yellow bed of the Serpent--but without the eagles sang: + + "Bind the red rings, O Sigurd! let the gold shine free and clear! + For what hath the Son of the Volsungs the ancient Curse to fear? + + "Bind the red rings, O Sigurd! for thy tale is well begun, + And the world shall be good and gladdened by the Gold lit up by the sun. + + "Bind the red rings, O Sigurd! and gladden all thine heart! + For the world shall make thee merry ere thou and she depart. + + "Bind the red rings, O Sigurd! for the ways go green below, + Go green to the dwelling of Kings, and the halls that the Queen-folk + know. + + "Bind the red rings, O Sigurd! for what is there bides by the way, + Save the joy of folk to awaken, and the dawn of the merry day? + + "Bind the red rings, O Sigurd! for the strife awaits thine hand + And a plenteous war-field's reaping, and the praise of many a land. + + "Bind the red rings, O Sigurd! but how shall storehouse hold + That glory of thy winning and the tidings to be told?" + + Now the moon was dead and the star-worlds were great on the heavenly + plain, + When the steed was fully laden; then Sigurd taketh the rein + And turns to the ruined rock-wall that the lair was built beneath, + For there he deemed was the gate and the door of the Glittering Heath, + But not a whit moved Greyfell for aught that the King might do; + Then Sigurd pondered awhile, till the heart of the beast he knew, + And clad in all his war-gear he leaped to the saddle-stead, + And with pride and mirth neighed Greyfell and tossed aloft his head, + And sprang unspurred o'er the waste, and light and swift he went, + And breasted the broken rampart, the stony tumbled bent; + And over the brow he clomb, and there beyond was the world, + A place of many mountains and great crags together hurled. + So down to the west he wendeth, and goeth swift and light, + And the stars are beginning to wane, and the day is mingled with night; + For full fain was the sun to arise and look on the Gold set free, + And the Dwarf-wrought rings of the Treasure and the gifts from the floor + of the sea. + +Beautiful and full of poetic spirit and suggestion as this phraseology is, +a reader may be forgiven if it recalls the reply of Hamlet when asked by +Polonius what it is he reads. Compared with the swift dramatic method +employed by Wagner to make the heroes and heroines of this same saga live +for our time, it must be admitted that the latter drives home with the +greater energy and conviction. Morris himself, however, was "not much +interested" in anything Wagner did, looking upon it "as nothing short of +desecration to bring such a tremendous and world-wide subject under the +gaslights of an opera, the most rococo and degraded of all forms of art." + +To the group of translations and adaptations already described must be +added one other ambitious effort which belongs to it, properly speaking, +although separated from it in time by more than ten years. In 1887 Morris +published a translation of the _Odyssey_, written in anapaestic couplets, +and rendered as literally as by the prose crib of which he made frank use. +Mr. Watts-Dunton finds in this translation the Homeric eagerness, although +the Homeric dignity is lacking. The majority of competent critics were +against it, however, nor is a high degree of classical training necessary +to perceive in it an incoherence and clumsiness of diction impossible to +associate with the lucid images of the Greeks. Compare, for example, +Morris's account of the recognition of Ulysses by Argus with Bryant's +limpid rendering of the same episode, and the tortured style of the former +is obvious at once. Bryant's translation reads: + + There lay + Argus, devoured with vermin. As he saw + Ulysses drawing near, he wagged his tail + And dropped his ears, but found that he could come + No nearer to his master. Seeing this + Ulysses wiped away a tear unmark'd + By the good swineherd whom he questioned thus: + "Eumaeus, this I marvel at,--this dog + That lies upon the dunghill, beautiful + In form, but whether in the chase as fleet + As he is fairly shaped I cannot tell. + Worthless, perchance, as house-dogs often are + Whose masters keep them for the sake of show." + + And thus, Eumaeus, thou didst make reply: + + "The dog belongs to one who died afar. + Had he the power of limb which once he had + For feats of hunting when Ulysses sailed + For Troy and left him, thou wouldst be amazed + Both at his swiftness and his strength. No beast + In the thick forest depths which once he saw, + Or even tracked by footprints, could escape. + And now he is a sufferer, since his lord + Has perished far from his own land. No more + The careless women heed the creature's wants; + For, when the master is no longer near, + The servants cease from their appointed tasks, + And on the day that one becomes a slave + The Thunderer, Jove takes half his worth away." + + He spake, and, entering that fair dwelling-place, + Passed through to where the illustrious suitors sat, + While over Argus the black night of death + Came suddenly as soon as he had seen + Ulysses, absent now for twenty years. + +And here is the description by Morris of the infinitely touching scene: + + There then did the woodhound Argus all full of ticks abide; + But now so soon as he noted Odysseus drawing anear + He wagged his tail, and fawning he laid down either ear, + But had no might to drag him nigher from where he lay + To his master, who beheld him and wiped a tear away + That he lightly hid from Eumaeus, unto whom he spake and said: + + "Eumaeus, much I marvel at the dog on the dung-heap laid; + Fair-shapen is his body, but nought I know indeed + If unto this his fairness he hath good running speed, + Or is but like unto some--men's table-dogs I mean, + Which but because of their fairness lords cherish to be seen." + + Then thou, O swineherd Eumaeus, didst speak and answer thus: + + "Yea, this is the hound of the man that hath died aloof from us; + And if yet to do and to look on he were even such an one + As Odysseus left behind him when to Troy he gat him gone + Then wouldest thou wonder beholding his speed and hardihood, + For no monster that he followed through the depths of the tangled wood + Would he blench from, and well he wotted of their trail and where it + led. + But now ill he hath, since his master in an alien land is dead, + And no care of him have the women, that are heedless here and light; + Since thralls whenso they are missing their masters' rule and might. + No longer are they willing to do the thing that should be; + For Zeus, the loud-voiced, taketh half a man's valiancy + Whenso the day of thralldom hath hold of him at last." + + So saying into the homestead of the happy place he passed + And straight to the hall he wended 'mid the Wooers overbold. + But the murky doom of the death-day of Argus now took hold + When he had looked on Odysseus in this the twentieth year. + +The decade between the publication of _The Earthly Paradise_ and _Sigurd +the Volsung_ had been one of sustained literary effort varied, as we have +seen, but hardly interrupted by the work in decoration. The latter Morris +called his "bread-and-cheese work," the former his "pleasure work of +books." The time had not yet come for a complete union between the two, +although it was foreshadowed by the illuminated manuscripts made for +friends during these years. A selection from his own poems, a translation +of the _Eyrbyggja Saga_, a copy of Fitzgerald's _Rubaiyat of Omar +Khayyam_, and the _AEneid_ of Virgil were among the works that Morris +undertook to transcribe with his own hand on vellum, with decorative +margins with results of great beauty. He had now long been happy in work +calling out all this enthusiasm, but the world was going on without, to +use his own words, "beautiful and strange and dreadful and worshipful." +He was approaching the time when his conscience would no longer let him +rest in the thought that he was "not born to set the crooked straight." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +PUBLIC LIFE AND SOCIALISM. + + +In the autumn of 1876, just after the publication of _Sigurd the Volsung_, +Morris took his first dip in the ocean of public affairs, the waves of +which were presently almost to submerge him. He was forty-two years of +age, and had thus far managed to keep well within the range of his +individual interests and away from the political and social questions that +none the less stirred in his mind from time to time, and pricked him to +random assertions that he would have nothing to do with them, that his +business was with dreams, and that he would remain "the idle singer of an +empty day." He was roused to action, however, by the barbarous massacre on +the part of the Mussulman soldiery of men, women, and children in +Bulgaria, the news of which moved the heart of England to a frenzy of +indignation. When Russia intervened, the possibility that England might +take up arms on the side of Turkey in order to erect a barrier against +Russian aggression was intolerable to him, and he wrote to the _Daily +News_ in eloquent protestation. "I who am writing this," he said, with a +just appreciation of his ordinary attitude toward political matters, "am +one of a large class of men--quiet men, who usually go about their own +business, heeding public matters less than they ought, and afraid to speak +in such a huge concourse as the English nation, however much they may +feel, but who are now stung into bitterness by thinking how helpless they +are in a public matter that touches them so closely." "I appeal," he +continued, "to the workingmen, and pray them to look to it that if this +shame falls upon them they will certainly remember it and be burdened by +it when their day clears for them and they attain all and more than all +they are now striving for." Again in the spring of 1877, when war seemed +imminent, Morris appealed "to the workingmen of England," issuing a +manifesto which was practically his first Socialist document and heralded +the long series of lectures and addresses, poems, articles, and treatises, +presently to take the place of romances and epics in his literary life. +After declaring that the people who were bringing on the war were "greedy +gamblers on the Stock Exchange, idle officers of the army and navy (poor +fellows!), worn-out mockers of the clubs, desperate purveyors of exciting +war-news for the comfortable breakfast-tables of those who have nothing to +lose by war, and lastly, in the place of honour, the Tory Rump, that we +fools, weary of peace, reason, and justice, chose at the last election to +represent us," he added a passage that reads like the outcome of many a +heated discussion with brethren of his own social class. + +"Workingmen of England, one word of warning yet," he said: "I doubt if you +know the bitterness of hatred against freedom and progress that lies at +the hearts of a certain part of the richer classes in this country; their +newspapers veil it in a kind of decent language, but do but hear them +talking amongst themselves, as I have often, and I know not whether scorn +or anger would prevail in you at their folly and insolence. These men +cannot speak of your order, of its aims, of its leaders, without a sneer +or an insult; these men, if they had the power (may England perish +rather!) would thwart your just aspirations, would silence you, would +deliver you bound hand and foot forever to irresponsible capital. +Fellow-citizens, look to it, and if you have any wrongs to be redressed, +if you cherish your most worthy hope of raising your whole order +peacefully and solidly, if you thirst for leisure and knowledge, if you +long to lessen these inequalities which have been our stumbling-block +since the beginning of the world, then cast aside sloth and cry out +against an Unjust War, and urge us of the middle classes to do no less." + +[Illustration: _Picture by Rossetti in which the Children's Faces are +Portraits of May Morris_] + +By this time he was treasurer of the Eastern Question Association, and +working with all his might against the principles of the war party in +England, contributing to the general agitation the political ballad called +_Wake, London Lads!_ which was sung with much enthusiasm at one of the +meetings to the appropriate air, _The Hardy Norseman's Home of Yore_, and +was afterwards freely distributed in the form of a leaflet among the +mechanics of London. It was during this period of political activity that +J. R. Green wrote of him to E. A. Freeman: "I rejoiced to see the poet +Morris--whom Oliphant setteth even above you for his un-Latinisms--brought +to grief by being prayed to draw up a circular on certain Eastern matters, +and gravelled to find 'English words.' I insidiously persuaded him that +the literary committee had fixed on him to write one of a series of +pamphlets which Gladstone wants brought out for the public enlightenment, +and that the subject assigned him was 'The Results of the Incidence of +Direct Taxation on the Christian Rayah,' but that he was forbidden to +speak of the 'onfall of straight geld,' or other such 'English' forms. I +left him musing and miserable." Musing and miserable he may well have been +at finding that his duty, as he conceived it, was leading him into such +unlovely paths, but the English of his polemical writings was unmistakable +enough and unconfused by any affectations, Saxon or Latin. In declining to +stand for the Professorship of Poetry at Oxford on the occasion of Matthew +Arnold's withdrawal from it, he had confessed to a peculiar inaptitude for +expressing himself except in the one way in which his gift lay, and it was +true that his mind was singularly inept outside its natural course. He had +not a reasoning mind. His opinions, dictated as they were chiefly by +sentiment, were not worked out by the careful processes dear to genuine +thinkers. But he was before all things a believer. No man was ever more +certain of the absolute rectitude of his views, and by this sincerity of +conviction they were driven home to his public. He was so eager to make +others feel as he felt that he spent his utmost skill upon the delivery of +his message, using the simple and downright phrases that could be +understood by the least cultivated of his hearers. It was impossible to +listen to him, says one of his friends, not a convert to his views, +without for the time at least agreeing with him. Thus he conquered the +"peculiar inaptitude" of which he speaks by the force of his great +integrity, and although he complained that "the cursed words" went to +water between his fingers, they accomplished their object. + +"When the crisis in the East was past," says Mr. Mackail, "it left Morris +thoroughly in touch with the Radical leaders of the working class in +London, and well acquainted with the social and economic ideas which, +under the influence of widening education and of the international +movement among the working classes, were beginning to transform their +political creed from an individualist Radicalism into a more or less +definite doctrine of State Socialism." This contact was sufficient to +kindle into activity the ideas implanted in his own mind during his +college days. Carlyle had then thundered forth his amazing anathemas +against modern civilisation and had declaimed that Gurth born thrall of +Cedric, with a brass collar round his neck, was happy in comparison with +the poor of to-day enjoying their "liberty to die by starvation," no +displeasing gospel to a young mediaevalist; while Ruskin had preached with +vociferous eloquence the doctrine that happiness in labour is the end and +aim of life. From the beginning of his work in decorative art Morris had +shown the influence of these beliefs in peace. He was now to let them lead +him into war. + +Before he wrote himself down a Socialist, however, he set on foot a +movement not so important in the eyes of the public, but much more +characteristic of his personal mission in the world of life and art. He +had long before learned from Ruskin that the so-called restoration of +public monuments meant "the most total destruction which a building can +suffer: a destruction out of which no remnants can be gathered: a +destruction accompanied with false description of the thing destroyed." +Whatever his feeling may have been concerning the destructive restoration, +of which he must have seen manifold examples before this period of his +middle age, he seems to have awakened rather suddenly to the necessity of +taking some active measure to check the ravages of the restorer. Goaded, +finally, by the sight of alterations going on in one of the beautiful +parish churches near Kelmscott, he conceived the idea of forming a society +of protest. Early in 1877 the impending fate of the Abbey Church at +Tewkesbury, under the devastating hands of Sir Gilbert Scott, prompted him +to put the idea at once before the public, and he wrote to the _Athenaeum_ +a letter in which he went straight to the heart of his subject with +clearness and simplicity. + +"My eye just now caught the word 'restoration' in the morning paper," he +wrote, "and on looking closer, I saw that this time it is nothing less +than the Minster of Tewkesbury that is to be destroyed by Sir Gilbert +Scott. Is it altogether too late to do something to save it,--it and +whatever else of beautiful and historical is still left us on the sites of +the ancient buildings we were once so famous for? Would it not be of some +use once for all, and with the least delay possible, to set on foot an +association for the purpose of watching over and protecting these relics +which, scanty as they are now become, are still wonderful treasures, all +the more priceless in this age of the world, when the newly-invented study +of living history is the chief joy of so many of our lives? + +"Your paper has so steadily and courageously opposed itself to these acts +of barbarism which the modern architect, parson, and squire call +'restoration,' that it would be waste of words here to enlarge on the ruin +that has been wrought by their hands; but, for the saving of what is left, +I think I may write you a word of encouragement, and say that you by no +means stand alone in the matter, and that there are many thoughtful +people who would be glad to sacrifice time, money, and comfort in defence +of those ancient monuments; besides, though I admit that the architects +are, with very few exceptions, hopeless, because interest, habit, and an +ignorance yet grosser, bind them; still there must be many people whose +ignorance is accidental rather than inveterate, whose good sense could +surely be touched if it were clearly put to them that they were destroying +what they, or more surely still, their sons and sons' sons would one day +fervently long for, and which no wealth or energy could ever buy again for +them. + +"What I wish for, therefore, is that an association should be set on foot +to keep a watch on old monuments, to protest against all 'restoration' +that means more than keeping out wind and weather, and, by all means, +literary and other, to awaken a feeling that our ancient buildings are not +mere ecclesiastical toys, but sacred monuments of the nation's growth and +hope." + +In less than a month the association was formed under the title of the +"Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings," abbreviated by Morris to +the "Anti-Scrape Society," in cheerful reference to the pernicious +scraping and pointing indulged in by the restorers. Morris was made +secretary of the Society, and, as long as he lived, worked loyally in its +behalf, giving, in addition to time and money, the labour, which to him +was grievous, of lecturing for it. He wrote a prospectus that was +translated into French, German, Italian, and Dutch, and among the more +important of his protests were those against the demolition of some of the +most beautiful portions of St. Mark's at Venice, and the "bedizening" of +the interior of Westminster Abbey. + +For the sentiment which inspired him, the inextinguishable love in his +heart toward every example however humble of the art he reverenced, we may +turn to one of the most eloquently reasonable passages of his numerous +lectures. Closing his account of pattern designing with a reference to the +creation of modern or Gothic art, he says: "Never until the time of that +death or cataleptic sleep of the so-called Renaissance did it forget its +origin, or fail altogether in fulfilling its mission of turning the +ancient curse of labour into something more like a blessing." + +"As to the way in which it did its work," he continues, "as I have no +time, so also I have but little need to speak, since there is none of us +but has seen and felt some portion of the glory which it left behind, but +has shared some portion of that most kind gift it gave the world; for even +in this our turbulent island, the home of rough and homely men, so far +away from the centres of art and thought which I have been speaking of, +did simple folk labour for those that shall come after them. Here in the +land we yet love they built their homes and temples; if not so +majestically as many peoples have done, yet in such sweet accord with the +familiar nature amidst which they dwelt, that when by some happy chance +we come across the work they wrought, untouched by any but natural change, +it fills us with a satisfying untroubled happiness that few things else +could bring us. Must our necessities destroy, must our restless ambition +mar, the sources of this innocent pleasure, which rich and poor may share +alike--this communion with the very hearts of the departed men? Must we +sweep away these touching memories of our stout forefathers and their +troublous days that won our present peace and liberties? + +"If our necessities compel us to it, I say we are an unhappy people; if +our vanity lure us into it, I say we are a foolish and light-minded +people, who have not the wits to take a little trouble to avoid spoiling +our own goods. Our own goods? Yes, the goods of the people of England, now +and in time to come: we who are now alive are but life-renters of them. +Any of us who pretend to any culture know well that in destroying or +injuring one of these buildings we are destroying the pleasure, the +culture--in a word, the humanity--of unborn generations. It is speaking +very mildly to say that we have no right to do this for our temporary +convenience. It is speaking too mildly. I say any such destruction is an +act of brutal dishonesty.... It is in the interest of living art and +living history that I oppose 'restoration.' What history can there be in a +building bedaubed with ornament, which cannot at best be anything but a +hopeless and lifeless imitation of the hope and vigour of the earlier +world? As to the art that is concerned in it, a strange folly it seems to +me for us who live among these bricken masses of hideousness, to waste the +energies of our short lives in feebly trying to add new beauty to what is +already beautiful. Is that all the surgery we have for the curing of +England's spreading sore? Don't let us vex ourselves to cure the +antepenultimate blunders of the world, but fall to on our own blunders. +Let us leave the dead alone, and, ourselves living, build for the living +and those that shall live. Meantime, my plea for our Society is this, that +since it is disputed whether restoration be good or not, and since we are +confessedly living in a time when architecture has come on the one hand to +Jerry building, and on the other to experimental designing (good, very +good experiments some of them), let us take breath and wait; let us +sedulously repair our ancient buildings, and watch every stone of them as +if they were built of jewels (as indeed they are), but otherwise let the +dispute rest till we have once more learned architecture, till we once +more have among us a reasonable, noble, and universally used style. Then +let the dispute be settled. I am not afraid of the issue. If that day ever +comes, we shall know what beauty, romance, and history mean, and the +technical meaning of the word 'restoration' will be forgotten. + +"Is not this a reasonable plea? It means prudence. If the buildings are +not worth anything they are not worth restoring; if they are worth +anything they are at least worth treating with common sense and prudence. + +"Come now, I invite you to support the most prudent Society in all +England." + +It is easy to understand from such examples as this how Morris gained his +popularity as a lecturer. In the printed sentences you read the eager, +persuasive accent, so convincing because so convinced. On the platform he +stood, say his friends, like a conqueror, stalwart and sturdy, his good +grey eyes flashing or twinkling, his voice deepening with feeling, his +gesture and speech sudden and spontaneous, his aspect that of an +insurgent, a fighter against custom and orthodoxy. + +It was not long after the formation of the Society for the Protection of +Ancient Buildings that he began to show himself a rebel in more than words +against existing social laws. The steps by which he reached his membership +in the Democratic Federation in the year 1883 are not very easily traced. +Comments on the distressing gulf between rich and poor and on the +conditions under which the modern workingman did his task became more +frequent in his letters and addresses. His mind seemed to be gradually +adjusting itself to the thought that the only hope for obtaining ideal +conditions in which--this was always the ultimate goal--art might be +constantly associated with handicraft, was perhaps to let art go for the +time being, and upset society and all its conventions in preparation for a +new earth. "Art must go under," he wrote in one of his private letters +"where or however it may come up again." But it was always the fate of art +that concerned him. He never really understood what Socialism technically +and economically speaking meant. He read its books with labour and sorrow, +and struggled with its theories in support of his antagonism to the +commercial methods of modern business, but he gained no firm grasp of any +underlying political principle. In most of his later addresses he talked +pure sentiment concerning social questions, characteristically declaring +it to be the purest reason. His avowed belief was that "workmen should be +artists and artists workmen," and this, he felt, could only be attained +under the freest conditions. A workman should not be clothed in shabby +garments, should not be wretchedly housed, overworked, or underfed. But +neither will it profit him much if he wear good clothes, and keep short +hours, and eat wholesome food, and contribute to the ugliness of the wares +turned out by commerce. The idea that a man works only to earn leisure in +which he does no work was shocking to him as it had been to Ruskin. +Pleasant work to do, leisure for other work of a different pleasantness, +this was what the workingman really wanted if only he knew it. It was +clear to Morris that he himself worked "not the least in the world for the +sake of earning leisure by it," but "partly driven by the fear of +starvation and disgrace," and partly because he loved the work itself; +and while he was ready to confess that he spent a part of his leisure "as +a dog does" in contemplation, and liked it well enough, he also spent part +of it in work which gave him as much pleasure as his bread-earning work, +neither more nor less. Obviously if there are men with whom such is not +the case it is because they have not the right kind of work to do, and are +not doing it in the right way, and it is equally obvious that the wrong +work and the wrong way of doing it are forced upon them. Left to +themselves they are bound to do what pleases them and what will please +others of right minds. The ideal handicraftsman developing under an ideal +social order "shall put his own individual intelligence and enthusiasm +into the goods he fashions. So far from his labour being 'divided,' which +is the technical phrase for his always doing one minute piece of work and +never being allowed to think of any other, so far from that, he must know +all about the ware he is making and its relation to similar wares; he must +have a natural aptitude for his work so strong that no education can force +him away from his special bent. He must be allowed to think of what he is +doing and to vary his work as the circumstances of it vary, and his own +moods. He must be forever stirring to make the piece he is at work at +better than the last. He must refuse at anybody's bidding to turn out, I +won't say a bad, but even an indifferent piece of work, whatever the +public want or think they want. He must have a voice, and a voice worth +listening to in the whole affair." + +This attitude is almost identical with that of Ruskin. To see how the +theories of master and pupil coincide one has only to read _The Stones of +Venice_ and compare with the passage quoted above the famous chapter on +_The Nature of the Gothic_. + +"It is verily this degradation of the operative into a machine," says +Ruskin, "which, more than any other evil of the times, is leading the mass +of the nations everywhere into vain, incoherent, destructive struggling +for a freedom of which they cannot explain the nature to themselves. Their +universal outcry against wealth and against nobility is not forced from +them either by the pressure of famine or the sting of mortified pride. +These do much, and have done much in all ages; but the foundations of +society were never yet shaken as they are at this day. It is not that men +are ill-fed, but that they have no pleasure in the work by which they make +their bread, and therefore look to wealth as the only means of pleasure. +It is not that men are pained by the scorn of the upper classes, but they +cannot endure their own; for they feel that the kind of labour to which +they are condemned is verily a degrading one, and makes them less than +men.... We have much studied and much perfected, of late, the great +civilised invention of the division of labour; only we give it a false +name. It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided; but the +men--divided into mere segments of men--broken into small fragments and +crumbs of life, so that all the little piece of intelligence that is left +in a man is not enough to make a pin or a nail, but exhausts itself in +making the point of a pin, or the head of a nail.... And the great cry +that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace +blast, is all in very deed for this,--that we manufacture everything there +except men.... And all the evil to which that cry is urging our myriads +can be met only ... by a right understanding on the part of all classes, +of what kinds of labour are good for men, raising them and making them +happy; by a determined sacrifice of such convenience, or beauty, or +cheapness as is to be got only by the degradation of the workman." But +Ruskin was altogether too much of an aristocrat, too much of an egoist, to +root out classes. We can hardly imagine him preaching as Morris finally +came to preach a revolution which should make it impossible for him to +condescend. He could devote seven thousand pounds of his own money to +establishing a St. George Society, but it would probably never have +occurred to him to head a riot in Trafalgar Square. + +When Morris, under the influence of old theories and new associations, +came to consider not only the desirability but the possibility of +establishing a social order in which men could work quite happily and art +could get loose from handcuffs welded and locked by commercialism, it was +a necessity of his temperament that he should turn his back on halfway +methods and urge drastic reforms. His way was not the way of compromise, +and he seriously believed that if "civilisation" could be swept out of the +path by a revolution which should destroy all class distinctions and all +machinery and machine-made goods, which should do away with commercialism +and strip the world to its bare bones, so that men could start afresh, all +equal and all freed from the superfluities of life, there would grow up a +charming communism in which kind hearts would take the place of coronets, +and cheerful labour the place of hopeless toil. We find him writing in a +private letter--madly, yet with the downright force that kindled where it +struck--that he has "faith more than a grain of mustard seed in the future +history of civilisation," that he now knows it to be doomed to +destruction, and that it is a consolation and joy to him to think of +barbarism once more flooding the world, "and real feelings and passions, +however rudimentary, taking the place of our wretched hypocrisies." It was +thus he thought, or felt, about the new field of labour upon which he was +entering, and it is from this point of view that he must be defended +against the slurs that have been cast at him as a "Capitalist-Socialist." +He did not ignore the ideal of renunciation which had tempted him in his +youth, and which he again thought of in his middle age--though less +tempted, perhaps. But he reasoned, logically enough, that for one man or a +few men to divide his or their wealth with the poor would not advance +the world by a furlong or a foot toward the state of things which he had +at heart to bring about. It might raise the beneficiaries a little higher +in the ranks--in other words, bring them a little closer to the dangerous +middle-class, from which came the worst of their troubles, and it might +also have the effect of making them a trifle more content with existing +conditions. Neither effect was desirable in his eyes. A divine discontent +to be spread throughout all classes was the end and aim of such Socialism +as he accepted. Nothing could be done except through the antagonism of +classes, which seemed in itself to provide a remedy. In _News from +Nowhere_, his best known Socialistic romance, the name of which was +perhaps suggested by Kingsley's Utopian and anagrammatic _Erewhon_, he +puts into the mouth of an old man who is himself a survival from the days +of "class slavery," a description of the imaginary change to an ideal +Communism. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, it is assumed, a +federation of labour made it possible for the workmen or "slaves" to +establish from time to time important strikes that would sometimes stop an +industry altogether for a while, and to impose upon their "masters" other +restrictions that seriously interfered with the systematic conduct of +commerce. The resulting "bad times" reached a crisis in the year 1952, +when the "Combined Workers" determined upon the bold step of demanding a +practical reversal of classes, by which they should have the management +of the whole natural resources of the country, together with the machinery +for using them. The upper classes resisting, riots ensued, then the "Great +Strike." "The railways did not run," the old man recalls; "the telegraph +wires were unserved; flesh, fish, and green stuff brought to market was +allowed to lie there still packed and perishing; the thousands of +middle-class families, who were utterly dependent for the next meal on the +workers, made frantic efforts through their more energetic members to +cater for the needs of the day, and amongst those of them who could not +throw off the fear of what was to follow, there was, I am told, a certain +enjoyment of this unexpected picnic--a forecast of the days to come in +which all labour grew pleasant." Out of all this came civil war, with +destruction of wares and machinery and also the destruction of the spirit +of commercialism. With the removal of the spur of competition it is +admitted that there was a temporary danger of making men dull by giving +them too much time for thought or idle musing. How was this danger +overcome? By a growing interest in art, to be sure. The people, all +workmen now, and providing very simply for their simple needs, "no longer +driven desperately to painful and terrible overwork," began to wish to +make the work they had in hand as attractive as possible, and rudely and +awkwardly to ornament the wares they produced. "Thus at last and by slow +degrees," the old man concludes, "we got pleasure into our work; then we +became conscious of that pleasure, and cultivated it, and took care that +we had our fill of it, and then all was gained and we were happy." + +[Illustration: HONEYSUCKLE DESIGN FOR LINEN] + +There is little here to charm the logically constructive mind, acquainted +with human nature, and in the lectures setting forth in more detail and +with more attempt at practical teaching the methods by which society could +be enlightened and raised to his standard of excellence, Morris boldly +invites the scorn of the political economist by the wholly visionary +character of his pathetically "reasonable" views. Nevertheless, he was not +without an instinct for distinguishing social evils and suggesting right +remedies. Strip his doctrines of their exaggerated conclusions from false +premises, and it is possible to find in them the seeds of many reforms +that have come about to the inestimable benefit of the modern world. In +his lecture on _Useful Work versus Useless Toil_, the very title of which +is a flash of genius, he advocates the kind of education that is directed +toward finding out what different people are fit for, and helping them +along the road which they are inclined to take. He would have young people +taught "such handicrafts as they had a turn for as a part of their +education, the discipline of their minds and bodies; and adults would also +have opportunities of learning in the same schools." He preaches the +necessity of agreeable surroundings, claiming that science duly applied +would get rid of the smoke, stench, and noise of factories, and that +factories and buildings in which work is carried on should be made decent, +convenient, and beautiful, while workers should be given opportunities of +living in quiet country homes, in small towns, or in industrial colleges, +instead of being obliged to "pig together" in close city quarters. Not one +of these considerations is ignored by the organisations now endeavouring +in the name of civilisation to raise the standard of the community. Manual +training schools, free kindergartens, health protective associations, +model tenement societies, have all arisen to meet in their own ways the +needs to which Morris was so keenly alive. It was not the word reform, +however, but the word revolution, that he constantly reiterated, and +declined to relinquish in favour of any milder term. His friend William +Clarke has summed up in a single paragraph the substance of many +conversations held with him on the subject of social progress. "Existing +society is, he thinks, gradually, but with increasing momentum, +disintegrating through its own rottenness. The capitalist system of +production is breaking down fast and is compelled to exploit new regions +in Africa and other parts, where, he thinks, its term will be short. +Economically, socially, morally, politically, religiously, civilisation is +becoming bankrupt. Meanwhile it is for the Socialist to take advantage of +this disintegration by spreading discontent, by preaching economic +truths, and by any kind of demonstration which may harass the authorities +and develop among the people an _esprit de corps_. By these means the +people will, in some way or other, be ready to take up the industry of the +world when the capitalist class is no longer able to direct or control +it." + +The expression "in some way or other" very well indicates the essential +vagueness underlying Morris's definite speech. He had no idea of the means +by which the people could be educated to the assumption of unfamiliar +control. The utmost that he could suggest was that they should be awakened +to the beauty of life as he saw it in his dreams. This beauty he +continually set before them in phrases as simple and as eloquent as he +could make them. Nor did he shirk the responsibilities raised by his +extreme point of view. Nothing testifies more truly to his fidelity of +nature and devotion to his ideal than his readiness to put aside the +pursuits he loved with his whole heart and take up activities detested by +him for many years of that gifted, interesting life of his, in the hope of +bringing about, for people whom he really cared for only in the mass, who +did not understand him and whom he did not very well understand, an order +of things which should in time, but not in his time, make them--so he +thought--quite happy. The extent to which he renounced was not slight. + +Now indeed was the time when his friends might justly lament that he was +being kept labouring at what he could not do, with work all round that he +could do so well. First he joined the Democratic Federation and was +promptly put on its executive committee. We find him writing that it is +naturally harder to understand the subject of Socialism in detail as he +gets alongside of it, and that he often gets beaten in argument even when +he knows he is right, which only drives him to more desperate attempts to +justify his theories by the study of other people's arguments. While he +was a member of the Federation (a definitely Socialist body at the time) +he delivered a lecture at Oxford with the effect of rousing consternation +in the University despite the fact that he had taken pains to inform the +authorities of his position as an active Socialist. They did not +understand the extent of his activity, and when he wound up an agreeable +talk by frankly appealing to the undergraduates of the Russell Club, at +whose invitation he was speaking, to join the Democratic Federation, the +Master of University was brought to his feet to explain that nothing of +the kind had been foreseen when Mr. Morris was asked to express there "his +opinion on art under a democracy." + +Besides his lecturing, which went on in London, or at Manchester, Leeds, +Blackburn, Leicester, Glasgow, and anywhere else where a hopeful +opportunity afforded, he was writing for the weekly paper of the +Federation, the little sheet called _Justice_, and also writing pamphlets +for distribution among the people. The measures urged in _Justice_ for +immediate adoption as remedies for the evils of existing society were: + +Free Compulsory Education for all classes, together with the provision of +at least one wholesome meal a day in each school. + +Eight Hours or less to be the normal Working day in all trades. + +Cumulative Taxation upon all incomes above a fixed minimum not exceeding +L300 a year. + +State Appropriation of Railways, with or without compensation. + +The Establishment of National Banks, which shall absorb all private +institutions that derive a profit from operations in money or credit. + +Rapid Extinction of the National Debt. + +Nationalisation of the Land and organisation of agricultural and +industrial armies under State control on Cooeperative principles. + +The objects of the Federation were: "To unite the various Associations of +Democrats and Workers throughout Great Britain and Ireland for the purpose +of securing equal rights for all, and forming a permanent centre of +organisation; to agitate for the ultimate adoption of the programme of the +Federation; to aid all Social and political movements in the direction of +these reforms." Morris believed himself to be in full sympathy with the +fundamental principles of the Federation, and faithfully resented the +assumption of a kindly intentioned critic who stated that his imperfect +sympathy with them must in charity be supposed. To the implication that he +cared only for art and not for the other side of the social questions he +had been writing about, he responded: "Much as I love art and ornament, I +value it chiefly as a token of the happiness of the people, and I would +rather it were all swept away from the world than that the mass of the +people should suffer oppression"; but he continued with the familiar +challenge, opportunity to utter which was seldom lost, "At the same time, +Sir, I will beg you earnestly to consider if my contention is not true, +that genuine Art is always an expression of pleasure in Labour?" In +explaining his point of view to the public before whom he placed his +little collection of Socialist lectures, he expressed his conviction that +all the ugliness and vulgarity of civilisation, which his own work had +forced him to look upon with grief and pain are "but the outward +expression of the innate moral baseness into which we are forced by our +present form of society." The ethical and practical sides of the problem +he was trying to face honestly, grew up in his mind as he dwelt upon its +artistic side, and he made noble efforts to evolve schemes of practical +expediency. In his reasonableness he went so far as to admit the possible +usefulness of machinery in the new order toward which he was directing the +attention of his followers; but he is swift to add, "for the consolation +of the artists," that this usefulness will probably be but temporary; +that a state of social order would lead, at first, perhaps, to a great +development of machinery for really useful purposes, "because people will +still be anxious about getting through the work necessary to holding +society together"; but after a while they will find that there is not so +much work to do as they expected and will have leisure to reconsider the +whole subject, and then "if it seems to them that a certain industry would +be carried on more pleasantly as regards the worker, and more effectually +as regards the goods, by using hand-work rather than machinery they will +certainly get rid of their machinery, because it will be possible for them +to do so." "It isn't possible now," he adds; "we are not at liberty to do +so; we are slaves to the monsters we have created. And I have a kind of +hope that the very elaboration of machinery in a society whose purpose is +not the multiplication of labour, as it now is, but the carrying on of a +pleasant life, as it would be under social order,--that the elaboration of +machinery, I say, will lead to the simplification of life, and so once +more to the limitation of machinery." + +Although the discussion of methods and external forms was entirely foreign +to Morris's habit of mind, he was not averse to discussing the history of +society. He was not much more an historian than he was an economist in the +strict sense. He ignored, idealised, and blackened at will, always +perfectly certain that he was setting forth the contrast between the past +and the present in its true light; but his delight in the mediaeval past, +which was the only past to which he gave much attention, lends to his +pictures of it a charm most appealing to those who have not too prodding a +prejudice in favour of historical accuracy. He is at his best when he +breaks from his grapple with the subject of the commercial classes and +their development to evoke the visions which neither history nor economics +could obscure in his mind. "Not seldom I please myself with trying to +realise the face of mediaeval England," he says to the motley audience +gathering at a street corner or in some dingy little hall or shed to +listen to him, "the many chases and great woods, the stretches of common +tillage and common pasture quite unenclosed; the rough husbandry of the +tilled parts, the unimproved breeds of cattle, sheep, and swine; +especially the latter, so lank and long and lathy, looking so strange to +us; the strings of packhorses along the bridle-roads; of the scantiness of +the wheel-roads, scarce any except those left by the Romans, and those +made from monastery to monastery; the scarcity of bridges, and people +using ferries instead, or fords where they could; the little towns, well +bechurched, often walled; the villages just where they are now (except for +those that have nothing but the church left to tell of them), but better +and more populous; their churches, some big and handsome, some small and +curious, but all crowded with altars and furniture, and gay with pictures +and ornament; the many religious houses, with their glorious architecture; +the beautiful manor-houses, some of them castles once, and survivals from +an earlier period; some new and elegant; some out of all proportion small +for the importance of their lords. How strange it would be to us if we +could be landed in fourteenth-century England; unless we saw the crest of +some familiar hill like that which yet bears upon it a symbol of an +English tribe, and from which, looking down on the plain where Alfred was +born, I once had many such ponderings, we should not know into what +country of the world we were come: the name is left, scarce a thing +else." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +PUBLIC LIFE AND SOCIALISM (_Continued_). + + +By the latter part of 1884 the political agitations and internal +differences in the Federation, now called The Social Democratic +Federation, became so violent as to force Morris to leave the association +in which he had had no desire to be a leader, but had been unable to keep +the position of acquiescent follower. In his connection with this and +other public organisations, the underlying gentleness and real humility of +his nature was clearly to be seen. He learned patience through his +conflict with unsympathetic minds. From the weary experience of working in +constant intercourse with men whose temper and practice and many of whose +theories were directly antagonistic to his own, although identified with +them in the public mind by a common responsibility, he learned to subdue +those elements of his temperament that worked against the success of what +he had most loyally at heart. From self-confidence, a critical habit, an +overbearing positiveness of assertion, he passed to comparative +reticence, tolerance, even docility. To his equals it was painful to see +ignorant men assign to him his task, but he never failed to comply +instantly with their orders. + +[Illustration: MERTON ABBEY WORKS] + +[Illustration: WASHING CLOTH AT THE MERTON ABBEY WORKS] + +It could not, however, have been an education in which he could take +conscious pleasure, and at this juncture he doubtless would have been +happy indeed could he have gone quietly back to the weaving and dyeing and +writing of poetry with which his new preoccupation had seriously +interfered. His conscience, however, was too deeply involved to permit a +desertion, which would, he said, be dastardly. The question now constantly +in his mind was how he would have felt against the system under which he +lived had he himself been poor. He was convinced that he would have found +it unendurable. Therefore, with a longing glance at his chintz bleaching +in the sunlight and pure air of Merton Abbey, he put his shoulder to the +wheel again, and, gathering together a few of his sympathisers, +inaugurated a new party, the Socialist League, with the famous little +_Commonweal_ for its organ, a monthly paper now the joy of collectors on +account of the beautiful headings of Walter Crane and the remarkable +quality of the contributions by Morris himself. In this new society, for +which he was primarily responsible, Morris found his work redoubled. He +was editor of the _Commonweal_ as well as contributor to it. He continued +his lecturing, often under the most depressing conditions, speaking to +small and indifferent audiences in small and miserable quarters. At +Hammersmith he instituted a branch of the League in the room previously +given up to his carpet-weaving, and there he gave Sunday evening +addresses. On Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings he spoke at the +outdoor meetings which were to be the insidious foes of his health, and +which more than once brought him into personal notoriety of a disagreeable +kind. + +The first of these occasions was on the 21st of September, 1885, when a +number of people were arrested for gathering together that Sunday morning +at the corner of Dod Street and Burdett Road against orders from the +authorities to the effect that meetings at that place--a favourite spot +with open-air speakers--must be stopped. Morris, with other members of the +League, was present in court when the prisoners were brought up, and +joined in the hisses and cries of "Shame!" when one prisoner was sentenced +to two months' hard labour and the others were fined. Morris was arrested, +subjected to a little questioning from the magistrate, and dismissed. The +following Sunday another meeting, comprising many thousands of people, was +held on the forbidden corner; nothing occurred, and they dispersed +victoriously. The next year a Sunday-morning meeting in a street off +Edgeware Road was interfered with by the police, and Morris was summoned +to the police court and fined a shilling and costs for the offence of +obstructing the highway. + +Out of these experiences resulted, we may very well imagine, the farce +entitled: _The Tables Turned; or, Nupkins Awakened_, given at an +entertainment in the Hall of the Socialist League, at Farringdon Road, on +October 15, 1887. Copies of it are still in existence--sorry little +pamphlets in blue wrappers, bearing no kinship to the aristocratic +products of the Kelmscott Press so soon to follow, but extremely +entertaining as showing Morris in his least conventional and most +aggressive public mood. As the pamphlet is quite rare, a brief description +of its contents is not, perhaps, superfluous, although its literary merit +amounts to as little as possible considering its authorship. It opens with +a scene in a court of justice, Justice Nupkins presiding, in which a Mr. +La-di-da is found guilty of swindling and of robbing the widow and the +orphan. He is sentenced to imprisonment for the space of one calendar +month. Next Mary Pinch, a poor woman (the part was taken by Morris's +daughter May), is accused of stealing three loaves of bread, and, after +absurd and contradictory testimony by witnesses for the prosecution +(constables and sergeants), is sentenced to eighteen months of hard +labour. Next, John Freeman, a Socialist, is accused of conspiracy, +sedition, and obstruction of the highway. The Archbishop of Canterbury +(this role enacted by Morris), Lord Tennyson, and Professor Tyndall are +called as witnesses and give testimony, the manner and speech of the +renowned originals being somewhat rudely parodied. After contradictory +evidence by these witnesses and the former ones, the prisoner is sentenced +to six years' penal servitude with a fine of one hundred pounds, his +offence having been an open-air speech advocating the principles of +Socialism. As his sentence is pronounced the _Marseillaise_ is heard, and +a Socialist ensign enters with news that the Revolution has begun. + +It is in the second part that the tables are turned upon Nupkins. The +scene this time is laid in the fields near a country village, with a copse +close by. The time is after the Revolution. Justice Nupkins is found +skulking in the copse, half mad with fear at the reversal of social +conditions, his past cruelty giving him small reason to hope for gentle +treatment at the hands of the former "lower classes," who are now running +affairs to suit themselves. He meets Mary Pinch, who pities his deplorable +aspect and invites him to her house, now a pleasant and prosperous home. +He cannot believe in the sincerity of her apparent kindness, and flees +from her in a panic, only to meet other of his former victims who further +alarm him by pretending to arrest him and give him a mock trial, during +which he thinks he is to be sentenced to death. He learns at last that +under the beautiful new order he is free to do what he pleases, and may +dig potatoes and earn his own living by such tilling of the soil. The +citizens dance about him singing the following words to the tune of the +_Carmagnole_: + + What's this that the days and the days have done? + Man's lordship over man hath gone. + + How fares it, then, with high and low? + Equal on earth they thrive and grow. + Bright is the sun for everyone; + Dance we, dance we the Carmagnole. + + How deal ye, then, with pleasure and pain? + Alike we share and bear the twain. + + And what's the craft whereby ye live? + Earth and man's work to all men give. + + How crown ye excellence of worth? + With leave to serve all men on earth. + + What gain that lordship's past and done? + World's wealth for all and everyone. + +This somewhat childlike but not too bland revenge on the powers of the law +met with an enthusiastic reception at the Hall of the Socialist League; +Mr. Bernard Shaw, who was present, declaring that there had been no such +successful "first night" within living memory. + +The year 1887 was marked, however, by events much more serious than the +acting of a little farce. On the 13th of November,--"Bloody Sunday" it was +called,--the efforts of the Government to check open-air speaking +culminated in an organised riot on the part of the Socialists in alliance +with the extreme Radicals. Sir Charles Warren had prohibited by +proclamation the holding of any meeting in Trafalgar Square,--a meeting +having been announced to take place there to protest against the Irish +policy of the Government. Thereupon it was agreed by the Socialist League, +the Social Democratic Federation, the Irish National League, and certain +Radical clubs that their members should assemble at various centres and +march toward Trafalgar Square. Morris put himself at the head of the +Clerkenwell contingent, first delivering a short speech mounted on a cart +in company with Mrs. Besant and others. He declared that wherever it was +attempted to put down free speech it was a bounden duty to resist the +attempt by every possible means, and told his audience that he thought +their business was to get to the Square by some means or other; that he +intended to do his best to get there, whatever the consequences might be, +and that they must press on like orderly people and good citizens. Thus +pressing on, with flags flying and bands playing, they were met at the +Bloomsbury end of St. Martin's Lane by the police, mounted and on foot, +who charged in among them, striking right and left, and causing complete +disorder in the ranks. The triumph of law and order over the various +columns of the demonstrators was soon complete, and the outcome consisted +of the arrest of three hundred men or more (many of whom were sent to +prison and a few condemned to penal servitude) and the killing of three. +The first to die was Alfred Linnell, for whom a public funeral was +given--great masses of men marching in perfect and solemn order to Bow +Cemetery, where he was buried, the service at the grave being read by the +light of a lantern. Such an event would inevitably stir Morris to +sympathetic rage, and the dirge written by him to be sung as poor Linnell +was buried has an inflammatory sound despite the obvious effort at +restraint: + + We asked them for a life of toilsome earning, + They bade us bide their leisure for our bread; + We craved to speak to tell our woful learning, + We came back speechless, bearing back our dead! + +Thus time was spent. Sometimes Morris was heading processions "with the +face of a Crusader," says Joseph Pennell, describing one occasion on which +he led a crowd, "among the red flags, singing with all his might the +_Marseillaise_"--into Westminster Abbey to attend the Sunday services. +Sometimes he was bailing out his friends who had been "run in" by the +police. Sometimes he was tramping, whatever the weather, at the head of +the workless workers of Hammersmith to interview the Guardians of the +Poor. Sometimes he was delivering his lectures among woful hovels in +tumbledown sheds to a score or so of people of whose comprehension he felt +most doubtful. Always he was preaching "Education toward Revolution," but +with an ever-increasing consciousness that a vast amount of education was +needed before revolution could be effectively reforming. His imagination +had formed great ideals and had pictured those ideals in triumphant +practice, but his practical sense was sufficient to show him the futility +of unintelligent action. He had spent much money, not in profit-sharing +among his workmen (although this obtained to a certain extent in his +business), but in bearing the various and heavy expenses imposed by the +publication of the organs of Socialism, which he supported almost as +largely by his purse as by his pen, and by a thousand other needs of the +cause to which in 1882 he had also sacrificed the greater part of his +valuable library. He had spent much time, which, to one so deeply +interested in pursuits for which any one life is far too short, meant +infinitely more than the expenditure of money or the relinquishing of +property that, after all, may be got back again. And he had worked against +the grain with all sorts and conditions of companions, from whom he was as +widely separated as the east is from the west--never more widely than when +he was marching by their side toward a goal that neither could see +clearly. He was now longing more and more to get back to his own life and +away from a life so foreign. As he had said in the first flush of his +enthusiasm, "Art must go under," he was now prepared "to see all organised +Socialism run into the sand for a while." It is not surprising that he +"somehow did not seem to care much" when the Socialist League became +disintegrated and insolvent. He had done his best for it, but its +strongest members had drifted away from it, the executive control had been +gained by a group of Anarchists, and Morris had been by these deposed +from the editorship of the _Commonweal_. Before the society reached its +lowest depths he resigned, giving expression in the _Commonweal_ for the +15th of November, 1890, to his feeling in the form it then took toward the +movement which so long had carried him out of his course and kept him in +turbulent waters. This movement had then been going on for about seven +years. Those concerned in it had made, he thought, "about as many mistakes +as any other party in a similar space of time." When he first joined it he +hoped that some leaders would turn up among the workingmen who "would push +aside all middle-class help and become great historical figures." This +hope he had pretty well relinquished. In the beginning there had been +little said about anything save the great ideals of Socialism, but as the +Socialist idea had become more and more impressed upon the epoch a +somewhat vulgarised and partial realisation of these ideals had pressed +upon the friends of the cause. They began to think of methods, and mostly +of "methods of impatience," as Morris from his ripened and moderated point +of view now designated them. "There are two tendencies in this matter of +methods," he said; "on the one hand is our old acquaintance, palliation, +elevated now into vastly greater importance than it used to have, because +of the growing discontent, and the obvious advance of Socialism; on the +other is the method of partial, necessarily futile, inconsequent revolt, +or riot rather, against the authorities, who are our absolute masters, and +can easily put it down. + +"With both these methods I disagree; and that the more because the +palliatives have to be clamoured for, and the riots carried out by men who +do not know what Socialism is, and have no idea what their next step is to +be, if, contrary to all calculation, they should happen to be successful. +Therefore, at the best, our masters would be our masters still, because +there would be nothing to take their place. _We are not ready for such a +change as that!_" The time was favourable, he thought, for preaching the +simple principles of Socialism regardless of the policy of the passing +hour, nor was any more active work desirable. "I say, for us _to make +Socialists_," he concluded, "is _the_ business at present, and at present +I do not think we can have any other useful business. Those who are not +really Socialists--who are Trades Unionists, disturbance-breeders, or what +not--will do what they are impelled to do, and we cannot help it. At the +worst there will be some good in what they do; but we need not and cannot +heartily work with them, when we know that their methods are beside the +right way. + +"Our business, I repeat, is the making of Socialists, _i.e._, convincing +people that Socialism is good for them and is possible. When we have +enough people of that way of thinking, _they_ will find out what action is +necessary for putting their principles in practice. Therefore, I say, +make Socialists. We Socialists can do nothing else that is useful." + +This was practically the end of militant Socialism for Morris. Together +with a handful of his true followers and sympathisers he did organise or +reorganise under very simple rules a little society named the Hammersmith +Socialist Society, which took the place of the Hammersmith Branch of the +Socialist League. The manifesto explained that the separation had been +made because the members of the new society did not hold the Anarchistic +views of the majority of the old society's members, and would be likely to +waste in bickering time "which should be spent in attacking capitalism." +The business of the Hammersmith Society was to spread the principles of +Socialism, the method so warmly recommended by Morris in his _Commonweal_ +article. But it was obvious that his interest was no longer keen in even +this passive mode of advancing the cause for which he had laboured so long +and, on the whole, so thanklessly. He set himself dutifully to work at +writing the manifesto, but complained, "I would so much rather go on with +my Saga work." + +It cannot be said, however, that he was inconsistent. He had gone into +militant Socialism as he went into everything, with a superabundant energy +that must work itself off in activity. But there was more vehemence than +narrowness in his partisanship. When his party forsook the principles for +the sake of which he had joined it, he forsook the party. He learned of +human nature much that was discouraging during his efforts to make many of +his fellows work together in harmony, but he brought out of the fiery +experience an unharmed ideal. And among the clashing of creeds and the +warring of minds he played the part of peacemaker to an extent remarkable +in so impulsive a nature. "It seemed as though he wanted to have all his +own way," says one of his acquaintances, "yet put him in the chair at a +meeting and he was as patient as the mildest of us." His inmost belief was +much the same at the end as at the beginning,--matured by study and +tempered by practical failures, but holding to the fundamental idea that +art is the great source of pleasure in human life as well as pleasure's +best result, and must be made possible for everyone to practise with a +free mind and a body unwearied by hopeless toil. The letter to the _Daily +Chronicle_ of the 10th of November, 1893, on "Help for the Miners, the +Deeper Meaning of the Struggle," sounds the familiar note as positively as +ever, and contains all that is required to represent the creed of his +later years. "I hold firmly to the opinion," he says in this letter, "that +all worthy schools of art must be in the future, as they have been in the +past, the outcome of the aspirations of the people towards the beauty and +true pleasure of life. And, further, now that democracy is building up a +new order, which is slowly emerging from the confusion of the commercial +period, these aspirations of the people towards beauty can only be born +from a condition of practical equality, of economical condition amongst +the whole population. Lastly, I am so confident that this equality will be +gained that I am prepared to accept, as a consequence of the process of +that gain, the apparent disappearance of what art is now left us, because +I am sure that that will be but a temporary loss, to be followed by a +genuine new birth of art which will be the spontaneous expression of the +pleasure of life innate in the whole people. This, I say, is the art which +I look forward to, not as a vague dream, but as a practical certainty, +founded on the general well-being of the people. It is true that the +blossom of it I shall not see; therefore I may be excused if, in common +with other artists, I try to express myself through the art of to-day, +which seems to us to be only a survival of the organic art of the past, in +which the people shared, whatever the other drawbacks of their condition +might have been.... Yet if we shall not (those of us who are as old as I +am) see the New Art, the expression of the general pleasure of life, we +are even now seeing the seed of it beginning to germinate. For if genuine +art be impossible without the help of the useful classes, how can these +turn their attention to it if they are living amidst sordid cares which +press upon them day in, day out? The first step, therefore, towards the +new birth of art must be a definite rise in the condition of the workers; +their livelihood must (to say the least of it) be less niggardly and less +precarious, and their hours of labour shorter; and this improvement must +be a general one and confirmed against the chances of the market by +legislation. But, again, this change for the better can only be realised +by the efforts of the workers themselves. 'By us, and not for us,' must be +their motto.... What these staunch miners have been doing in the face of +such tremendous odds other workmen can and will do; and when life is +easier and fuller of pleasure people will have time to look around them +and find out what they desire in the matter of art, and will also have +time to compass their desires." + +Just why Morris with his extreme independence stopped short of Anarchism +is difficult to see unless it be attributed to an instinct for order +inherited from the sturdy stock to which he belonged. The necessity of a +public rule of action was always, however, quite clear to him. He +contended that you have a right to do as you like so long as you do not +interfere with your neighbour's right to do as he likes, a contention +which not even a fairly conservative mind finds very difficult to uphold: +he was not willing to admit the right of an individual to act +"unsocially." Indeed all the charm of his pictures of the ideal life +derives from the atmosphere of loving-kindness and mutual helpfulness with +which he surrounds them. The Golden Rule was always in his mind as he +built up in his imagination his Paradise on earth. He possessed the +optimism of the kind-hearted, the faith in his fellow men that made him +sure of their right acting could they only start afresh with a field clear +of injury and abuse. He never dreamed in all his dreaming that these would +again grow up and destroy the beautiful fabric of his new Society, so +bright and unspotted in his mind. Of course there would be a social +conscience "which, being social, is common to every man." Without that +there could be no society; and "Man without society is not only impossible +but inconceivable." Thus he argued and thus he believed. His militant +Socialism had, while it lasted, a very dangerous side. His Socialist +"principles" are easily torn to ribbons by the political economist in +possession of facts showing the increasing prosperity of the working +classes and their increasing interest under existing conditions in the +arts and in education; but regarding his views merely as representing one +aspect of his impressive personality, it is easy to find them attractive. +To quote what the _Pall Mall Gazette_ said of the Sunday evenings at the +Hammersmith Hall, "They are patches of bright colour in the great drab, +dreary, dull, and dirty world." They bring with them such thoughts as +Arnold had of the repose that has fled "for ever the course of the river +of Time." The spirit breathed through them in strong contrast to the +spirit of many of his co-workers, ennobles all efforts toward true reform, +diffuses the love of humanity among a cold people, and makes for the +innocent and exquisite happiness which our human nature is so apt +paradoxically to deny us. In Morris's world we should all be very happy if +we were like Morris. He was not very happy in our world, yet perhaps he +managed to get out of it as much of the joy of doing as it can be made to +yield to any one man. His Socialism, from one point of view, was certainly +a tremendous failure, but no other side of his life visible to the public +at large showed so plainly his moral virtues, his generosity, his +sincerity, his power of self-sacrifice, his effort toward self-control. It +was significant that when, with a last rally of his forces to active work +for the cause, he joined in a concerted effort to unite all Socialists +into a single party, he was chosen as the best man for the purpose, all +the societies having "a deep regard and respect for him." It is even more +significant that his own employees in his large business also esteemed him +highly, feeling the sincerity with which he tried to make his practices +accord with his theories. If his business was a successful one it was not +because he tried to get from his workmen the utmost he could claim in time +and labour. The eight-hour working-day was in practice in the Merton +factory, and the wages paid were the highest known in the trade. He was +free from the self-complacency that gives to justice the name of charity, +and he was not distinguished for civility toward the people under his +direction, but he was, they said in their emphatic and expressive +vernacular, "the sort of bloke you always could depend upon." + +Toward the end of his activity for the cause of Socialism he became +connected with a society which perhaps would not have existed without his +influence, although he was not directly responsible for its formation. +This was the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society [founded in 1888], the +aims of which were described by one of its members in the following words: +"To assert the possibilities of Art in design, applied even to the least +pretentious purpose and in every kind of handicraft; to protest against +the absolute subjection of Art in its applied form to the interests of +that extravagant waste of human energy which is called economic +production; to claim for the artist or handicraftsman, whose identity it +has been the rule to hide and whose artistic impulse it has been the +custom to curb (until he was really in danger of becoming, in fact as in +name, a mere hand), some recognition and some measure of appreciation; to +try and discover whether the public cared at all, or could be brought to +care, for the Art which, good or bad, is continually under their eyes; and +whether there might not be, in association with manufacture, or apart from +it, if that were out of the question, some scope for handicraft, some hope +for Art." + +Morris's point of view is apparent in these aims, and the society was +composed chiefly of young men who, says Mr. Mackail, "without following +his principles to their logical issues or joining any Socialist +organisation, were profoundly permeated with his ideas on their most +fruitful side,--that of the regeneration, by continued and combined +individual effort, of the decaying arts of life." The Art Workers' Guild, +dating from 1884, was the source from which the new society sprang, the +immediate purpose of the latter being to get the work of men who combined +art with handicraft before the public by means of exhibitions, the +committees of the Royal Academy and kindred associations refusing to +accept examples of applied art for the exhibitions which they devoted to +what they called "fine art proper." Mr. Mackail calls attention to the +fact that Morris at this stage of his life was so thoroughly imbued with +the idea that the general public were ignorant of and indifferent to +decorative art, as to feel more sceptical of the success of the +exhibitions than was justified by their outcome. He lent his aid, however, +with his customary energy, guaranteeing a considerable sum of money, and +contributing some valuable papers and lectures, the exhibitions being +combined with instruction by acknowledged masters of handicraft. In 1891 +he was elected President of the Society, holding that office until the +time of his death, when he was succeeded by Walter Crane. He was a member +of the Art Workers' Guild as well, and was elected Master of the Guild in +1892. He also belonged to the Bibliographical Society formed in that year, +and in 1894 was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. +The societies were all directly concerned with questions in which Morris +had all his life been interested, and his connection with them was not +only natural but almost inevitable. He was not a man to whom public +business made a strong appeal. He undertook it with reluctance and +relinquished it with delight. Nor did he care for the labels of +distinction for which most men, even among the greatly distinguished, have +a measure of regard. He was, however, gratified when, in 1882, he was +unanimously elected Honorary Fellow of Exeter College at Oxford, an honour +which is rarely conferred, and is generally reserved, says Mr. Mackail, +"for old members who have attained the highest official rank in their +profession." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +LITERATURE OF THE SOCIALIST PERIOD. + + +Despite the large amount of time and comparatively unproductive thought +given by Morris to his Socialism, the period of his greatest activity in +this direction was not without result in the field of pure literature. The +years from 1884 to 1890 were crowded with pamphlets, leaflets, newspaper +articles, manifestoes, and treatises, all with the one object--the making +of Socialists. Many of these were more or less works of art--but of art in +fetters; in the main they bore sad witness to the havoc made in the +aesthetic life of their author by his propagandising policy, and in their +deadly dulness betrayed the unwillingness of his mind to labour in a field +so foreign to it. Not even the overwhelming tasks imposed upon him +sufficed, however, to subdue entirely his restless imagination. From time +to time in the arid desert of his writings for "the cause" a poem of +romance appeared of a quality to show that the sap still ran in the +products of his mind. Between the first issue of _The Commonweal_ and the +inauguration of the Kelmscott Press he wrote in the following order: _The +Pilgrims of Hope_, _A Dream of John Ball_, _The House of the Wolfings_, +_The Roots of the Mountains_, and _News from Nowhere_. + +Each is interesting as throwing a varied yet steady light upon his mental +processes, and the first is especially interesting despite its conspicuous +defects, as one of the very few examples of its author's style when +treating a subject belonging to the actual present, not to the past or +future. In it the reader leaves dreamland and is confronted by modern +problems and situations set forth in plain modern English. A garden is no +longer a garth, a dwelling-place is no longer a stead, the writer no +longer wots and meseems. So violent a change in vocabulary could hardly be +accomplished with entire success; at all events it was not, and much of +the phraseology is an affliction to the ear, showing a peculiarly +deficient taste in the use of a style uninspired by mediaeval tradition. +Yet, withal, _The Pilgrims of Hope_ is touched with life, as many of +Morris's more artful compositions are not. The old bottles will not always +serve for the new wine, Lowell warns us, and there is a noticeably +quickening element in this wine poured from the bottle of the day. It is +mentioned in Mr. Mackail's biography that Morris once began to write a +modern novel, but left it unfinished. The fabric of _The Pilgrims of Hope_ +is that of a modern novel, and the characters and incidents are such as +Morris might easily have found in his daily path. A country couple leading +a life of peaceful simplicity go down to London, and among the sordid +influences of the town become converts to Socialism. Much that follows may +be considered a record of Morris's personal experience. The husband in the +poem tries, as Morris tried, to learn the grounds of the Socialist faith, +and takes up, as he did, the burden of spreading it among an indifferent +people. The following description might very well have been culled from +the diary kept by Morris during a part of his period of militant +Socialism, but it must be confessed that the balance of poetic charm is +all in favour of the account in the diary. + + I read day after day + Whatever books I could handle, and heard about and about + What talk was going amongst them; and I burned up doubt after doubt, + Until it befell at last that to others I needs must speak + (Indeed, they pressed me to that while yet I was weaker than weak). + So I began the business, and in street-corners I spake + To knots of men. Indeed, that made my very heart ache, + So hopeless it seemed, for some stood by like men of wood. + And some, though fain to listen, but a few words understood; + And some but hooted and jeered: but whiles across some I came + Who were keen and eager to hear; as in dry flax the flame + So the quick thought flickered amongst them: and that indeed was a + feast. + So about the streets I went, and the work on my hands increased; + And to say the very truth, betwixt the smooth and the rough + It was work, and hope went with it, and I liked it well enough. + +A similar passage, also showing the style at its worst, renders the actual +scene encountered by Morris at many a lecture, and contains a careful +portrait of himself as he appeared in his own eyes on such occasions. For +the sake of its accuracy its touch of self-consciousness may well be +forgiven. Not a conceited man, and curiously averse to mirrors, Morris was +not in the habit of using their psychological counterparts, and it is +impossible to surprise him in the act of posing to himself in becoming +attitudes. There is, therefore, no irritation to the mind in his +occasional frank assumption of interest in himself as a feature of the +landscape, so to speak. Here he is on the Socialist platform as the +Pilgrim of Hope beholds him, the Pilgrim explaining how it happened that +he got upon his track. + + This is how it befell: a workman of mine had heard + Some bitter speech in my mouth, and he took me up at the word, + And said: "Come over to-morrow to our Radical spouting-place; + For there, if we hear nothing new, at least we shall see a new face; + He is one of those Communist chaps, and 'tis like that you two may + agree." + So we went, and the street was as dull and as common as aught you + could see. + Dull and dirty the room. Just over the chairman's chair + Was a bust, a Quaker's face with nose cocked up in the air. + There were common prints on the walls of the heads of the party fray, + And Mazzini dark and lean amidst them gone astray. + Some thirty men we were of the kind that I knew full well, + Listless, rubbed down to the type of our easy-going hell. + My heart sank down as I entered, and wearily there I sat + While the chairman strove to end his maunder of this and that. + + And partly shy he seemed, and partly indeed ashamed + Of the grizzled man beside him as his name to us he named; + He rose, thickset and short, and dressed in shabby blue, + And even as he began it seemed as though I knew + The thing he was going to say, though I never heard it before. + He spoke, were it well, were it ill, as though a message he bore. + A word that he could not refrain from many a million of men. + Nor aught seemed the sordid room and the few that were listening then + Save the hall of the labouring earth and the world which was to be, + Bitter to many the message, but sweet indeed unto me, + And every soul rejoicing in the sweet and bitter of life: + Of peace and good-will he told, and I knew that in faith he spake, + But his words were my very thoughts, and I saw the battle awake, + And I followed from end to end! and triumph grew in my heart + As he called on each that heard him to arise and play his part + In the tale of the new-told gospel, lest as slaves they should live and + die. + + He ceased, and I thought the hearers would rise up with one cry, + And bid him straight enroll them; but they, they applauded indeed, + For the man was grown full eager, and had made them hearken and heed. + But they sat and made no sign, and two of the glibber kind + Stood up to jeer and to carp his fiery words to blind. + + I did not listen to them, but failed not his voice to hear + When he rose to answer the carpers, striving to make more clear + That which was clear already; not overwell, I knew + He answered the sneers and the silence, so hot and eager he grew; + But my hope full well he answered, and when he called again + On men to band together lest they live and die in vain, + In fear lest he should escape me, I rose ere the meeting was done, + And gave him my name and my faith--and I was the only one. + He smiled as he heard the jeers, and there was a shake of the hand, + He spoke like a friend long known; and lo! I was one of the band. + +There is nothing impressive in such rhyming save its message, the form +costing little trouble and awakening little interest. Here, obviously, +Morris, like Dante, would rather his readers should find his doctrine +sweet than his verses. Parts of the poem are, however, upon a much higher +plane of accomplishment. The first section, called _The Message of the +March Wind_, contains exquisite images and moves to a fresh elastic +measure; a world both real and lovely being evoked by the opening stanzas: + + Fair now is the springtide, now earth lies beholding + With the eyes of a lover the face of the sun; + Long lasteth the daylight, and hope is enfolding + The green-growing acres with increase begun. + + Now sweet, sweet it is through the land to be straying + 'Mid the birds and the blossoms and the beasts of the fields; + Love mingles with love and no evil is weighing + On thy heart or mine, where all sorrow is healed. + + From township to township, o'er down and by tillage + Fair, far have we wandered and long was the day, + But now cometh eve at the end of the village, + Where o'er the grey wall the church riseth grey. + + There is wind in the twilight; in the white road before us + The straw from the ox-yard is blowing about; + The moon's rim is rising, a star glitters o'er us, + And the vane on the spire-top is swinging in doubt. + + Down there dips the highway, toward the bridge crossing over + The brook that runs on to the Thames and the sea. + Draw closer, my sweet, we are lover and lover; + This eve art thou given to gladness and me. + +In the course of the poem the Pilgrims are called to Paris by the voice of +the Revolution, and there the wife is killed. Interwoven with the main +incidents is the domestic tragedy most familiar to fiction, the alienation +of the wife's affections by one of the husband's friends. Morris in his +treatment of this situation shows a peculiarly fine and tender quality, +sufficiently rare in life itself and seldom to be found in pictures of +life. He preserves the dignity of his unhappy characters by a delicate +sincerity in their attitude toward one another and by an immeasurable +gentleness and self-forgetfulness on the part of the one most wronged. A +similar situation in _News from Nowhere_ is made trivial and consequently +revolting by the impression it gives that it was created to illustrate a +theory. In no place does _The Pilgrims of Hope_ give such an impression. +It is a drawing from life, clumsy and summary enough in outline, yet +firm and expressive of the thing seen, and with power to convey a genuine +emotion. + +[Illustration: _Portrait of Mrs. Morris_ + +_By Rossetti_] + +_The Pilgrims of Hope_ appeared serially in _The Commonweal_ during +1885-1886. It was soon followed by a romance called _The Dream of John +Ball_. This subject with its mediaeval setting suited Morris well, and was +treated by him in his ripest and strongest vein. Although the story opens +in a lightly facetious manner, never a particularly happy one with him, +its tone as it proceeds is that of subdued and stately pathos. The writer +dreams himself in a village of Kent, where men are hanging upon the words +of that poor tutor of Oxford, the "Mad Priest," preaching the equality of +gentle and villein on the text + + When Adam dalf, and Eve span + Who was thanne a gentilman? + +Apparently the dream is the result of a mournfully retrospective mood. The +dreamer hears the plain and stirring speech of John Ball, listens to his +eager appeal to the men of Kent that they help their brethren of Essex +cast off the yoke placed upon them by bailiff and lord, and to his +prophecies that in the days to come, when they are free from masters, "man +shall help man, and the saints in heaven shall be glad, because men no +more fear each other ... and fellowship shall be established in heaven and +on the earth." But knowledge of the later time penetrates the dream, and +the dreamer ponders "how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing +that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it +comes it turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight +for what they meant under another name." At this time Morris was realising +in some bitterness of heart that the thing for which he had fought was +turning out to be not what he had meant, and the talk between John Ball +and the dreamer concerning the future, of which the latter can reveal the +secret, is eloquent of sober and noble resignation. The reformer of the +earlier age receives with serenity the assurance that his sacrifice will +count only as failure in the eyes of the coming generations, since with it +goes the further assurance that men will continue to seek a remedy for +their wrongs. But we read in the conception the author's foreboding that +his own efforts toward the reconstitution of society are also doomed. The +dreamer meditates, with an insight born of personal experience and +disappointment, upon the darkness of our vision and the difficulty of +directing our steps toward our actual goal. Morris obviously traced in +John Ball's action a parallel to his own. What happened to the one was +what might happen to the other. The hope that inspired the one was the +same as inspired the other. The mistakes of the one were akin to the +mistakes of the other. Thus, this prose romance, of all that Morris wrote, +is warmest and most personal. The historical setting is an aid, not an +obstacle, to the imagination. The pathos of the real life touched upon, +the knowledge that the hopeful spirit of the preacher was once alive in +the land, and that the response of the men of Kent was given in truth and +with the might of angry, living hearts, lends a certain solidity and +vitality to the figures and inspires Morris to a sturdier treatment of his +material than legends could force from him. Had some of the marvellous +activity that later went toward the making of purely imaginary situations +and characters been spent upon realising for us the individual lives of +more of the mediaeval workers and thinkers, so vivid to Morris and so dim +to most of us, the result might not have been history, but it would have +been literature of a rare and felicitous type. + +In April, 1888, _The Dream of John Ball_ was reprinted from _The +Commonweal_ in one volume, together with a short story based on the life +of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, and called _A King's Lesson_. This +also had appeared in _The Commonweal_ under the title of "An Old Story +Retold." + +Hard upon this little volume followed _The House of the Wolfings_, a +war-story of the early Middle Ages, and significant as forming, with its +immediate successor, a link between old interests and new, marking its +author's return to the writing of pure romance, and also his first +awakening to an active interest in the typography of his books. The +subject is derived from the ancient literature, half myth, half history, +in which he had long been steeped, but in its treatment lurks a suggestion +of the great moral excitement of the Socialist campaign. Thiodulf, the +hero, beloved by a goddess, is the war-duke of a Gothic host and, on the +verge of battle with Roman legionaries, is deceived into wearing a hauberk +wrought by the dwarfs, the peculiar quality of which lies in its power to +preserve the wearer's life at the cost of defeat for his army. Learning of +this, Thiodulf removes the magic armour in time to gain his victory, but +in the moment of triumph he is killed. His exaltation of mood in thus +renouncing life suggests a spiritual ambition different from that commonly +associated with the gods and heroes of the early world, and conveys the +message by which Morris was at once burdened and inspired: that individual +life may cheerfully be sacrificed if the life of the many is saved or +elevated thereby. How far a war-duke of the Goths would have felt the +compensatory sense that he was gaining immortality through the effect of +his deeds on the destiny of his people was probably not in his mind. He +himself, despite his constitutional horror of death, would perhaps not +have been sorry at this time to lay off his hauberk if he could have been +certain of the victory. Throughout the history of Thiodulf runs an +elevated ethical intention absent from Morris's later romances. The +dignity and seriousness of the women, the nobility of the men, the social +unity of the Marksmen, and the high standard of thought and action +maintained by them as a community place the interest on a high plane. The +shadow of an idealised Socialism intensifies the relations of the +characters to one another, and the reader familiar with the course of the +author's life interprets the narrative as an expression of personal +feeling and moral conviction not without pathos in its contrast to the +actual world in which Morris was moving and in which he found what he +conceived to be his duty so repugnant to his tastes. + +Indirectly the book was to open the way for his escape by filling his mind +with an enthusiasm along the natural line of his gifts, a zest for further +accomplishment in the field he loved that was not to be withstood. It was +printed at the Chiswick Press, and owing to a new interest in fine +printing due to his intercourse with Mr. Emery Walker, Morris chose for it +a quaint and little-known fount of type cut by Howard half a century +before, and gave much attention to the details of its appearance. With all +his familiarity with mediaeval books, and his delight in illustration and +illumination, he was still ignorant of the art of spacing and type +designing. He had characteristically concentrated his attention on the +special feature in which he was interested,--in the case of the old books, +the woodcuts and ornaments,--and had passed over even the most marked +characteristics which later were to absorb his whole attention. An +anecdote told by Mr. Buxton Forman shows the extent to which he +subordinated all other questions to the now supreme problem of a handsome +page, and also the adaptability of his mind, never at a loss to meet an +emergency. Mr. Forman had run across him at the Chiswick Press, whither +he had repaired to settle some final points concerning his title-page. +Presently down came the proof of the page. "It did not read quite as now," +says Mr. Forman; "the difference, I think, was in the fourth and fifth +lines where the words stood 'written in prose and verse by William +Morris.' Now unhappily the words and the type did not so accord as to come +up to Morris's standard of decorativeness. The line wanted tightening up; +there was a three-cornered consultation between the Author, the Manager, +and myself. The word _in_ was to be inserted--'written in prose and in +verse'--to gain the necessary fulness of line. I mildly protested that the +former reading was the better sense and that it should not be sacrificed +to avoid a slight excess of white that no one would notice. 'Ha!' said +Morris, 'now what would you say if I told you that the verses on the +title-page were written just to fill up the great white lower half? Well, +that was what happened!'" The verses thus produced to fill a purely +decorative need were the following, as delicate and filled with tender +sentiment as any written by Morris under the most genuine inspiration--if +one may assume that any inspiration was more genuine with him than the +spur of a problem in decoration: + + Whiles in the early winter eve + We pass amid the gathering night + Some homestead that we had to leave + Years past; and see its candles bright + Shine in the room beside the door + Where we were merry years agone + But now must never enter more, + As still the dark road drives us on. + E'en so the world of men may turn + At even of some hurried day + And see the ancient glimmer burn + Across the waste that hath no way; + Then with that faint light in its eyes + Awhile I bid it linger near + And nurse in wavering memories + The bitter-sweet of days that were. + +In glee over the fine appearance of _The House of the Wolfings_ as it came +from the press, Morris passed on to his next book, _The Roots of the +Mountains_, also a romance suggesting the saga literature, but without the +mythological element. The setting hints at history without belonging to +any especial time or place. The plan is quite complicated in incident, and +the love-story involved has a modern tinge. Gold-mane, a chieftain of +Burgdale, is betrothed to a damsel somewhat prematurely named the Bride. +By a magic spell he is drawn through the woods to the Shadowy Vale where +he meets a daughter of the Kindred of the Wolf, called Sunbeam, with whom +he falls in love. It is a touch characteristic of Morris that makes +Gold-mane in describing his old love to the new loyally give the former +all the credit of her charm. "Each day she groweth fairer," he says to the +maiden who is already her rival in his affections; "there is no man's son +and no daughter of woman that does not love her; yea, the very beasts of +field and fold love her." Presently an alliance is formed between the men +of Burgdale and the Kindred of the Wolf for the purpose of attacking their +common enemy, the Dusky Men, who belong to a race of Huns. Attached to the +allied forces is a band of Amazons, and the two brave ladies, the Sunbeam +and the Bride, show themselves valorous in battle. The attack on the Dusky +Men is victorious, and peace returns to the valleys. In the meantime +Gold-mane has firmly, though with gentle words, told the Bride of his +intention of breaking his pledge to her, and the Sunbeam's brother, +Folkmight, has been moved by compassion and finally by love for the +deserted maiden, who consents to be his wife. It is quite in accord with +the ideal established by Morris in his works of fiction, as indeed in his +life, that sincerity takes the leading place among the virtues of his +characters. It requires a certain defiance of the conventional modern mood +to tolerate Gold-mane, the deserter, as he deals out cold comfort to the +Bride, yet the downright frankness of all these people is a quality so +native to their author as to pierce their unreality and give them the +touch of nature without which they would be made wholly of dreams. + +_The Roots of the Mountains_ was written rapidly and issued with unrelaxed +attention to typographical problems. Its title-page was made even more +satisfactory than that of its predecessor, and the device of introducing a +little poem to fill up the ugly white space in the centre was again +employed. The lines in this case have nothing to do with the contents of +the book, though forced into a relation with the author's purpose of +providing "rest" for the reader. They were, in fact, founded upon an +incident of a railway trip when the train passed through meadows in which +hay-making was going on. Mr. Emery Walker was with Morris, and as they saw +the hay-cocks defrauded by the summer breeze he exclaimed, "A subject for +your title-page!" "Aye," said Morris, and jotted it down in his manuscript +book. + +_The Roots of the Mountains_ was a favourite with Morris, and he planned +for it an edition on Whatman paper and bound in two patterns of Morris and +Company's chintz. Some of the paper ordered for this edition was left +over, and eventually was used by Morris for the first little post-quarto +catalogues and prospectuses printed at Hammersmith. Thus the book formed a +material link between the Chiswick Press and the Kelmscott Press. + +Before the establishment of the latter, however, Morris gave one more book +to Socialism. His _News from Nowhere_ was the last of his works to appear +in _The Commonweal_ and was almost immediately reprinted from its pages by +an American publisher. It is an account of the civilised world as it might +be made, according to Morris's belief, by the application of his +principles of Socialism to life in general and in particular. In 1889 he +had reviewed for _The Commonweal_ Mr. Bellamy's _Looking Backward_, with +how much approbation may readily be imagined. As an expression of the +temperament of its author he considered it interesting, but as a +reconstructive theory unsafe and misleading. "I believe," he said, "that +the ideal of the future does not point to the lessening of man's energy by +the reduction of _labour_ to a minimum, but rather to the reduction of +_pain in labour_ to a minimum so small that it will cease to be pain; a +gain to humanity which can only be dreamed of till men are more completely +equal than Mr. Bellamy's Utopia would allow them to be, but which will +most assuredly come about when men are really equal in condition; although +it is probable that much of our so-called 'refinement,' our luxury,--in +short, our civilisation,--will have to be sacrificed to it." Early in 1890 +appeared the first instalment of _News from Nowhere_, in which Morris set +himself the task of correcting the impression produced by Mr. Bellamy's +views of the future by substituting his own picture of a reconstructed +society, from which all the machinery that in _Looking Backward_ was +brought to so high a degree of efficiency is banished, and the natural +energies of man are employed to his complete satisfaction. Homer's +_Odyssey_, which Morris at this time was translating by way of refreshment +and amusement, may well have served as a partial inspiration for the +brilliant, delicate descriptions of handicrafts practised by the +art-loving people of Nowhere. We read in both of lovely embroideries; of +fine woven stuffs, soft and pliant in texture, and deeply dyed in rich +forgotten colours of antiquity; of the quaint elaboration and charm of +metals wrought into intricate designs; of all beautiful ornament to be +gained from the zeal of skilled and sensitive fingers. The image is before +us in _News from Nowhere_ of a life as busy and as bright as that of the +ancient Greeks, whose cunning hands could do everything save divide use +from beauty. As a natural consequence of happy labour, the inhabitants of +Nowhere have also the superb health and personal beauty of the Greeks. +Their women of forty and fifty have smooth skins and fresh colour, bright +eyes and a free walk. Their men have no knowledge of wrinkles and grey +hairs. Everywhere is the freshness and sparkle of the morning. The +pleasant homes nestle in peaceful security among the lavish fruits of the +earth. The water of the Thames flows clean and clear between its banks; +the fragrance of flowers pervades the pages and suggests a perpetual +summer; athletic sports are mingled with athletic occupations. There is +little studying. History is sad and often shameful--why then study it? +Knowledge of geography is not important; it comes to those who care to +travel. Languages one naturally picks up from intercourse with the people +of other countries. Political economy? When one practises good fellowship +what need of theories? Mathematics? They would wrinkle the brow; moreover, +one learns all that is necessary of them by building houses and bridges +and putting things together in the right way. It is not surprising that +in this buoyant life filled with active interests, the religion of which +is good-will and mutual helpfulness, the thought of death is not a welcome +one. A dweller in Nowhere admits that in the autumn he almost believes in +death; but no one entertains such a belief longer than he must. Thus we +get in this fair idyll the purely visible side of the society depicted. +The depths of the human heart and of the human soul are left unsounded. To +have what they desire, what is claimed by their hands, by their eyes, by +their senses, is the aim of the people. Renunciation, like mathematics, +would wrinkle the brow. Arbitrary restraint is not to be considered. +Nothing is binding, neither marriage vow nor labour contract, or, to speak +more precisely, neither marriage vow nor contract for labour exists. The +people live, as we are told, as some of the so-called savages in the South +Seas really do live,--in a state of interdependence so perfect that if an +individual lays down an obligation the community takes it up. For the +fading of life, for the death that may not delay till autumn to thrust +itself upon the attention, for the development of spiritual strength to +meet an enemy against whom art and beauty will not avail, for the battle +with those temptations of the flesh that are not averted by health and +comeliness, no provision is made. The author's philosophy is that work, +under pleasant conditions will do away with all the evils of both soul and +body. + +As a document for active Socialists _News from Nowhere_ is not effective. +Absolutely without any basis of economic generalisation, it is merely the +fabric of a vision. At the time of writing it Morris was cutting the last +threads that bound him to conventional Socialist bodies. He was making +ready to live again, so far as modernity would let him, the life he loved. +"No work that cannot be done with pleasure in the doing is worth doing," +was a maxim counted by him of the first importance, and assuredly he had +not found pleasure in the management of Socialist organisations. His last +Socialist book rings with the joy of his release. On its title-page it +appears as _Some Chapters from a Utopian Romance_, and it is interesting +to see how he regarded the original _Utopia_, to Ralph Robinson's +translation of which he wrote a preface, issuing it from his own press in +1893. His interpretation of Sir Thomas More's attitude is not the +conventional one, and is inspired chiefly by his own attitude toward the +great social question which he continued to ponder, insisting still upon +his hope for a new earth. + +"Ralph Robinson's translation of More's _Utopia_," he says, "would not +need any foreword if it were to be looked upon merely as a beautiful book +embodying the curious fancies of a great writer and thinker of the period +of the Renaissance. No doubt till within the last few years it has been +considered by the moderns as nothing more serious than a charming literary +exercise, spiced with the interest given to it by the allusions to the +history of the time, and by our knowledge of the career of its author. But +the change of ideas concerning 'the best state of a publique weale,' which +I will venture to say is the great event of the end of this century, has +thrown a fresh light upon the book; so that now to some it seems not so +much a regret for days which might have been, as (in its essence) a +prediction of a state of society which will be. In short this work of the +scholar and Catholic, of the man who resisted what has seemed to most the +progressive movement of his own time, has in our days become a Socialist +tract familiar to the meetings and debating rooms of the political party +which was but lately like 'the cloud as big as a man's hand.' Doubtless +the _Utopia_ is a necessary part of a Socialist's library; yet it seems to +me that its value as a book for the study of sociology is rather historic +than prophetic, and that we Socialists should look upon it as a link +between the surviving Communism of the Middle Ages (become hopeless in +More's time, and doomed to be soon wholly effaced by the advancing wave of +Commercial Bureaucracy), and the hopeful and practical progressive +movement of to-day. In fact I think More must be looked upon rather as the +last of the old than the first of the new. + +"Apart from what was yet alive in him of mediaeval Communist tradition, the +spirit of association, which amongst other things produced the Gilds, and +which was strong in the mediaeval Catholic Church itself, other influences +were at work to make him take up his parable against the new spirit of his +age. The action of the period of transition from mediaeval to commercial +society, with all its brutalities, was before his eyes; and though he was +not alone in his time in condemning the injustice and cruelty of the +revolution which destroyed the peasant life of England and turned it into +a grazing farm for the moneyed gentry; creating withal at one stroke the +propertyless wage-earner and the masterless vagrant (hodie 'pauper'), yet +he saw deeper into its root-causes than many other men of his own day, and +left us little to add to his views on this point except a reasonable hope +that those 'causes' will yield to a better form of society before long. + +"Moreover the spirit of the Renaissance, itself the intellectual side of +the very movement which he strove against, was strong in him, and +doubtless helped to create his Utopia by means of the contrast which it +put before his eyes of the ideal free nations of the ancients, and the +sordid welter of the struggle for power in the days of dying feudalism, of +which he himself was a witness. This Renaissance enthusiasm has supplanted +in him the chivalry feeling of the age just passing away. To him war is no +longer a delight of the well-born, but rather an ugly necessity to be +carried on, if so it must be, by ugly means. Hunting and hawking are no +longer the choice pleasures of knight and lady, but are jeered at by him +as foolish and unreasonable pieces of butchery; his pleasures are in the +main the reasonable ones of learning and music. With all this, his +imaginations of the past he must needs read into his ideal vision, +together with his own experiences of his time and people. Not only are +there bond slaves and a king, and priests almost adored, and cruel +punishments for the breach of marriage contract, in that happy island, but +there is throughout an atmosphere of asceticism which has a curiously +blended savour of Cato the Censor and a mediaeval monk. + +"On the subject of war, on capital punishment, the responsibility to the +public of kings and other official personages, and such-like matters, More +speaks words that would not be out of place in the mouth of an +eighteenth-century Jacobin, and at first sight this seems rather to show +sympathy with what is now mere Whigism than with Communism; but it must be +remembered that opinions which have become (in words) the mere commonplace +of ordinary bourgeoise politicians were then looked on as a piece of +startlingly new and advanced thought, and do not put him on the same plane +with the mere radical life of the last generation. + +[Illustration: _Study of Mrs. Morris_ + +_Made by Rossetti for pictures called "The Day Dream"_] + +"In More, then, are met together the man naturally sympathetic with the +Communistic side of mediaeval society, the protestor against the ugly +brutality of the earliest period of commercialism, the enthusiast of the +Renaissance, ever looking toward his idealised ancient society as the type +and example of all really intelligent human life; the man tinged with +the asceticism at once of the classical philosopher and of the monk, an +asceticism, indeed, which he puts forward not so much as a duty but rather +as a kind of stern adornment of life. These are, we may say, the moods of +the man who created _Utopia_ for us; and all are tempered and harmonised +by a sensitive clearness and delicate beauty of style, which make the book +a living work of art. + +"But lastly, we Socialists cannot forget that these qualities and +excellences meet to produce a steady expression of the longing for a +society of equality of condition; a society in which the individual man +can scarcely conceive of his existence apart from the commonwealth of +which he forms a portion. This, which is the essence of his book, is the +essence also of the struggle in which we are engaged. Though, doubtless, +it was the pressure of circumstances in his own days that made More what +he was, yet that pressure forced him to give us, not a vision of the +triumph of the new-born capitalistic society, the element in which lived +the new learning and the freedom of thought of his epoch, but a picture +(his own indeed, not ours) of the real New Birth which many men before him +had desired; and which now indeed we may well hope is drawing near to +realisation, though after such a long series of events which at the time +of their happening seemed to nullify his hopes completely."[1] + +Morris's own hope was never completely nullified; nor was he ever +indifferent to the questions which for nearly a decade had absorbed his +energy. But there was to be little more writing for the sake of Socialism, +save as some public incident called out a public letter. What he had done +covered a wide field. Beside the works already mentioned he had +collaborated with Mr. E. Belfort Bax in a history of the growth and +outcome of Socialism, first published in the _Commonweal_ under the title +of _Socialism from the Root Up_, had written a series of poems called +_Chants for Socialists_, and a series of lectures for "the cause" later +published as _Signs of Change_, and had produced numerous short addresses +to be scattered abroad in the form of penny leaflets that must have been +typographical eyesores to him even before the rise of his enthusiasm for +typography of the finer sort. In addition his bibliographer has to take +into account any number of ephemeral contributions to the press and +"forewords" as he liked to call them, to the works of others, a feature +rarely present in his own books. In the spring of 1890 he wrote the +romance entitled, _The Story of the Glittering Plain_ for the _English +Illustrated Magazine_. When it was brought out in book form the following +year, it was printed at his own press. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE KELMSCOTT PRESS. + + +Although Morris turned with what seemed a sudden inspiration to the study +of typography, it was, as we have already seen, no less than his other +occupations a direct outcome of his early tastes. As long before as 1866 +he had planned a folio edition of _The Earthly Paradise_ with woodcut +illustrations to be designed by Burne-Jones, and printed in a more or less +mediaeval fashion. Burne-Jones made a large number of drawings for the +projected edition, and some thirty-five of those intended for the story of +Cupid and Psyche were cut on wood by Morris himself. Specimen pages were +set up, but the result was not technically satisfying and the idea was +allowed to drop. Later, as we have seen, he had in mind an illustrated and +sumptuous edition of _Love is Enough_, which also came to nothing, +although a number of marginal decorations were drawn and engraved for it. +After that, however, he apparently had been content to have his books +printed in the usual way on machine-made paper with the modern effeminate +type, without further remonstrance than emphatic denunciation of modern +methods in printing as in other handicrafts. About 1888 or 1889, his +Hammersmith neighbour, Mr. Emery Walker, whose love of fine printing was +combined with practical knowledge of methods and processes, awakened in +him a desire for conquest in this field also. He began again collecting +mediaeval books, this time with the purpose of studying their type and +form. Among his acquisitions were a copy of Leonard of Arezzo's _History +of Florence_, printed by Jacobus Rubens in 1476, in a Roman type, and a +copy of Jensen's _Pliny_ of the same year. Parts of these books Morris had +enlarged by the hated process of photography, which in this case aided and +abetted him to some purpose. He could thus study the individual letters +and master the underlying principles of their design. He then proceeded to +design a fount of type for himself with the aim of producing letters fine +and generous in form, solid in line, without "preposterous thicks and +thins," and not compressed laterally, "as all later type has grown to be +owing to commercial exigencies." After he had drawn his letters on a large +scale he had them reduced by photography to the working size and revised +them carefully before submitting them to the typecutter. How minute was +his attention to detail is shown in the little reproduction of one of his +corrected letters with the accompanying notes. This first type of his, +having been founded on the old Roman letters, is of course Roman in +character and is very clear and beautiful in form. The strong broad +letters designed on "something like a square" make easy reading, and there +is nothing about the appearance of the attractive page to suggest +archaism. The fount, consisting of eighty-one designs including stops, +figures, and tied letters, was completed about the beginning of 1891, and +on the 12th of January in that year, a cottage was taken at number 16 +Upper Mall, near the Kelmscott House, a compositor and a pressman were +engaged, and the Kelmscott Press began its career. The new type, which +Morris called the "regenerate" or "Jenson-Morris" type, received its +formal name, "Golden type," from Caxton's _Golden Legend_, which Morris +had intended to reprint as the first work of the Press, and which was +undertaken as soon as _The Glittering Plain_ was out of the way. Caxton's +first edition of 1483 was borrowed from the Cambridge University Library +for the purpose and transcribed for the Press by the daughter of Morris's +old friend and publisher, F. S. Ellis. No paper in the market was good +enough for the great venture, and Morris took down to Mr. Batchelor at +Little Chart a model dating back to the fifteenth century and had +especially designed from it an unbleached linen paper, thin and tough, and +somewhat transparent, made on wire moulds woven by hand for the sake of +the slight irregularities thus caused in the texture, and "pleasing not +only to the eye, but to the hand also; having something of the clean crisp +quality of a new bank-note." For the three different sizes Morris +designed three watermarks, an apple, a daisy, and a perch with a spray in +its mouth. To print his strong type upon this handmade paper it was +necessary to dampen the latter and use a hand-press, the ink being applied +by pelt balls, insuring an equable covering of the surface of the type and +a rich black impression. The quality of the ink was naturally of great +importance and Morris yearned to manufacture his own, but for the time +contented himself with some that he procured from Hanover and with which +he produced excellent results. One of his happiest convictions in regard +to his materials was that heavy paper was entirely unfit for small books. + +[Illustration: KELMSCOTT TYPES] + +Concerning spacing and the placing of the matter on the page he had +pronounced theories derived from his study of ancient books, but directed +by his own sound taste. He held that there should be no more white space +between the words than just clearly cuts them off from one another, and +that "leads" (strips of metal used to increase the space between the lines +of type) should be sparingly employed. The two pages of a book, facing +each other as it is opened, should be considered a unit, the edge of the +margin that is bound in should be the smallest of the four edges, the top +should be somewhat wider, and the front edge wider still, and the tail +widest of all. The respective measurements of the most important of the +Kelmscott books are, one inch for the inner margin, one and +three-eighths inches for the head margin, two and three-quarter inches +for the fore edge, and four inches for the tail. "I go so far as to say," +wrote Morris, "that any book in which the page is properly put on the +paper is tolerable to look at, however poor the type may be (always so +long as there is no 'ornament' which may spoil the whole thing), whereas +any book in which the page is wrongly set on the paper is intolerable to +look at, however good the type and ornaments may be." + +[Illustration: PAGE FROM KELMSCOTT "CHAUCER." ILLUSTRATION BY BURNE-JONES. +BORDER AND INITIAL LETTER BY MORRIS] + +_The Golden Legend_, with its ornamented borders, its handsome initials, +its woodcuts, and its twelve hundred and eighty-six pages, kept the one +press busy until the middle of September, 1892. Before it was completed +Morris had designed another fount of type greatly more pleasing to him +than the first. This was called the Troy type from Caxton's _Historyes of +Troye_, the first book to be issued in its larger size, and was the +outcome of careful study of the beautiful types of Peter Schoeffer of +Mainz, Gunther Zainer of Augsburg, and Anthony Koburger of Nuremberg. It +was Gothic in character, but Morris strove to redeem it from the charge of +unreadableness by using the short form of the small _s_, by diminishing +the number of tied letters, and abolishing the abbreviations to be found +in mediaeval books. How far he succeeded is a disputed question, certainly +not so far as to make it as easy reading for modern eyes as the Golden +type. As time went on, however, the use of the Golden type at the +Kelmscott Press became less and less frequent, giving place in the case of +most of the more important books to either the Troy type or the Chaucer +type, the latter being similar to the former, save that it is Great Pica +instead of Primer size. + +Morris's success in the mechanical application of his theories was +surprising, or would have been surprising had he not constantly proven his +genius for success. Mr. De Vinne quotes a prominent American typefounder +as declaring after a close scrutiny of his cuts of type that he had +triumphantly passed the pitfalls that beset all tyros and had made types +that in lining, fitting, and adjustment show the skill of the expert. "A +printer of the old school may dislike many of his mannerisms of +composition and make-up," adds Mr. De Vinne, "but he will cheerfully admit +that his types and decorations and initials are in admirable accord: that +the evenness of colour he maintains on his rough paper is remarkable, and +that his registry of black with red is unexceptionable. No one can examine +a book made by Morris without the conviction that it shows the hand of a +master." + +[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF THE KELMSCOTT "CHAUCER"] + +Upon the artistic side it was natural that he should excel. His long +practice in and love of design, his close study of the best models, and +his exacting taste were promising of extraordinary results. None the less +there is perhaps more room for criticism of his book decoration than of +his plain bookmaking. He was convinced, as one would expect him to be, +that modern methods of illustrating and decorating a book were entirely +wrong, and he argued with indisputable logic for the unity of impression +to be gained from ornaments and pictures forming part of the page, in +other words, being made in line as readily printed as the type itself and +corresponding to it in size and degree of blackness. He argued that the +ornament to be ornament must submit to certain limitations and become +"architectural," and also that it should be used with exuberance or +restraint according to the matter of the book decorated. Thus "a work on +differential calculus," he says, "a medical work, a dictionary, a +collection of a statesman's speeches, or a treatise on manures, such +books, though they might be handsomely and well printed, would scarcely +receive ornament with the same exuberance as a volume of lyrical poems, or +a standard classic, or such like. A work on Art, I think, bears less of +ornament than any other kind of book (_non bis in idem_ is a good motto); +again, a book that _must_ have _illustrations_, more or less utilitarian, +should, I think, have no actual _ornament_ at all, because the ornament +and the illustration must almost certainly fight." He designed all his +ornaments with his own hand, from the minute leaves and flowers which took +the place of periods on his page, to the full-page borders, titles, and +elaborate initials. He drew with a brush, on a sheet of paper from the +Press marked with ruled lines, showing the exact position to be occupied +by the design. "It was most usual during the last few years of his life," +says Mr. Vallance, "to find him thus engaged, with his Indian ink and +Chinese white in little saucers before him upon the table, its boards bare +of any cloth covering, but littered with books and papers and sheets of +MS. He did not place any value on the original drawings, regarding them as +just temporary instruments, only fit, as soon as engraved, to be thrown +away." Time and trouble counted for nothing with him in gaining the +desired result. But though his ornament was always handsome, and +occasionally exquisite, he not infrequently overloaded his page with it, +and--preaching vigorously the necessity of restraint--allowed his fancy to +lead him into garrulous profusion. Despite his mediaeval proclivities, his +designs for the borders of his pages are intensely modern. Compare them +with the early books by which they were inspired, and their flowing +elaboration, so free from unexpectedness, so impersonal, so inexpressive, +suggests the fatal defect of all imitative work and fails in distinction. +But he was individual enough in temper if not in execution, and he brooked +no conventional restriction that interfered with his doing what pleased +him. For example, the notion of making the border ornaments agree in +spirit with the subject matter of the page was not to be entertained for a +moment when he had in mind a fine design of grapes hanging ripe from their +vines and a page of Chaucer's description of April to adorn. + +During the life of the Kelmscott Press, a period of some half dozen years, +Morris made six hundred and forty-four designs. The illustrations proper, +all of them woodcuts harmonising in their strong black line with the +ornaments and type, were made, with few exceptions, by Burne-Jones. His +designs were nearly always drawn in pencil, a medium in which his most +characteristic effects were obtained. They were then redrawn in ink by +another hand, revised by Burne-Jones, and finally transferred to the block +again by that useful Cinderella of the Kelmscott Press, photography. It is +obvious that the Kelmscott books, whatever fault may be found with them, +could not be other than remarkable creations with Morris and Burne-Jones +uniting their gifts to make each of them such a picture-book as Morris +declared at the height of his ardour was "one of the very worthiest things +toward the production of which reasonable men should strive." + +The list of works selected to be issued from the Press is interesting, +indicating as it does a line of taste somewhat narrow and tangential to +the popular taste of the time. Before the three volumes of _The Golden +Legend_ ("the Interminable" it was called) were out of his hands, Morris +had bought a second large press and had engaged more workmen with an idea +in mind of printing all his own works beginning with _Sigurd the Volsung_. +He had already, during 1891, printed in addition to _The Glittering +Plain_, a volume of his collected verse entitled _Poems by the Way_, the +final long poem of which, _Goldilocks and Goldilocks_, he wrote on the +spur of the moment, after the book was set up in type, to "plump it out a +bit" as it seemed rather scant. During the following year, before the +appearance of _The Golden Legend_, were issued a volume of poems by +Wilfrid Blunt, who was one of his personal friends; the chapter from +Ruskin's _Stones of Venice_ on "The Nature of the Gothic," with which he +had such early and such close associations, and two more of his own works, +_The Defence of Guenevere_ and _The Dream of John Ball_. In the case of +the four books written by himself he issued in addition to the paper +copies a few on vellum. All these early books were small quartos and bound +in vellum covers. Immediately following _The Golden Legend_ came the +_Historyes of Troye_, two volumes in the new type, Mackail's _Biblia +Innocentium_, and Caxton's _Reynarde the Foxe_ in large quarto size and +printed in the Troy type. The year 1893 began with a comparatively modern +book, Shakespeare's _Poems_, followed in rapid succession by Caxton's +translation of _The Order of Chivalry_, in one volume with _The Ordination +of Knighthood_, translated by Morris himself from a twelfth-century French +poem; Cavendish's _Life of Cardinal Wolsey_; Caxton's history of Godefrey +of Boloyne; Ralph Robinson's translation of Sir Thomas More's _Utopia_; +Tennyson's _Maud_; a lecture by Morris on _Gothic Architecture_, +forty-five copies of which he printed on vellum; and Lady Wilde's +translation of _Sidonia the Sorceress_ from the German of William +Meinhold, a book for which both Morris and Rossetti had a positive +passion, Morris considering it without a rival of its kind, and an almost +faultless reproduction of the life of the past. The year ended with two +volumes of Rossetti's _Ballads and Narrative Poems_, and _The Tale of King +Florus and Fair Jehane_, translated by Morris from the French of a little +volume that forty years before had served to introduce him to mediaeval +French romance and had been treasured by him ever since. + +[Illustration: THE SMALLER KELMSCOTT PRESS-MARK] + +[Illustration: THE LARGER KELMSCOTT PRESS-MARK] + +[Illustration: DRAWING BY MORRIS OF THE LETTER "h" FOR KELMSCOTT TYPE, +WITH NOTES AND CORRECTIONS] + +"After this continuous torrent of production," says Mr. Mackail, "the +Press for a time slackened off a little," but the output in 1894 consisted +of ten books as against the eleven of the previous year. The first was a +large quarto edition of _The Glittering Plain_, printed this time in the +Troy type and illustrated with twenty-three pictures by Walter Crane. Next +came another little volume of mediaeval romance, the story of _Amis and +Amile_, translated in a day and a quarter; and after this, Keats's +_Poems_. + +In July of the same year the bust of Keats, executed by the American +sculptor, Miss Anne Whitney, was unveiled in the Parish Church of +Hampstead, the first memorial to Keats on English ground. The scheme for +such a memorial had been promoted in America, Lowell being one of the +earliest to encourage it, and a little notice of the ceremony was printed +at the Kelmscott Press with the card of invitation. Swinburne's _Atalanta +in Calydon_ followed _Keats_ in a large quarto edition. Next came the +third volume of the French romances containing _The Tale of the Emperor +Constans_ and _The History of Oversea_. At this point Morris returned +again to the printing of his own works, and the next book to be issued +from the Press was _The Wood beyond the World_, with a lovely frontispiece +by Burne-Jones representing "the Maid," the heroine of the romance, and +one of the most charming of the visionary women created by Morris. _The +Book of Wisdom and Lies_, a Georgian story-book of the eighteenth century, +written by Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani, and translated by Oliver Wardrop, was +the next stranger to come from the Press, and after it was issued the +first of a set of Shelley's _Poems_. A rhymed version of _The Penitential +Psalms_ found in a manuscript of _The Hours of Our Lady_, written in the +fifteenth century, followed it, and _The Epistola de Contemptu Mundi_, a +letter in Italian by Savonarola, the autograph original of which belonged +to Mr. Fairfax Murray, completed the list of this prolific year. The year +1895 produced only five volumes, the first of them the _Tale of Beowulf_, +which Morris with characteristic daring had translated into verse by the +aid of a prose translation made for him by Mr. A. J. Wyatt. Not himself an +Anglo-Saxon scholar, Morris was unable to give such a rendering of this +chief epic of the Germanic races as would appeal to the scholarly mind, +and his zeal for literal translation led him to employ a phraseology +nothing short of outlandish. At the end of the book he printed a list of +"words not commonly used now," but his constructions were even more +obstructive than his uncommon words. In the following passage, for +example, which opens the section describing the coming of Beowulf to the +land of the Danes, only the word "nithing" is defined in the index, yet +certainly the average reader may be expected to pause for the meaning: + + So care that was time-long the kinsman of Healfdene + Still seethed without ceasing, nor might the wise warrior + Wend otherwhere woe, for o'er strong was the strife + All loathly so longsome late laid on the people, + Need-wrack and grim nithing, of night-bales the greatest. + +Morris himself found his interest wane before the work was completed, but +he made a handsome quarto volume of it, with fine marginal decorations, +and an exceptionally well-designed title-page. A reprint of _Syr +Percyvelle of Gales_ after the edition printed by J. O. Halliwell from the +MS. in the library of Lincoln Cathedral, a large quarto edition of _The +Life and Death of Jason_; two 16mo volumes of a new romance entitled, +_Child Christopher and Goldilands the Fair_; and Rossetti's _Hand and +Soul_, reprinted from the _Germ_, brought the Press to its great year +1896. This year was to see the completion of the folio _Chaucer_, which +since early in 1892 had been in preparation, and had filled the heart of +Morris with anxiety, anticipation, and joy. Before it came from the press +three other books were issued. Herrick's _Poems_ came first. Then a +selection of thirteen poems from Coleridge, "a muddle-brained +metaphysician, who by some strange freak of fortune turned out a few real +poems amongst the dreary flood of inanity which was his wont!" + +The poems chosen were, _Christabel_, _Kubla Khan_, _The Rime of the +Ancient Mariner_, _Love_, _A Fragment of a Sexton's Tale_, _The Ballad of +the Dark Ladie_, _Names_, _Youth and Age_, _The Improvisatore_, _Work +without Hope_, _The Garden of Boccaccio_, _The Knight's Tomb_, and _Alice +du Clos_. The first four were the only ones, however, concerning which +Morris would own to feeling any interest. The Coleridge volume was +followed by the large quarto edition of Morris's latest romance, _The Well +at the World's End_ in two volumes, and then appeared the _Chaucer_, the +mere printing of which had occupied a year and nine months. The first two +copies were brought home from the binders on the second of June, in a +season of "lots of sun" and plentiful apple-blossoms, during which Morris +was beginning to realise that the end of his delight in seasons and in +books was fast approaching. + +Mr. Ellis has declared the Kelmscott _Chaucer_ to be, "for typography, +ornament, and illustration combined, the grandest book that has been +issued from the press since the invention of typography." Morris lavished +upon it the utmost wealth of his invention. The drawing of the title-page +alone occupied a fortnight, and the splendid initial letters were each an +elaborate work of art. The ornament indeed was too profuse to be wholly +satisfactory, especially as much of it was repeated; nevertheless, the +book was one of great magnificence and the glee with which Morris beheld +it is not to be wondered at. The Chaucer type had been specially designed +for it, and Burne-Jones had made for it eighty-seven drawings, while +Morris himself designed for it the white pigskin binding with silver +clasps, executed at the Doves Bindery for those purchasers who desired +their elaborate and costly volume in a more suitable garb than the +ordinary half holland covers which gave it the appearance of a silken +garment under a calico apron. + +During the remainder of the year 1896 the Press issued the first volumes +of the Kelmscott edition of _The Earthly Paradise_, a volume of Latin +poems (_Laudes Beatae Mariae Virginis_), the first Kelmscott book to be +printed in three colours, the quotation heading each stanza being in red, +the initial letter in pale blue, and the remaining text in black: _The +Floure and the Leafe_ and _The Shepherde's Calender_. Before _The +Shepherde's Calender_ reached its completion, however, Morris was dead, +and the subsequent work of the Press was merely the clearing up of a few +books already advertised. The first of these to appear was the prose +romance by Morris entitled _The Water of the Wondrous Isles_: this was +issued on the first day of April, 1897, with borders and ornaments +designed entirely by Morris save for a couple of initial words completed +from his unfinished designs by R. Catterson-Smith. To this year belong +also the two trial pages made for the intended folio edition of +_Froissart_, the heraldic borders of which far surpass any of the +_Chaucer_ ornaments, and the two old English romances, _Sire Degravaunt_ +and _Syr Ysambrace_. In 1898 came a large quarto volume of German +woodcuts, and three more works by Morris, a small folio edition of _Sigurd +the Volsung_, which was to have been a large folio with twenty-five +woodcuts by Burne-Jones; _The Sundering Flood_, the last romance written +by Morris, and a large quarto edition of _Love is Enough_. These were +followed by a "Note" written by Morris himself on his aims in starting the +Kelmscott Press, accompanied with facts concerning the Press, and an +annotated list of all the books there printed, compiled by Mr. S. C. +Cockerell, who, since July, 1894, had been secretary to the Press. This +was the end.[2] + +[Illustration: _Specimen Page from the Kelmscott "Froissart"_ + +(_Projected Edition_)] + +Although Morris not only neglected commercial considerations in printing +his books, lavishing their price many times over in valuable time and +labour and the actual expenditure of money to secure some inconspicuous +detail; but defied commercial methods openly in the character of his type, +the quality of his materials, and the slowness of his processes, the +Kelmscott Press testified, as most of his enterprises did testify, to the +practical worth of his ideals. Quite content to make just enough by his +books to continue printing them in the most conscientious and desirable +way he knew, he gradually obtained from them a considerable profit. The +Press had early been moved to quarters larger than the first occupied +by it, and three presses were kept busy. By the end of 1892 Morris had +become his own publisher, and after that time all the Kelmscott books were +published by him except in cases of special arrangement. A few copies, +usually less than a dozen, of nearly all the books were printed on vellum +and sold at a proportionately higher price than the paper copies. The +volumes were bound either in vellum or half holland, these temporary and +unsatisfactory covers probably having been chosen on account of the +strength and slow-drying qualities of the ink used, a note to the +prospectus of the _Chaucer_ stating that the book would not be fit for +ordinary full binding with the usual pressure for at least a year after +its issue. The issue prices charged for the books were not low, but +certainly not exorbitant when time, labour, and expense of producing them +are taken into consideration. They were prizes for the collector from the +beginning, the impossibility of duplicating them and the small editions +sent out giving them a charm and a value not easily to be resisted, and +Morris himself and his trustees adopted measures tending to protect the +collector's interests. After the death of Morris all the woodblocks for +initials, ornaments, and illustrations were sent to the British Museum and +were accepted, with the condition that they should not be reproduced or +printed from for the space of one hundred years. The electrotypes were +destroyed. The matter was talked over with Morris during his lifetime and +he sanctioned this course on the part of the trustees, its aim being to +keep the series of the Kelmscott Press "a thing apart and to prevent the +designs becoming stale by repetition." While there is a fair ground for +the criticism frequently made that a man urging the necessity of art for +the people showed inconsistency by withdrawing from their reach art which +he could control and deemed valuable, it must be remembered that in his +mind the great result to be obtained was the stirring up the people to +making art for themselves. Morris rightly counted the joy to be gained +from making a beautiful thing as far higher than the joy to be gained from +seeing one. He was never in favour of making a work of art "common" by +reproducing or servilely imitating it. He had shown the printers of books +his idea of the way they should manage their craft, now let them develop +it themselves along the lines pointed out for them. And whether he was or +was not consistent in allowing the works of the Kelmscott Press to be cut +off from any possibility of a large circulation, his was the temperament +to feel all the delight to be won from exclusive ownership. He had the +true collector's passion for possession. If he was bargaining for a book, +says his biographer, he would carry on the negotiation with the book +tucked tightly under his arm, as if it might run away. His collection of +old painted books gave him the keenest emotions before and after his +acquisition of them. Of one, which finally proved unattainable, he wrote, +"_Such_ a book! _my_ eyes! and I am beating my brains to see if I can find +any thread of an intrigue to begin upon, so as to creep and crawl toward +the possession of it." It is no matter for wonder if in imagination he +beheld the love of bibliophiles for his own works upon which he had so +ardently spent his energies, and was gratified by the prevision. + +Whether the Kelmscott books will increase or decrease in money value as +time goes on is a question that stirs interest in book-buying circles. +They have already had their rise and ebb to a certain extent, and the +prices brought by the copies owned by Mr. Ellis at the sale of his library +after his death indicate that a steady level of interest has been reached +among collectors for the time being at least; only five of the copies +printed on paper exceeding prices previously paid for them. The +presentation copy on vellum of the great _Chaucer_ brought five hundred +and ten pounds, certainly a remarkable sum for a modern book, under any +conditions, and nearly a hundred pounds more than the highest price which +Morris himself up to the summer of 1894 had ever paid for even a +fourteenth-century book. The paper copy of the _Chaucer_ sold at the Ellis +sale for one hundred and twelve pounds and a paper copy in ordinary +binding sold in America in 1902 for $650, while a paper copy in the +special pigskin binding brought $950 the same year. The issue price for +the four hundred and twenty-five paper copies was twenty pounds apiece, +and for the eight copies on vellum offered for sale out of the thirteen +printed, a hundred and twenty guineas apiece. The posthumous edition of +_Sigurd the Volsung_, the paper copies of which were issued at six guineas +apiece, brought at the Ellis sale twenty-six pounds. _News from Nowhere_, +issued at two guineas, has never yet brought a higher price than the five +pounds, fifteen shillings paid for it in 1899, while Keats's _Poems_ +issued at one pound, ten shillings, rose as high as twenty-seven pounds, +ten shillings, also in 1899. As a general measure of the advance in the +Kelmscott books since the death of Morris, it may be noted that the series +owned by Mr. Ellis, excluding duplicates, and including a presentation +copy of _Jason_ and two fine bindings for the paper and the vellum +_Chaucer_, represented a gross issue price of six hundred and twelve +pounds, ten shillings, and realised two thousand, three hundred and +sixty-seven pounds, two shillings. For one decade of the life of a modern +series that is a great record, and it would be a rash prophet who should +venture to predict future values. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +LATER WRITINGS. + + +The writings of Morris's later years consist, as we have seen, chiefly of +prose romances. The little group beginning with _The House of the +Wolfings_ and ending with _The Sundering Flood_ were written with no +polemical or proselytising intention, with merely his old delight in +storytelling and in depicting the beauty of the external world and the +kindness of men and maids. Curiosity had never played any great part in +his mental equipment; he cared little to know or speculate further than +the visible and tangible surface of life. "The skin of the world" was +sufficient for him, and in these later romances all that is beautiful and +winning has chiefly to do with the skin of the world presented in its +spring-time freshness. The background of nature is always exquisite. With +the landscape of the North, which had made its indelible impression upon +him, he mingled the scenes--"the dear scenes" he would have called +them--of his childhood and the fairer portions of the Thames shore as he +had long and intimately known them; and in his books, as in his familiar +letters, he constantly speaks of the weather and the seasons as matters of +keen importance in the sum of daily happiness. Thus, whatever we miss from +his romances, we gain, what is missing from the majority of modern books, +familiarity with the true aspect of the outdoor world. We have the +constant sense of ample sky and pleasant air, and green woods and cool +waters. The mountains are near us, and often the ocean, and the freedom of +a genuine wildwood that is no enchanted forest or ideal vision. +Inexpressibly charming are such pictures as those of Elfhild (in _The +Sundering Flood_) piping to her sheep and dancing on the bank of the +river, on the bright mid-April day, whose sun dazzles her eyes with its +brilliant shining; and of Birdalone (in _The Water of the Wondrous Isles_) +embroidering her gown and smock in the wood of Evilshaw. What could be +more expressive of lovely open-air peace than this description? "Who was +glad now but Birdalone; she grew red with new pleasure, and knelt down and +kissed the witch's hand, and then went her way to the wood with her +precious lading, and wrought there under her oak-tree day after day, and +all days, either there, or in the house when the weather was foul. That +was in the middle of March, when all birds were singing, and the young +leaves showing on the hawthorns, so that there were pale green clouds, as +it were, betwixt the great grey boles of oak and sweet-chestnut; and by +the lake the meadow-saffron new-thrust-up was opening its blossom; and +March wore and April, and still she was at work happily when now it was +later May, and the harebells were in full bloom down the bent before her +... and still she wrought on at her gown and her smock, and it was +well-nigh done. She had broidered the said gown with roses and lilies, and +a tall tree springing up from amidmost the hem of the skirt, and a hart on +either side thereof, face to face of each other. And the smock she had +sewn daintily at the hems and the bosom with fair knots and buds. It was +now past the middle of June hot and bright weather." + +And only less delightful than these glimpses of the natural world are the +recurring portraits of half-grown boys and girls, all different and all +lovable. The sweetness of adolescent beauty had for Morris an irresistible +appeal, and while his characters have little of the psychological charm +inseparable in real life from dawning qualities and undeveloped +potentialities, they are as lovely as the morning in the brightness of +hair, the slimness of form, the freedom of gesture with which he endows +them. The shapely brown hands and feet of Ursula, her ruddy colour, her +slender sturdiness, and brave young laugh are attractions as potent as the +more delicate charm of Birdalone's serious eyes and thin face, or +Elfhild's flower-like head and tender playfulness; and all these heroines +are alike in a fine capability for useful toil and pride in it. When the +old carle says to Birdalone, "It will be no such hard life for thee, for I +have still some work in me, and thou mayst do something in spite of thy +slender and delicate fashion," she replies with merry laughter, "Forsooth, +good sire, I might do somewhat more than something; for I am deft in all +such work as here ye need; so fear not but I should earn my livelihood, +and that with joy." Ursula also knows all the craft of needlework, and all +the manners of the fields, and finds nothing in work to weary her; and +even in the Maid of _The Wood beyond the World_, with her magic power to +revive flowers by the touch of her fingers, is felt the preferable human +power to make comfort and pleasantness by the right performance of plain +tasks. + +Nearly if not quite equal to Morris's expression of love for the beauty of +nature and of fair humanity is his expression of the love for beautiful +handicraft, to which his whole life and all his writings alike testify. +Whatever is omitted from his stories of love and adventure, he never omits +to familiarise his readers with the ornament lavished upon buildings and +garments and countless accessories; hardly a dozen pages of any one of the +romances may be turned before the description of some piece of artistic +workmanship is met. Osberne's knife in _The Sundering Flood_ is early +introduced to the reader as "a goodly weapon, carven with quaintnesses +about the heft, the blade inlaid with runes done in gold and the sheath +of silver," and the gifts he sends to Elfhild across the flood are "an +ouch or chain or arm-ring" fashioned "quaintly and finely," or "fair +windowed shoon, and broidered hosen and dainty smocks, and silken +kerchiefs"; much is made of his holiday raiment of scarlet and gold, of +his flowered green coat, and of the fine gear of gold and green for which +Elfhild changes her grey cloak. In _The Story of the Glittering Plain_, +filled as it is with the sterner spirit of the sagas, there is still room +for much detail concerning the carven panelling of the shut-bed, in which +was pictured "fair groves and gardens, with flowery grass and fruited +trees all about," and "fair women abiding therein, and lovely young men +and warriors, and strange beasts and many marvels, and the ending of wrath +and beginning of pleasure, and the crowning of love," and for the account +of the painted book, "covered outside with gold and gems" and painted +within with woods and castles, "and burning mountains, and the wall of the +world, and kings upon their thrones, and fair women and warriors, all most +lovely to behold." As for the fair Birdalone, her pleasure in fine stuffs +and rich embroideries is unsurpassed in the annals of womankind. The +wood-wife with canny knowledge of her tastes brings her the fairy web, +declaring that if she dare wear it she shall presently be clad as goodly +as she can wish. Birdalone can be trusted to don any attire that meets her +fancy (and to doff it as willingly, for she has a startling habit not +uncommon with Morris's heroines of stripping off her garments to let the +winds of heaven play upon her unimpeded). The wood-wife places the raiment +she has brought on Birdalone's outstretched arms, "and it was as if the +sunbeam had thrust through the close leafage of the oak, and made its +shadow nought a space about Birdalone, so gleamed and glowed in shifty +brightness the broidery of the gown; and Birdalone let it fall to earth, +and passed over her hands and arms the fine smock sewed in yellow and +white silk, so that the web thereof seemed of mingled cream and curd; and +she looked on the shoon that lay beside the gown, that were done so nicely +and finely that the work was as the feather-robe of a beauteous bird, +whereof one scarce can say whether it be bright or grey, thousand-hued or +all simple of colour. Birdalone quivered for joy of all the fair things, +and crowed in her speech as she knelt before Habundia to thank her." Thus +Morris carried into his "pleasure-work of books" the "bread-and-butter +work" of which he was hardly less fond. + +But in the deeper realities of life with which even romantic fiction may +deal, and must deal if it is to lay hold of the modern imagination, these +romances are poor. Not one of his characters is developed by circumstance +into a fully equipped human being thoroughly alive to the intellectual and +moral as to the physical and emotional world. His men and women are +eternally young and, with the physical freshness of youth, have also the +crude, unrounded, unfinished, unmoulded character of youth. They have all +drunk of the Well at the World's End, and the scars of experience have +disappeared, leaving a blank surface. The range of their emotions and +passions is as simple and narrow as with children, and life as the great +story-tellers understand it is not shown by the chronicle of their days. +In many of the romances, it is true, the introduction of legendary and +unreal persons and incidents relieves the writer from all obligation to +make his account more lifelike than a fairy-tale; but Morris is never +content to make a fairy-tale pure and simple. Marvellous adventures told +directly as to a child are not within his method. One of his critics has +described _The Water of the Wondrous Isles_ as a three-volume novel in the +environment of a fairy-tale, and the phrase perfectly characterises it. A +sentimental atmosphere surrounds his figures, and suggests languor and +soft moods not to be tolerated by the writer of true fairy-tales, for +while love is certainly not alien to even the purest type of the latter, +with its witch and its princess and its cruel step-mother and rescuing +prince, it is not love as Morris depicts it any more than it is love as +Dante or Shakespeare depicts it. In Morris's stories the lovers are +neither frankly symbolic creatures of the imagination whose loves are +secondary to their heroic or miraculous achievements, and who apparently +exist only to give a reason for the machinery of witchcraft, nor are +they, like the lovers of the great novels, endowed with thoughtful minds +and spiritual qualities. They are too sophisticated not to be more +complex. The modern taste is unsympathetic to their endless kissing and +"fawning" and "clipping," nor would ancient taste have welcomed their +refinements of kindness toward each other or the lack of zest in their +adventures. Morris seems to have tried somewhat, as in the case of his +handicrafts, to start with the traditions of the Middle Ages and to infuse +into them a modern spirit that should make them legitimate successors and +not mere imitations of the well-beloved mediaeval types. That he did not +entirely succeed was the fault not so much of his method as of his +deficient insight into human nature. He could not create what he had never +closely investigated. + +When we read his prose romances, their framework gives many a clue to +their ancestry, but it is an ancestry so remote from the interest of the +general reader as to puzzle more than charm in its influence upon the +modern product. In _The House of the Wolfings_, _The Roots of the +Mountains_, and especially _The Glittering Plain_, we have more or less +modernised sagas, obviously derived from the Icelandic literature of which +he had been drinking deep. The hero of _The Glittering Plain_ is as +valorous a youth and as given to brave adventures as the great Sigurd, the +environment is Norse, and so are the names of the characters--Sea-eagle, +Long-hoary, Grey Goose of the Ravagers, and Puny Fox. Other words and +phrases also drawn from the "word-hoard" of the Icelandic tongue are +sprinkled over the pages. We find "nithing-stake" and byrny, and bight, +spoke-shave and ness and watchet, sley and ashlar and ghyll, used as +expressions of familiar parlance. The characters give each other "the sele +of the day," retire to shut-beds at night, and look "sorry and sad and +fell" when fortune goes against them. They wander in garths and call each +other faring-fellow and they yea-say and nay-say and wot and wend. It is +not altogether surprising to find some of Morris's most loyal followers +admitting that they can make nothing of books written in this archaic +prose. + +In the subsequent romances the comparative sturdiness imparted by the +writings of the North gives place to a mildness and grace suggestive of +those early French romances the charm of which Morris had always keenly +felt. We still have much the same vocabulary and more or less use of the +same magic arts, "skin-changing" holding its own as a favourite method of +overcoming otherwise insuperable difficulties; but we have more of the +love motive and a clearer endeavour to portray the relations of the +characters to each other. In all, however, the French and Scandinavian +influences are so mingled with each other and with the element provided by +Morris alone, and so fused by his fluent prolix style, as to produce a +result somewhat different from anything else in literature, with a +character and interest personal to itself, and difficult to imitate in +essence, although wofully lending itself to parody. The subject never +seems important. There is no sense that the writer was spurred to +expression by the pressure of an irresistible message or sentiment. We +feel that anything may have started this copious flow of words, and that +there is no logical end to them. The title of _The Well at the World's +End_ was taken from an old Scottish ballad called by that name which +Morris had never read, but the title of which struck his fancy, and the +book reads as though it had grown without plan from the fanciful, +meaningless title. + +Of these later romances, _The Glittering Plain_ is the most saga-like, and +_The Water of the Wondrous Isles_ is most permeated by the romantic spirit +of the Arthurian legends and their kin. Despite all defects, the latter +has a bright bejewelled aspect that pleases the fancy although it does not +deeply enlist the imagination. The story is leisurely and wandering. The +heroine, Birdalone, some of whose characteristics have already been +mentioned, is stolen in her infancy from her home near a town called +Utterhay, by a witch-wife who brings her up on the edge of a wood called +Evilshaw and teaches her to milk and plough and sow and reap and bake and +shoot deer in the forest. When she is seventeen years of age she meets in +the forest Habundia, a fairy woman, who gives her a magic ring by which +she may make herself invisible and a lock of hair by burning a bit of +which she may summon her in time of need. Birdalone soon after escapes +from the witch-wife in a magic boat, and passes through fabulous scenes to +enchanted islands, where she finds friends and enemies. Three maidens, +Atra, Viridis, and Aurea, save her from the latter, and send her forth to +find for them their lovers. While on her quest she travels to various +isles,--the Isle of the Young and the Old, the Isle of the Queens, the +Isle of the Kings, and the Isle of Nothing,--which afford opportunity for +strange pictures and quaint conceits but have nothing to do with the +narrative. When Birdalone finds the lovers of her friends, the Golden +Knight, the Green Knight, and Arthur the Black Squire, called the Three +Champions, they are charmed by her beauty and friendliness, and she +immediately falls in love with the Black Squire, betrothed of Atra.[3] The +Black Squire returns her prompt affection, but has grace to show himself +moody and downcast at the thought of breaking faith with his lady. +Presently the Three Champions go their ways to find the three maidens who +were kind to Birdalone and who are kept on the Isle of Increase Unsought +by a witch, sister to Birdalone's early guardian, and Birdalone, weary of +waiting for their return, fares forth to meet adventures and lovers in +plenty. To all the brave knights and youths who take their turn at wooing +her she is pitiful and gentle after her fashion, and thanks them kindly, +and praises them and suffers them to kiss her for their comfort, and deems +them "fair and lovely and sweet," but keeps her preference for the Black +Squire. Now, when the Three Champions come back with their ladies and find +Birdalone fled there is much distress among them, and the knights set +forth to find her. Meeting with her, they are set upon by the bad Red +Knight, into whose custody she has recently been thrown, and Baudoin, the +Golden Knight, is killed. Returning with this bad news to the three +ladies, the two remaining knights, who have rescued Birdalone and killed +the Red Knight, decide to ride back into the latter's domain and make war +upon his followers. In the meantime Atra has learned that the Black Squire +has transferred his affections from her to Birdalone, and does not attempt +to dissemble her grief thereat, none of Morris's characters being gifted +in the art of dissimulation, particularly where love is concerned. +Birdalone, departing from the course which Morris elsewhere is most +inclined to sanction, decides to renounce in Atra's favour, and betakes +herself to the town of Greenford, where she is received into the +broiderers' guild and works with a woman who turns out to be her own +mother, from whom she was stolen by the witch. With her she lives for five +years, when sickness slays Audrey, the mother, and Birdalone can no +longer resist the temptation to seek her love, the Black Squire, again. So +she makes her way once more through marvellous adventures into the old +forest of Evilshaw, where she comes again upon her fairy friend Habundia, +by whose aid she finds the Black Squire. The latter has met with +misfortunes and is lost in the forest, where he falls ill. Birdalone +nurses him back to health, and they decide that whether Atra be dead or +alive they will have no more parting from one another. They are soon to be +put to the test, as in the wood they come upon Atra and their other +friends, who have set out to seek them, being anxious for their welfare, +and who have been overcome by caitiffs and bound and held prisoners. +Arthur and Birdalone rescue them, and all these friends make up their +minds to go together and dwell in Utterhay for the rest of their lives. +Aurea finds another lover in place of the Golden Knight she has lost, but +Atra is faithful in heart to the Black Squire, though able to bear with +philosophy his union with Birdalone. Thus they live happily ever after. +Upon this skeleton of mingled reality and dream Morris built his general +idea of happy love. The tale might easily be twisted into an allegory, +since all the creatures of his imagination stand for either the +satisfactions or dissatisfactions of the visible world, but nothing is +more certain than that he meant no such interpretations to be put upon it. +When one of his critics assumed an allegorical intention in the story +called _The Wood Beyond the World_, he was moved to public refutation, +writing to the _Spectator_: "It is meant to be a tale pure and simple, +with nothing didactic about it. If I have to write or speak on social +problems, I always try to be as direct as I possibly can." The truth of +this is best known by those who most faithfully have followed his +writings, and it is entirely vain to try to squeeze from his "tales" any +ethical virtue beyond their frank expression of his singularly simple +temperament. Nevertheless, like the rest of his work, they reveal in some +degree his way of regarding the moral world. As we have seen, Birdalone +has her impulse toward renunciation, and for a brief interval one feels +that the story possibly may be allowed to run along the conventional lines +laid down by the civilised human race for the greatest good of the +greatest number. This, however, would have been wholly alien to the +writer's temper, and there is no shock to those familiar with this temper +in finding that in the end the hero and heroine eat their cake and have +it. Renunciation on the side of the unbeloved is effected with grace and +nobility, but it is made clear that it is a question of accepting the +inevitable in as lofty a spirit as possible. It is perhaps the most +obvious moral characteristic of Morris's types in general, that they are +no more prone than children to do what they dislike unless circumstance +forces them to it. If we were to argue from his romances alone we could +almost imagine him contending that what one dislikes in conduct is wrong, +just as he did contend that what one dislikes in art is bad. But if his +men and women do not willingly renounce, at least they do not exult. The +sight of unhappiness pains them. For stern self-denial he substitutes the +softer virtues of amiability and sweetness of temper. A high level of +kindliness and tenderness takes the place of more compelling and +formidable emotions. "Kind," indeed, is one of the adjectives of which one +soonest wearies when confined to his vocabulary, and "dear," is another. +We read of "dear feet and legs," of dear and kind kisses, of kind +wheedling looks, of kind and dear maidens, and dear and kind lads, and +everyone is kind and dear who is not evil and cruel. What Morris's +romances preach, if they preach anything, is: that we should get from life +all the enjoyment possible, hurting others as little as may be consistent +with our own happiness, but claiming the satisfaction of all honest +desires; that, in thus satisfying ourselves, we should keep toward those +about us a kind and pleasant countenance and a consideration for their +pain even when our duty toward ourselves forces us to inflict it. It is a +narrow and exclusive teaching, and ill adapted to foster freedom of mind +and spirit. It is a teaching that provides no breastplate for the buffets +of fortune, and sets before one no ideal of intellectual or spiritual life +the attainment of which would bring pleasure austere and exquisite. There +is no stimulus and no sting in the love depicted. Even its ardour is +checked and wasted by its dallying with the external charms that seem to +veil rather than to reveal the spirit within the flesh. It is the essence +of immaturity. But while we gain from the observation of Morris's +childlike characters, playing in a world that knows no conventions and +consequently no shame, a foreboding of the weariness that would attend +such a life as he plans for them, we are conscious also that he is trying +characteristically, to go back to the beginning, and to start humanity +aright and afresh; to show us fine and healthy sons of Adam and daughters +of Eve, "living," to use his own words, "in the enjoyment of animal life +at least, happy therefore, and beautiful according to the beauty of their +race." He sets them among the surroundings he loves, gives them the +education he values, and leaves them with us--the blithe children of a new +world, whose maturity he is content not to forecast. With such health of +body, he seems to say, and such innocence of heart, what noble +commonwealth may not arise, what glory may not enter into civilisation? + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE END. + + +The end with Morris seemed to come suddenly, although for months and even +for years there had been warnings of its approach. He had enjoyed--and +greatly enjoyed--unusual strength and vitality up to almost his sixtieth +year. The seeds of gout were in his constitution, and from attacks of this +disease he occasionally suffered, but not until the one occurring in the +spring of 1891, just as the Kelmscott Press was getting under way, did +they give reason for alarm. At that time other complications were +discovered and he was told that he must consider himself an invalid. After +this, as we have seen, he plunged with rapture into new undertakings +involving the use of all his faculties, and carried them on with no +apparent lessening of intellectual vigour. But he had too long overtaxed +his physical frame by his extraordinary labours, and especially by his +activity in the cause of Socialism, which had led him out in all weathers +and under the most adverse conditions. By the beginning of 1895 he began +to show plainly the weakness that had been gaining on him, and to admit +it, though still keeping busy at his various occupations. His increasing +illness brought home to him the thought of that final check upon his +activities which he had always found so difficult to conceive. "If," he +said, "it merely means that I am to be laid up for a little while, it +doesn't so much matter, you know; but if I am to be caged up here for +months, and then it is to be the end of all things, I shouldn't like it at +all. This has been a jolly world to me and I find plenty to do in it." + +As the folio _Chaucer_ advanced through the Press, he grew impatient, no +doubt fearing that he would not see its completion, and it is pleasant to +read of his gratification when a completed copy reached him, bound in the +cover designed by himself. Late in July, 1896, by the recommendation of +his physician he took a sea voyage, going to Norway for the bracing +influences of its air and associations. No benefit was gained, however, +and on his return a congestion of one lung set in that proved unyielding, +while his general weakness was such that he was unable to cross the +threshold of his room. We find him responding to an old friend who had +urged him to try the effect of the pure air of Swainslow, that this was +the case and he could not come, but was "absolutely delighted to find +another beautiful place which is still in its untouched loveliness." Up +to the last he did a little work, dictating the final passage of _The +Sundering Flood_ less than a month before his death, which occurred in his +home at Hammersmith on the morning of the 3rd of October, 1896. He died +without apparent suffering, and surrounded by his friends. He had lived +almost sixty-three years in the "jolly world" wherein he had found so much +to do, but he left the impression of having been cut down in the flower of +his life. + +His burial was in keeping with those tastes and preferences that had meant +so much to him. The strong oak coffin in which he was laid was of an +ancient, simple shape, with handles of wrought iron, and the pall that +covered it was a strip of rich Anatolian velvet from his own collection of +textiles. He was carried from Lechlade station to the little Kelmscott +church in an open hay-cart, cheerful in colour, with bright red wheels, +and festooned with vines, alder, and bulrushes. The bearers and the +drivers of the country waggons in which his friends followed him to his +grave were farmers of the neighbourhood clad in their moleskins, people +who had lost, said one of them, "a dear good friend in Master Morris." The +hearse, with its bright decorations and the little group of mourners wound +their way along pleasant country roads, beaten upon by a storm of unusual +fury. "The north-west wind bent trees and bushes," writes one of those who +were present, "turning the leaves of the bird maples back upon their +footstalks, making them look like poplars, and the rain beat on the +straggling hedges, the lurid fruit, such as only grows in rural +England,--the fruit of privet with ripe hips and haws; the foliage of the +Guelder roses hung on the bushes; along the road a line of slabs of stone +extended, reminding one of Portugal; ragweed and loosestrife, with rank +hemp agrimony, were standing dry and dead, like reeds beside a lake, and +in the rain and wind the yokels stood at the cross-roads, or at the +openings of the bridle-paths." + +In _News from Nowhere_ Morris describes Kelmscott Church, with its little +aisle divided from the nave by three round arches, its windows, "mostly of +the graceful Oxfordshire fourteenth-century type," and the interior +trimmed with flowers for a village merrymaking. On the day of his burial, +by a curious coincidence it was trimmed with fruits of the harvest in +preparation for the autumn festival. The service was read by an old +schoolfellow and friend, and Morris was left to his rest "from patience +and from pain" in the place he had best loved and to which in his final +weakness he had longed to return. + +In regarding Morris through the medium of his work it is difficult to gain +a coherent impression. He turned one side and another to the world with +such rapidity of succession as to give a sense of kaleidoscopic change. +What new combination of colour and form his activities would take was +always impossible to forecast. And the thing that he was doing seemed to +him at the time the one thing in the world that was worth doing, the one +thing that "a reasonable and healthy man" would make it his pleasure to +do. Yet, as we have seen, all these pursuits taken up by him with so much +zest and laid down by him with such suddenness, fitted harmoniously and +accurately into the plan of his life, which, with the decade of militant +Socialism deducted, presented a smooth and even surface, unbroken by any +violent change of circumstance or method or motive. He has been described +by nearly all who have written of him as "a rebel," and a rebel he was in +the true Quixotic sense, his lance in rest to charge at any moment against +any windmill of convention that might offend him. A friend who was once +talking with him about a forthcoming election to the London School Board, +expressing a hope that the progressive party would win,--"Well," said +Morris, striding up and down, "I am not sure that a clerical victory would +not be a good thing. I was educated at Marlborough under clerical masters, +and I naturally rebelled against them. Had they been advanced men, my +spirit of rebellion would probably have led me to conservatism merely as a +protest. One naturally defies authority, and it may be well that the +London School Board should be controlled by Anglican parsons, in order +that the young rebels in the schools may grow up to defy and hate church +authority." His own "natural" defiance of authority entailed what seems to +the ordinary toiler in harness a waste of his extraordinary gifts. His +work was most of it in the experimental stage when he left it. He was too +content to point the road without following to the end his own direction. +"He did not learn a trade in the natural way, from those who knew, and +seek then to better the teaching of his masters," says one of his +fellow-workers in arts and crafts, "but, acknowledging no master, except +perhaps the ancients, he would worry it out always for himself. He had a +wonderful knack of learning that way."[4] He had a wonderful knack also of +persuading himself that there was no other to learn, and Goldsmith's +criticism of Burke--that he spent much of his time "cutting blocks with a +razor"--has been happily applied to him. But it is doubtful whether he +would have made as strong an impression on his generation as he did if he +had devoted his time to one branch of art and worked along conventional +lines. His greatest gift was not so much the ability to produce art, +artistic though he was in faculty and feeling, as it was the ability to +make people see the difference between the kind of beauty to which his +eyes were open and the ugliness commonly preferred to it. Nothing is so +convincing as to see a man accomplish with his own hands what he has +declared possible for anyone to accomplish. Morris's continual +illustration of his theories was perhaps more useful in awakening interest +in just the matters which he had at heart than any more patient pursuit of +an ideal less readily achieved. He had the habit when listening to +questions and criticisms after his lectures of tracing charming rapid +designs on paper. On a large scale that is what he did throughout his +life: lecture people about the way to make things, and by way of proving +his point, turn off delightful examples of the things he describes. "It is +very easy" he seems to say; "watch me for a moment, and we will then pass +on." + +Considered superficially, he appeared the very prince of paradox. Art was +a word continually on his lips, the future and fortunes of art were +constantly in his mind, yet for the greatest art of the world he had few +words, and the most passing interest. The names of Raphael and Leonardo, +Giotto, Duerer, Rembrandt, Velasquez, were seldom if ever on his lips. Art +had for him an almost single meaning, namely, the beauty produced by +humble workers as an every-day occurrence and for every day's enjoyment, +art by the people and for the people. So individual that he will never be +forgotten by those who have once seen him and heard his voice raised in +its inevitable protest, he nevertheless preached a kind of communism in +which any high degree of individuality must have been submerged. + +His preferences among books, as might be assumed, were clearly marked, and +a list of his favourite authors contains many contrasts. Once asked to +contribute to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ his opinions on "the best hundred +books," he complied by naming those which, he said, had most profoundly +impressed him, excluding all which he considered merely as tools and not +as works of art. True to himself, he starts the list with books "of the +kind Mazzini calls Bibles," books which are "in no sense the work of +individuals, but have grown up from the very hearts of the people." Among +these are "the Hebrew Bible (excluding some twice-done parts and some +pieces of mere Jewish ecclesiasticism), _Homer_, _Hesiod_, _The Edda_ +(including some of the other early old Norse romantic genealogical poems), +_Beowulf_, _Kalevale_, _Shahnameh_, _Mahabharata_, collections of folk +tales headed by Grimm and the Norse ones, Irish and Welsh traditional +poems." + +After these "Bibles" follow the "_real_ ancient imaginative works: +_Herodotus_, _Plato_, _AEschylus_, _Sophocles_, _Aristophanes_, +_Theocritus_, _Lucretius_, _Catullus_." The greater part of the Latins +were esteemed "_sham_ classics." "I suppose," says Morris in his character +of reasonable man, "that they have some good literary qualities; but I +cannot help thinking that it is difficult to find out how much. I suspect +superstition and authority have influenced our estimate of them till it +has become a mere matter of convention. Of course I admit the +archaeological value of some of them, especially _Virgil_ and _Ovid_." + +Next in importance to the Latin masterpieces he puts mediaeval poetry, +Anglo-Saxon lyrical pieces (like the _Ruin_ and the _Exile_), Dante, +Chaucer, _Piers Plowman_, _Nibelungenlied_, the Danish and Scotch-English +Border Ballads, _Omar Khayyam_, "though I don't know how much of the charm +of this lovely poem," he says, "is due to Fitzgerald, the translator"; +other Arab and Persian poetry, _Reynard the Fox_, and a few of the best +rhymed romances. Mediaeval story books follow, the _Morte d'Arthur_, _The +Thousand and One Nights_, Boccaccio's _Decameron_, and the _Mabinogion_. +After these, "modern poets" up to his own generation, "Shakespeare, Blake +(the part of him which a mortal can understand), Coleridge, Shelley, +Keats, Byron." German he could not read, so he left out German +masterpieces. Milton he left out on account of his union of "cold +classicalism with Puritanism" ("the two things which I hate most in the +world," he said). + +_Pilgrim's Progress_ heads the department of modern fiction, in which is +also included _Robinson Crusoe_, _Moell Flanders_, _Colonel Jack_, _Captain +Singleton_, _Voyage Round the World_, Scott's novels, "except the one or +two which he wrote when he was hardly alive," the novels of the elder +Dumas (the "good" ones), Victor Hugo, Dickens, and George Borrow. The list +concludes with certain unclassified works, Ruskin, Carlyle, the _Utopia_, +and Grimm's _Teutonic Mythology_. It may safely be assumed that no other +list sent in by the "best judges" who responded to Mr. Stead's request in +the least resembled this one, which was compiled with high sincerity and +represented Morris quite fairly on the bookish side of his mind. Mr. +Mackail mentions also among the volumes oftenest in his hands and "imposed +upon his friends unflinchingly" Surtees's famous _Mr. Jorrocks_, and +records that he considered _Huckleberry Finn_ America's masterpiece. For +the Uncle Remus stories he had also a peculiar fondness, and for one of +his cotton prints he designed what he called a "Brer Rabbit pattern." + +The perversity that one marks in Morris beneath--or, perhaps, on the +surface of--his essential seriousness, the tendency to whim and paradox so +freely noted by his critics, may be attributed to his extraordinarily +childlike spirit. His lack of restraint, his dislike of subtlety, his love +of spontaneity, his inability to conform to conventions, his hatred of +gloom, austerity, and introspection, his readiness to throw himself into +enjoyment of the smallest subject that happened to come within the range +of his interest, his unflagging vigour, his unjaded humour, all qualities +copiously commented upon by his friends, testify to the youthfulness of +his temperament, which was like that of a child, also in a certain +apparently unpremeditated reticence, an inability to reveal itself fully +or satisfactorily to even his closest intimates. What is most attractive +and appealing in him is doubtless due to his freedom from artificialities +and from the sophistries that ordinarily come with age, but what is +noblest in him, and most impressive in the effect produced by his +accomplishment, is due to a quality of which a child is and should be +ignorant, a sense of personal responsibility. Without this he would have +been a pitiful figure, disoriented, and inharmonious with the world into +which he was born. It was his persistent unwearying effort to set the +crooked straight by example as well as by precept, and in defiance of a +certain paradoxical mental languor that flowed by the side of his energy +and impulse, which made him an influence to be counted with among the many +conflicting influences of his generation. While he counselled he produced, +while he preached he laboured. Declaring that work could and should be +lovely, he demonstrated in his own life how intensely one man loved it. He +fought for the principle of art with the ardour other men have shown in +fighting for the principle of political liberty. He held himself bound to +justify his theories in his own action, and while it would be absurd to +claim for him complete consistency and freedom from error in even this, it +certainly guided him safely past the quicksands of empty and inflated +rhetoric by which the expressed philosophy of his own great masters is +marred. It will be remembered by those who share his admiration for +Dickens that when the proprietor of Dotheboys Hall wished to teach his +pupils to spell "window" he had them clean one. The effectiveness of such +a method is deeper than the satire, and Morris was its most convincing +exponent. What he learned out of books he tried at once to put into +practice. He had the highest ideal of service: + + How crown ye excellence of worth? + With leave to serve all men on earth, + +and nothing deflected him from his efforts thus to serve in his own +person the most crying needs of humanity as he conceived them. + +Pretentiousness was his least defect. No priggish sense of virtue +interfered with his consecration to what he believed were the highest +interests of his fellow-men. The cant of the moralist was absolutely +unused by him, and he was innocent of any intention to improve the morals +of his companions. Get them happy, he thought, with a faith little less +than magnificent, get them happy and they will be good. Nor was he guilty +of aesthetic priggishness. Art was the concern of his mind and the desire +of his heart, but it was by no means his meat and drink. He liked good +food, and was proud of his connoisseurship in matters of cookery, and +wines. Few things pleased him better than himself to take the cook's place +and prove his practical skill. When asked for his opinions on the subject +of temperance, he replied that so far as his own experience went he found +his victuals dull without something to drink, and that tea and coffee were +not fit liquors to be taken with food. He smoked his briarwood pipe with +much satisfaction. In his daily habits he was thoroughly, aggressively +human, and in nothing more so than in his candid admiration of the work of +his own hands, a feeling in which there was no fatuity. + +His biographer comments on the singular element of impersonality in his +nature, speaking of him as moving among men and women "isolated, +self-centred, almost empty of love or hatred," and quotes his most +intimate friend's extreme statement that he lived "absolutely without the +need of man or woman." In this idea of him those who knew him best seemed +to agree, but from his own letters as represented in the biography, a +stranger to him gains a different impression. His letters to his invalid +daughter are in themselves sufficient to evoke in the mind of the reader +an image of unlimited and poignant tenderness impossible to associate with +the aloofness and lack of keen personal sympathy said to be characteristic +of him. He did not give himself readily or rashly to intense feelings; but +he seemed to feel within himself capacity for emotions of force so violent +as to be destructive. When his friend Faulkner was stricken with paralysis +and other trouble came upon the family, we find him writing: "It is such a +grievous business altogether that, rightly or wrongly, I try not to think +of it too much lest I should give way altogether, and make an end of what +small use there may be in my life." Leaving out the case of Rossetti, +there is no record of his having relinquished any friendship of +importance, nor did he weary of constant intercourse with his friends. His +habit of breakfasting with Burne-Jones on Sunday mornings and dining with +him on Wednesdays was unbroken for many years. "The last three Sundays of +his life," says this oldest and closest friend, "I went to him." + +Loyalty, sincerity, simplicity, and earnestness, these are the qualities +conspicuous in the fabric of his life. His influence upon his generation, +so far as it may now be observed, has been definite but diffused. It may +be doubted whether he would not have been best pleased to have it so, to +know that his name will live chiefly as that of one who stimulated others +toward art production of and interest in beautiful handiwork. But the last +word to be said about him is that he was greater than his work. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY[5] + + +1. _The Story of the Glittering Plain. Which has been also called The Land +of Living Men or The Acre of the Undying._ Written by WILLIAM MORRIS. +Small 4to. Golden type. Border 1. 200 paper copies at two guineas, and 6 +on vellum. Dated April 4, issued May 8, 1891. Sold by Reeves & Turner. +Bound in stiff vellum with wash leather ties.[6] + + This book was set up from Nos. 81-84 of _The English Illustrated + Magazine_, in which it first appeared; some of the chapter headings + were rearranged, and a few small corrections were made in the text. A + trial page, the first printed at the Kelmscott Press, was struck off + on January 31, 1891, but the first sheet was not printed until about a + month later.[7] The border was designed in January of the same year, + and engraved by W. H. Hooper. Mr. Morris had four of the vellum copies + bound in green vellum, three of which he gave to friends. Only two + copies on vellum were sold, at twelve and fifteen guineas. This was + the only book with wash leather ties. All the other vellum bound books + have silk ties, except _Shelley's Poems_ and _Hand and Soul_, which + have no ties. + +2. _Poems by the Way._ Written by WILLIAM MORRIS. Small 4to. Golden type. +In black and red. Border 1. 300 paper copies at two guineas, thirteen on +vellum at about twelve guineas. Dated September 24, issued October 20, +1891. Sold by Reeves & Turner. Bound in stiff vellum. + + This was the first book printed at the Kelmscott Press in two colours, + and the first book in which the smaller printer's mark appeared. After + _The Glittering Plain_ was finished, at the beginning of April, no + printing was done until May 11th. In the meanwhile the compositors + were busy setting up the early sheets of _The Golden Legend_. The + printing of _Poems by the Way_, which its author first thought of + calling _Flores Atramenti_, was not begun until July. The poems in it + were written at various times. In the manuscript, _Hafburg and Signy_ + is dated February 4, 1870; _Hildebrand and Hillilel_, March 1, 1871; + and _Love's Reward_, Kelmscott, April 21, 1871. _Meeting in Winter_ is + a song from _The Story of Orpheus_ an unpublished poem intended for + the _Earthly Paradise_. The last poem in the book, _Goldilocks and + Goldilooks_, was written on May 20, 1891, for the purpose of adding to + the bulk of the volume, which was then being prepared. A few of the + vellum covers were stained at Merton red, yellow, indigo, and dark + green, but the experiment was not successful.[8] + +3. _The Love-Lyrics and Songs of Proteus, by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, with +the Love Sonnets of Proteus, by the same author, now reprinted in their +full text with many sonnets omitted from the earlier editions._ London, +MDCCCXCII. Small 4to. Golden type. In black and red. Border 1. 300 paper +copies at two guineas, none on vellum. Dated January 26, issued February +27, 1892. Sold by Reeves & Turner. Bound in stiff vellum. + + This is the only book in which the initials are printed in red. This + was done by the author's wish. + +4. _The Nature of Gothic, a Chapter of the Stones of Venice._ By JOHN +RUSKIN. With a preface by William Morris. Small 4to. Golden type. Border +1. Diagrams in text. 500 paper copies at thirty shillings, none on vellum. +Dated in preface, February 15, issued March 22, 1892. Published by George +Allen. Bound in stiff vellum. + + This chapter of the Stones of Venice, which Ruskin always considered + the most important in the book, was first printed separately, in 1854, + as a sixpenny pamphlet. Mr. Morris paid more than one tribute to it in + _Hopes and Fears for Art_. Of him Ruskin said, in 1887, "Morris is + beaten gold." + +5. _The Defence of Guenevere, and Other Poems._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. Small +4to. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 2 and 1. 300 paper copies at +two guineas, 10 on vellum at about twelve guineas. Dated April 2, issued +May 19, 1892. Sold by Reeves & Turner. Bound in limp vellum. + + This book was set up from a copy of the edition published by Reeves & + Turner in 1880, the only alteration, except a few corrections, being + in the eleventh line of _Summer Dawn_.[9] It is divided into three + parts, the poems suggested by Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_, the poems + inspired by Froissart's _Chronicles_, and poems on various subjects. + The two first sections have borders, and the last has a half border. + The first sheet was printed on February 17, 1892. It was the first + book bound in limp vellum, and the only one of which the title was + inscribed by hand on the back. + +6. _A Dream of John Ball and a King's Lesson._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. Small +4to. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 3a, 4, and 2. With a woodcut +designed by Sir E. Burne-Jones. 300 paper copies at thirty shillings, 11 +on vellum at ten guineas. Dated May 13, issued September 24, 1892. Sold by +Reeves & Turner. Bound in limp vellum. + + This was set up with a few alterations from a copy of Reeves & + Turner's third edition, and the printing was begun on April 4, 1892. + The frontispiece was redrawn from that to the first edition, and + engraved on wood by W. H. Hooper, who engraved all Sir E. + Burne-Jones's designs for the Kelmscott Press, except those for _The + Wood Beyond the World_ and _The Life and Death of Jason_. The + inscription below the figures,[10] and the narrow border, were + designed by Mr. Morris and engraved with the picture on one block, + which was afterwards used on a leaflet printed for the Ancoats + Brotherhood in February, 1894. + +7. _The Golden Legend._ By JACOBUS DE VORAGINE. Translated by William +Caxton. Edited by F. S. Ellis. 3 vols. Large 4to. Golden type. Borders 5a, +5, 6a and 7. Woodcut title and two woodcuts designed by Sir E. +Burne-Jones. 500 copies at five guineas, none on vellum. Dated September +12, issued November 3, 1892. Published by Bernard Quaritch. Bound in half +Holland, with paper labels printed in the Troy type. + + In July, 1890, when only a few letters of the Golden type had been + cut, Mr. Morris bought a copy of this book, printed by Wynkyn de Worde + in 1527. He soon afterwards determined to print it, and on September + 11th entered into a formal agreement with Mr. Quaritch for its + publication. It was only an unforeseen difficulty about the size of + the first stock of paper that led to _The Golden Legend_ not being the + first book put in hand. It was set up from a transcript of Caxton's + first edition, lent by the Syndics of the Cambridge University Library + for the purpose. A trial page was got out in March, 1891, and fifty + pages were in type by May 11th, the day on which the first sheet was + printed. The first volume was finished, with the exception of the + illustrations and the preliminary matter, in October, 1891. The two + illustrations and the title (which was the first woodcut title + designed by Mr. Morris) were not engraved until June and August, 1892, + when the third volume was approaching completion. About half a dozen + impressions of the illustrations were pulled on vellum. A slip asking + owners of the book not to have it bound with pressure, nor to have the + edges cut instead of merely trimmed, was inserted in each copy. + +8. _The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye._ By RAOUL LEFEVRE. Translated +by William Caxton. Edited by H. Halliday Sparling. 2 vols. Large 4to. Troy +type, with table of chapters and glossary in Chaucer type. In black and +red. Borders 5a, 5, and 8. Woodcut title. 300 paper copies at nine +guineas, 5 on vellum at eighty pounds. Dated October 14, issued November +24, 1892. Published by Bernard Quaritch. Bound in limp vellum. + + This book, begun in February, 1892, is the first book printed in Troy + type, and the first in which Chaucer type appears. It is a reprint of + the first book printed in English. It had long been a favourite with + William Morris, who designed a great quantity of initials and + ornaments for it, and wrote the following note for Mr. Quaritch's + catalogue: "As to the matter of the book, it makes a thoroughly + amusing story, instinct with mediaeval thought and manners. For though + written at the end of the Middle Ages and dealing with classical + mythology, it has in it no token of the coming Renaissance, but is + purely mediaeval. It is the last issue of that story of Troy which + through the whole of the Middle Ages had such a hold on men's + imaginations; the story built up from a rumour of the Cyclic Poets, of + the heroic City of Troy, defended by Priam and his gallant sons, led + by Hector the Preux Chevalier, and beset by the violent and brutal + Greeks, who were looked on as the necessary machinery for bringing + about the undeniable tragedy of the fall of the City. Surely this is + well worth reading, if only as a piece of undiluted mediaevalism." 2000 + copies of a 4to announcement, with specimen pages, were printed at the + Kelmscott Press in December, 1892, for distribution by the + publisher.[11] + +9. _Biblia Innocentium: Being the Story of God's Chosen People before the +Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ upon Earth._ Written anew for children, by +J. W. MACKAIL, Sometime Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. 8vo. Border 2. +200 on paper at a guinea, none on vellum. Dated October 22, issued +December 9, 1892. Sold by Reeves & Turner. Bound in stiff vellum. + + This was the last book issued in stiff vellum except _Hand and Soul_, + and the last with untrimmed edges. It was the first book printed in + 8vo. + +10. _The History of Reynard the Foxe._ By WILLIAM CAXTON. Reprinted from +his edition of 1481. Edited by H. Halliday Sparling. Large 4to. Troy type, +with Glossary in Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 5a and 7. Woodcut +title. 300 on paper at three guineas, 10 on vellum at fifteen guineas. +Dated December 15, 1892, issued January 25, 1893. Published by Bernard +Quaritch. Bound in limp vellum. + + About this book, which was first announced as in the press in the list + dated July, 1892, William Morris wrote the following note for Mr. + Quaritch's catalogue: "This translation of Caxton's is one of the very + best of his works as to style; and being translated from a kindred + tongue is delightful as mere language. In its rude joviality, and + simple and direct delineation of character, it is a thoroughly good + representative of the famous ancient Beast Epic." The edges of this + book, and of all subsequent books, were trimmed in accordance with the + invariable practice of the early printers. Mr. Morris much preferred + the trimmed edges. + +11. _The Poems of William Shakespeare_, printed after the original copies +of _Venus and Adonis_, 1593. _The Rape of Lucrece_, 1594. _Sonnets_, 1609. +_The Lover's Complaint._ Edited by F. S. Ellis. 8vo. Golden type. In black +and red. Borders 1 and 2. 500 paper copies at twenty-five shillings, 10 on +vellum at ten guineas. Dated January 17, issued February 13, 1893. Sold by +Reeves & Turner. Bound in limp vellum. + + A trial page of this book was set up on November 1, 1892. Though the + number was large, this has become one of the rarest books issued from + the Press.[12] + +12. _News from Nowhere: or, An Epoch of Rest, Being Some Chapters from a +Utopian Romance._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. 8vo. Golden type. In black and red. +Borders 9a and 4, and a woodcut engraved by W. H. Hooper from a design by +C. M. Gere. 300 on paper at two guineas, 10 on vellum at ten guineas. +Dated November 22, 1892, issued March 24, 1893. Sold by Reeves & Turner. +Bound in limp vellum. + + The text of this book was printed before Shakespeare's _Poems and + Sonnets_, but it was kept back for the frontispiece, which is a + picture of the old manor-house in the village of Kelmscott by the + upper Thames, from which the Press took its name. It was set up from a + copy of one of Reeves & Turner's editions, and in reading it for the + press the author made a few slight corrections. It was the last book + except the _Savonarola_ (No. 31) in which he used the old paragraph + mark [Illustration], which was discarded in favour of the leaves, + which had already been used in the two large 4to books printed in the + Troy type. + +13. _The Order of Chivalry._ Translated from the French by William Caxton +and reprinted from his edition of 1484. Edited by F. S. Ellis. And +_L'Ordene de Chevalerie_, with translation by William Morris. Small 4to. +Chaucer type, in black and red. Borders 9a and 4, and a woodcut designed +by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. 225 on paper at thirty shillings, 10 on vellum +at ten guineas. _The Order of Chivalry_ dated November 10, 1892, +_L'Ordene de Chevalerie_ dated February 24, 1893, issued April 12, 1893. +Sold by Reeves & Turner. Bound in limp vellum. + + This was the last book printed in small 4to. The last section is in + 8vo. It was the first book printed in the Chaucer type. The reprint + from Caxton was finished while _News from Nowhere_ was in the press, + and before Shakespeare's _Poems and Sonnets_ was begun. The French + poem and its translation were added as an afterthought, and have a + separate colophon. Some of the three-line initials which were designed + for _The Well at the World's End_ are used in the French poem, and + this is their first appearance. The translation was begun on December + 3, 1892, and the border round the frontispiece was designed on + February 13, 1893. + +14. _The Life of Thomas Woolsey, Cardinal Archbishop of York._ Written by +GEORGE CAVENDISH. Edited by F. S. Ellis from the author's autograph MS. +8vo. Golden type. Border 1. 250 on paper at two guineas, 6 on vellum at +ten guineas. Dated March 30, issued May 3, 1893. Sold by Reeves & Turner. +Bound in limp vellum. + +15. _The History of Godefrey of Boloyne and of the Conquest of +Iherusalem._ Reprinted from Caxton's edition of 1841. Edited by H. +Halliday Sparling. Large 4to. Troy type, with list of chapter headings and +glossary in Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 5a and 5, and woodcut +title. 300 on paper at six guineas, 6 on vellum at twenty guineas. Dated +April 27, issued May 24, 1893. Published by William Morris at the +Kelmscott Press. Bound in limp vellum. + + This was the fifth and last of the Caxton reprints, with many new + ornaments and initials, and a new printer's mark. It was first + announced as in the press in the list dated December, 1892. It was the + first book published and sold at the Kelmscott Press. An announcement + and order form, with two different specimen pages, was printed at the + Press, besides a special invoice. A few copies were bound in half + holland, not for sale. + +16. _Utopia._ Written by SIR THOMAS MORE. A reprint of the second edition +of Ralph Robinson's translation, with a foreword by William Morris.[13] +Edited by F. S. Ellis. 8vo. Chaucer type, with the reprinted title in Troy +type. In black and red. Borders 4 and 2. 300 on paper at thirty shillings, +8 on vellum at ten guineas. Dated August 4, issued September 8, 1893. Sold +by Reeves & Turner. Bound in limp vellum. + + This book was first announced as in the press in the list dated May + 20, 1893. + +17. _Maud, A Monodrama._ By ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON. 8vo. Golden type. In +black and red. Borders 10a and 10, and woodcut title. 500 on paper at two +guineas, 5 on vellum, not for sale. Dated August 11, issued September 30, +1893. Published by Macmillan & Co. Bound in limp vellum. + + The borders were specially designed for this book. They were both used + again in the Keats, and one of them appears in _The Saundering Flood_. + It is the first of the 8vo books with a woodcut title. + +18. _Gothic Architecture: A Lecture for the Arts and Crafts Exhibition +Society._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. 16mo. Golden type. In black and red. 1500 on +paper at two shillings and sixpence, 45 on vellum at ten and fifteen +shillings. Bound in half holland. + + This lecture was set up at Hammersmith and printed at the New Gallery + during the Arts and Crafts Exhibition in October and November, 1893. + The first copies were ready on October 21st and the book was twice + reprinted before the Exhibition closed. It was the first book printed + in 16mo. The four-line initials used in it appear here for the first + time. The vellum copies were sold during the Exhibition at ten + shillings, and the price was subsequently raised to fifteen + shillings.[14] + +19. _Sidonia the Sorceress._ By WILLIAM MEINHOLD. Translated by Francesca +Speranza, Lady Wilde. Large 4to. Golden type. In black and red. Border 8. +300 paper copies at four guineas, 10 on vellum at twenty guineas. Dated +September 15, issued November 1, 1893. Published by William Morris. Bound +in limp vellum. + + Before the publication of this book a large 4to announcement and order + form was issued, with a specimen page and an interesting description + of the book and its author, written and signed by William Morris. Some + copies were bound in half holland not for sale. + +20. _Ballads and Narrative Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti._ 8vo. Golden +type. In black and red. Borders 4a and 4, and woodcut title. 310 on paper +at two guineas, 6 on vellum at ten guineas. Dated October 14, issued in +November, 1893. Published by Ellis & Elvey. Bound in limp vellum. + + This book was announced as in preparation in the list of August 1, + 1893. + +21. _The Tale of King Florus and the Fair Jehane._ Translated by William +Morris from the French of the 13th century. 16mo. Chaucer type. In black +and red. Borders 11a and 11, and woodcut title. 350 on paper at seven +shillings and sixpence, 15 on vellum at thirty shillings. Dated December +16, issued December 28, 1893. Published by William Morris. Bound in half +holland. + + This story, like the three other translations with which it is + uniform, was taken from a little volume called _Nouvelles Francoises + en prose du XIIIe siecle_, Paris, Jannet, 1856. They were first + announced as in preparation under the heading _French Tales_ in the + list dated May 20, 1893. Eighty-five copies of _King Florus_ were + bought by J. & M. L. Tregaskis, who had them bound in all parts of the + world. These are now in the Rylands Library at Manchester. + +22. _The Story of the Glittering Plain. Which has been also called The +Land of Living Men or The Acre of the Undying._ Written by WILLIAM MORRIS. +Large 4to. Troy type, with list of chapters in Chaucer type. In black and +red. Borders 12a and 12, 23 designs by Walter Crane, engraved by A. +Leverett, and a woodcut title. 250 on paper at five guineas, 7 on vellum +at twenty pounds. Dated January 13, issued February 17, 1894. Published by +William Morris. Bound in limp vellum. Neither the borders in this book nor +six out of the seven frames round the illustrations appear in any other +book. The seventh is used round the second picture in _Love is Enough_. A +few copies were bound in half holland. + +23. _Of the Friendship of Amis and Amile._ _Done out of the ancient French +by_ WILLIAM MORRIS. 16mo. Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 11a and +11, and woodcut title. 500 on paper at seven shillings and sixpence, 15 on +vellum at thirty shillings. Dated March 13th, issued April 4, 1894. +Published by William Morris. Bound in half holland.[15] + + A poem entitled _Amys and Amillion_, founded on this story, was + originally to have appeared in the second volume of the _Earthly + Paradise_, but, like some other poems announced at the same time, it + was not included in the book. + +20a. _Sonnets and Lyrical Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti._ 8vo. Golden +type. In black and red. Borders 1a and 1, and woodcut title. 310 on paper +at two guineas, 6 on vellum at ten guineas. Dated February 20, issued +April 21, 1894. Published by Ellis & Elvey. Bound in limp vellum. + + This book is uniform with No. 20, to which it forms a sequel. Both + volumes were read for the press by Mr. W. M. Rossetti. + +24. _The Poems of John Keats._ Edited by F. S. Ellis. 8vo. Golden type. In +black and red. Borders 10a and 10, and woodcut title. 300 on paper at +thirty shillings, 7 on vellum at nine guineas. Dated March 7, issued May +8, 1894. Published by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum. + + This is now (January, 1898) the most sought after of all the smaller + Kelmscott Press books. It was announced as in preparation in the lists + of May 27 and August 1, 1893, and as in the press in that of March 31, + 1894, when the woodcut title still remained to be printed.[16] + +25. _Atalanta in Calydon: A Tragedy._ By ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. Large +4to. Troy type, with argument and _dramatis personae_ in Chaucer type; the +dedication and quotation from Euripides in Greek type designed by Selwyn +Image. In black and red. Borders 5a and 5, and woodcut title. 250 on paper +at two guineas, 8 on vellum at twelve guineas. Dated May 4, issued July +24, 1894. Published by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum. + + In the vellum copies of this book the colophon is not on the + eighty-second page as in the paper copies, but on the following page. + +26. _The Tale of the Emperor Coustans and of Over Sea._ Done out of +ancient French by WILLIAM MORRIS. 16mo. Chaucer type. In black and red. +Borders 11a and 11, both twice, and two woodcut titles. 525 on paper at +seven shillings and sixpence, 20 on vellum at two guineas. Dated August +30, issued September 26, 1894. Published by William Morris. Bound in half +holland. + + The first of these stories, which was the source of _The Man Born to + be King_ in _The Earthly Paradise_, was announced as in preparation in + the list of March 31, 1894. + +27. _The Wood Beyond the World._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. 8vo. Chaucer type. In +black and red. Borders 13a and 13, and a frontispiece designed by Sir E. +Burne-Jones, and engraved on wood by W. Spielmeyer. 350 on paper at two +guineas, 8 on vellum at ten guineas. Dated May 30, issued October 16, +1894. Published by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum. + + The borders in this book, as well as the ten half borders, are here + used for the first time. It was first announced as in the press in the + list of March 31, 1894. Another edition was published by Lawrence & + Bullen in 1895. + +28. _The Book of Wisdom and Lies. A Book of Traditional Stories from +Georgia and Asia._ Translated by Oliver Wardrop from the original of +Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani. 8vo. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 4a and +4, and woodcut title. 250 on paper at two guineas, none on vellum. +Finished September 20, issued October 29, 1894. Published by Bernard +Quaritch. Bound in limp vellum. + + The arms of Georgia, consisting of the Holy Coat, appear in the + woodcut title of this book.[17] + +29. _The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley._ Volume 1. Edited by F. +S. Ellis. 8vo. Golden type. Borders 1a and 1, and woodcut title. 250 on +paper at twenty-five shillings, 6 on vellum at eight guineas. Not dated, +issued November 29, 1894. Published by William Morris. Bound in limp +vellum without ties. + + Red ink is not used in this volume, though it is used in the second + volume, and more sparingly in the third. Some of the half borders + designed for _The Wood Beyond the World_ reappear before the longer + poems. The Shelley was first announced as in the press in the list of + March 31, 1894.[18] + +30. _Psalmi Penitentiales. An English rhymed version of the Seven +Penitential Psalms._ Edited by F. S. Ellis. 8vo. Chaucer type. In black +and red. 300 on paper at seven shillings and sixpence, 12 on vellum at +three guineas. Dated November 15, issued December 10, 1894. Published by +William Morris. Bound in half holland. + + These verses were taken from a manuscript Book of Hours, written at + Gloucester in the first half of the fifteenth century, but the Rev. + Professor Skeat has pointed out that the scribe must have copied them + from an older manuscript, as they are in the Kentish dialect of about + a century earlier. The half border on p. 34 appears for the first time + in this book. + +31. _Epistolade Contemptumundi di Frate Hieronymo da Ferrara Dellordinede +Frati Predicatori la Quale Manda ad Elena Buonaccorsi Sua Madre._ Per +CONSOLARLA DELLA MORTE DEL FRATELLO, _Suo Zio_. Edited by Charles Fairfax +Murray from the original autograph letter. 8vo. Chaucer type. In black +and red. Border 1. Woodcut on title designed by C. F. Murray and engraved +by W. H. Hooper. 150 on paper and 6 on vellum. Dated November 30, ready +December 12, 1894. Bound in half holland. + + This little book was printed for Mr. C. Fairfax Murray, the owner of + the manuscript, and was not for sale in the ordinary way. The colophon + is in Italian, and the printer's mark is in red. + +32. _The Tale of Beowulf._ Done out of the old English tongue by WILLIAM +MORRIS and A. J. WYATT. Large 4to. Troy type, with argument, side-notes, +list of persons and places, and glossary in Chaucer type. In black and +red. Borders 14a and 14, and woodcut title. 300 on paper at two guineas, 8 +on vellum at ten pounds. Dated January 10, issued February 2, 1895. +Published by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum. + + The borders in this book were only used once again, in the Jason. A + note to the reader printed on a slip in the Golden type was inserted + in each copy. _Beowulf_ was first announced as in preparation in the + list of May 20, 1893. The verse translation was begun by Mr. Morris, + with the aid of Mr. Wyatt's careful paraphrase of the text, on + February 21, 1893, and finished on April 10, 1894, but the argument + was not written by Mr. Morris until December 10, 1894. + +33. _Syr Perecyvelle of Gales._ Overseen by F. S. Ellis, after the edition +edited by J. O. Halliwell from the Thornton MS. in the Library of Lincoln +Cathedral. 8vo. Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 13a and 13, and a +woodcut designed by Sir E. Burne-Jones. 350 on paper at fifteen shillings, +8 on vellum four guineas. Dated February 16, issued May 2, 1895. Published +by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum. + + This is the first of the series to which _Sire Degrevaunt and Syr + Isumbrace_ belong. They were all reprinted from the Camden Society's + volume of 1844, which was a favourite with Mr. Morris from his Oxford + days. _Syr Perecyvelle_ was first announced in the list of December 1, + 1894. The shoulder-notes were added by Mr. Morris. + +34. _The Life and Death of Jason_, A Poem by WILLIAM MORRIS. Large 4to. +Troy type, with a few words in Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 14a +and 14, and two woodcuts designed by Sir E. Burne-Jones and engraved on +wood by W. Spielmeyer. 200 on paper at five guineas, 6 on vellum at twenty +guineas. Dated May 25, issued July 5, 1895. Published by William Morris. +Bound in limp vellum. + + This book, announced as in the press in the list of April 21, 1894, + proceeded slowly, as several other books, notably the Chaucer, were + being printed at the same time. The text, which had been corrected for + the second edition of 1868, and for the edition of 1882, was again + revised by the author. The line fillings on the last page were cut on + metal for the book, and cast like type. + +29a. _The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley._ Volume 11. Edited by F. +S. Ellis. 8vo. Golden type. In black and red. 250 on paper at twenty-five +shillings, 6 on vellum at eight guineas. Not dated, issued March 25, 1895. +Published by William Morris, Bound in limp vellum without ties. + +35. _Child Christopher and Goldilind the Fair._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. 2 vols. +16mo. Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 15a and 15, and woodcut +title. 600 on paper at fifteen shillings, 12 on vellum at four guineas. +Dated July 25, issued September 25, 1895. Published by William Morris. +Bound in half holland, with labels printed in the Golden type. + + The borders designed for this book were only used once again, in _Hand + and Soul_. The plot of the story was suggested by that of Havelok the + Dane, printed by the Early English Text Society. + +29b. _The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley._ Volume III. Edited by +F. S. Ellis. 8vo. Golden type. In black and red. 250 on paper at +twenty-five shillings, 6 on vellum at eight guineas. Dated August 21, +issued October 28, 1895. Published by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum +without ties. + +36. _Hand and Soul._ By DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. Reprinted from _The Germ_, +for Messrs. Way & Williams, of Chicago. 16mo. Golden type. In black and +red. Borders 15a and 15, and woodcut title. 300 paper copies and 11 vellum +copies for America. 225 paper copies for sale in England at ten shillings, +and 10 on vellum at thirty shillings. Dated October 24, issued December +12, 1895. Bound in stiff vellum, without ties. + + This was the only 16mo book bound in vellum. The English and American + copies have a slightly different colophon. The shoulder-notes were + added by Mr. Morris. + +37. _Poems Chosen out of the Works of Robert Herrick._ Edited by F. S. +Ellis. 8vo. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 4a and 4, and woodcut +title. 250 on paper at thirty shillings, 8 on vellum at eight guineas. +Dated November 21, 1895, issued February 6, 1896. Published by William +Morris. Bound in limp vellum. + + This book was first announced as in preparation in the list of + December 1, 1894, and as in the press in that of July 1, 1895. + +38. _Poems Chosen out of the Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge._ Edited by +F. S. Ellis. 8vo. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 13a and 13. 300 +on paper at a guinea, 8 on vellum at five guineas. Dated February 5, +issued April 12, 1896. Published by William Morris. Bound in limp +vellum.[19] + + This book contains thirteen poems. It was first announced as in + preparation in the list of December 1, 1894, and as in the press in + that of November 26, 1895. It is the last of the series to which + Tennyson's _Maud_, and the poems of Rossetti, Keats, Shelley, and + Herrick belong. + +39. _The Well at the World's End._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. Large 4to. Double +columns. Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 16a, 16, 17a, 17, 18a, +18, 19a, 19, and four woodcuts designed by Sir E. Burne-Jones. 350 on +paper at five guineas, 8 on vellum at twenty guineas. Dated March 2, +issued June 4, 1896. Sold by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum. + + This book, delayed for various reasons, was longer on hand than any + other. It appears in no less than twelve lists, from that of December, + 1892, to that of November 26, 1895, as "in the press." Trial pages, + including one in a single column, were ready as early as September, + 1892, and the printing began on December 16th, of that year. The + edition of _The Well at the World's End_, published by Longmans, was + then being printed from the author's manuscript at the Chiswick Press, + and the Kelmscott Press edition was set up from the sheets of that + edition, which, though not issued until October, 1896, was finished in + 1894. The eight borders and the six different ornaments between the + columns appear here for the first time, but are used again in _The + Water of the Wondrous Isles_, with the exception of two borders. + +40. _The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer._ Edited by F. S. Ellis. Folio. Chaucer +type, with headings to the longer poems in Troy type. In black and red. +Borders 20a to 26, woodcut title, and eighty-seven woodcut illustrations +designed by Sir E. Burne-Jones. 425 on paper at twenty pounds, 13 on +vellum at 120 guineas. Dated May 8, issued June 26, 1896. Published by +William Morris. Bound in half holland. + + The history of this book, which is by far the most important + achievement of the Kelmscott Press, is as follows: + + As far back as June 11, 1891, Mr. Morris spoke of printing a Chaucer + with a black-letter fount, which he hoped to design. Four months + later, when most of the Troy type was designed and cut, he expressed + his intention to use it first on John Ball, and then on a Chaucer, + and perhaps a _Gesta Romanorum_. By January 1, 1892, the Troy type was + delivered, and early in that month two trial pages, one from _The + Cook's Tale_ and one from _Sir Thopas_, the latter in double columns, + were got out. It then became evident that the type was too large for a + Chaucer, and Mr. Morris decided to have it re-cut in the size known as + pica. By the end of June he was thus in possession of the type which, + in the list issued in December, 1892, he named the Chaucer type. In + July, 1892, another trial page, a passage from _The Knight's Tale_, in + double columns of fifty-eight lines, was got out, and found to be + satisfactory. The idea of the Chaucer as it now exists, with + illustrations by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, then took definite shape. + + In a proof of the first list, dated April, 1892, there is an + announcement of the book as in preparation, in black-letter, large + quarto, but this was struck out, and does not appear in the list as + printed in May, nor yet in the July list. In that for December, 1892, + it is announced for the first time as to be in Chaucer type "with + about sixty designs by E. Burne-Jones." The next list, dated March 9, + 1893, states that it will be a folio, and that it is in the press, by + which was meant that a few pages were in type. In the list dated + August 1, 1893, the probable price is given as twenty pounds. The next + four lists contain no fresh information, but on August 17, 1894, nine + days after the first sheet was printed, a notice was sent to the trade + that there would be 325 copies at twenty pounds, and about sixty + woodcut designs by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. Three months later it was + decided to increase the number of illustrations to upwards of seventy, + and to print another 100 copies of the book. A circular letter was + sent to the subscribers on November 14th, stating this, and giving + them an opportunity of cancelling their orders. Orders were not + withdrawn, the extra copies were immediately taken up, and the list + for December 1, 1894, which is the first containing full particulars, + announces that all paper copies are sold.[20] + + Mr. Morris began designing his first folio border on February 1, 1893, + but was dissatisfied with the design and did not finish it. Three days + later he began the vine border for the first page, and finished it in + about a week, together with the initial word "Whan," the two lines of + heading, and the frame for the first picture, and Mr. Hooper engraved + the whole of these on one block. The first picture was engraved at + about the same time. A specimen of the first page (differing slightly + from the same page as it appears in the book) was shown at the Arts + and Crafts Exhibition in October and November, 1893, and was issued to + a few leading booksellers, but it was not until August 8, 1894, that + the first sheet was printed at 14, Upper Mall. On January 8, 1895, + another press was started at 21, Upper Mall, and from that time two + presses were almost exclusively at work on the Chaucer. By September + 10th, the last page of _The Romaunt of the Rose_ was printed. In the + middle of February, 1896, Mr. Morris began designing the title. It was + finished on the 27th of the same month and engraved by Mr. Hooper in + March. On May 8th, a year and nine months after the printing of the + first sheet, the book was completed. On June 2nd, the first two copies + were delivered to Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Mr. Morris. Mr. Morris's + copy is now at Exeter College, Oxford, with other books printed at the + Kelmscott Press. + + Besides the eighty-seven illustrations designed by Sir Edward + Burne-Jones, and engraved by W. H. Hooper, the Chaucer contains a + woodcut title, fourteen large borders, eighteen different frames + around the illustrations, and twenty-six large initial words designed + for the book by William Morris. Many of these were engraved by C. E. + Keats, and others by W. H. Hooper and W. Spielmeyer. + + In February, 1896, a notice was issued respecting special bindings, of + which Mr. Morris intended to design four. + + Two of these were to have been executed under Mr. Cobden-Sanderson's + direction at the Doves Bindery, and two by Messrs. J. & J. Leighton. + But the only design that he was able to complete was for a full white + pigskin binding, which has now been carried out at the Doves Bindery + on forty-eight copies, including two on vellum.[21] + +41. _The Earthly Paradise._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. Volume I. _Prologue: The +Wanderers._ March: _Atalanta's Race. The Man Born to be King._ Medium +4to. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 27a, 27, 28a, and 28, and +woodcut title. 225 on paper at thirty shillings, 6 on vellum at seven +guineas. Dated May 7, issued July 24, 1896. Published by William Morris. +Bound in limp vellum. + + This was the first book printed on the paper with the apple + water-mark. The seven other volumes followed it at intervals of a few + months. None of the ten borders used in the _Earthly Paradise_ appear + in any other book. The four different half-borders round the poems to + the months are also not used elsewhere. The first border was designed + in June, 1895. + +42. _Laudes Beatae Mariae Virginis._ Latin poems taken from a Psalter +written in England about A.D. 1220. Edited by S. C. Cockerell. Large 4to. +Troy type. In black, red, and blue. 250 on paper at ten shillings, 10 on +vellum at two guineas. Dated July 7, issued August 7, 1896. Published by +William Morris. Bound in half holland. + + This was the first book printed at the Kelmscott Press in three + colours.[22] The manuscript from which the poems were taken was one of + the most beautiful of the English books in Mr. Morris's possession, + both as regards writing and ornament. No author's name is given to the + poems, but after this book was issued the Rev. E. S. Dewick pointed + out that they had already been printed at Tegernsee in 1579, in a 16mo + volume in which they are ascribed to Stephen Langton. A note to this + effect was printed in the Chaucer type in December 28, 1896, and + distributed to the subscribers. + +41a. _The Earthly Paradise._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. Volume II. April: _The +Doom of King Acrisius. The Proud King._ Medium 4to. Golden type. In black +and red. Borders 29a, 29, 28a, and 28. 225 on paper at thirty shillings, 6 +on vellum at seven guineas. Dated June 24, issued September 17, 1896. +Published by William Morris. Bound in limp vellum. + +43. _The Floure and the Leafe, and The Boke of Cupide, God of Love, or The +Cuckow and the Nightingale._ Edited by F. S. Ellis. Medium 4to. Troy type, +with note and colophon in Chaucer type. In black and red. 300 on paper at +ten shillings, 10 on vellum at two guineas. Dated August 21, issued +November 2, 1896. Published at the Kelmscott Press. Bound in half holland. + + Two of the initial words from the Chaucer are used in this book, one + at the beginning of each poem. These poems were formerly attributed to + Chaucer, but recent scholarship has proved that _The Floure and the + Leafe_ is much later than Chaucer, and that _The Cuckow and the + Nightingale_ was written by Sir Thomas Clanvowe about A.D. 1405-10. + +44. _The Shepheardes Calender: Conteyning Twelve Aeglogues, Proportionable +to the Twelve Monethes._ By EDMUND SPENCER. Edited by F. S. Ellis. Medium +4to. Golden type. In black and red. With twelve full page illustrations by +A. J. Gaskin. 225 on paper at a guinea, 6 on vellum at three guineas. +Dated October 14, issued November 26, 1896. Published at the Kelmscott +Press. Bound in half holland. + + The illustrations in this book were printed from process blocks by + Walker & Boutall. By an oversight, the names of author, editor, and + artist were omitted from the colophon. + +41b. _The Earthly Paradise._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. Volume III. May: _The +Story of Cupid and Psyche. The Writing on the Image._ June: _The Love of +Alcestis. The Lady of the Land._ Medium 4to. Golden type. In black and +red. Borders 30a, 30, 27a, 27, 28a, 28, 29a, and 29. 225 on paper at +thirty shillings, 6 on vellum at seven guineas. Dated August 24, issued +December 5, 1896. Published at the Kelmscott Press. Bound in limp vellum. + +41c. _The Earthly Paradise._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. Volume IV. July: _The Son +of Croesus. The Watching of the Falcon._ August: _Pygmalion and the Image. +Ogier the Dane._ Medium 4to. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 31a, +31, 29a, 29, 28a, 28, 30a, and 30. Dated November 25, 1896, issued +January 22, 1897. Published at the Kelmscott Press. Bound in limp vellum. + +41d. _The Earthly Paradise._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. Volume V. September. _The +Death of Paris. The Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon._ October: +_The Story of Acontius and Cydippe. The Man Who Never Laughed Again._ +Medium 4to. Golden type. In black and red. Borders 29a, 29, 27a, 27, 28a, +28, 31a, and 31. Finished December 24, 1896, issued March 9, 1897. +Published at the Kelmscott Press. Bound in limp vellum. + +41e. _The Earthly Paradise._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. Volume VI. November: _The +Story of Rhodope. The Lovers of Gudrun._ Medium 4to. Golden type. In black +and red. Borders 27a, 27, 30a, and 30. Finished February 18, issued May +11, 1897. Published at the Kelmscott Press. Bound in limp vellum. + +41f. _The Earthly Paradise._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. Volume VII. December: _The +Golden Apples. The Fostering of Aslaug._ January: _Bellerophon at Argos. +The Ring Given to Venus._ Medium 4to. Golden type. In black and red. +Borders 29a, 29, 31a, 31, 30a, 30, 27a, and 27. Finished March 17, issued +July 29, 1897. Published at the Kelmscott Press. Bound in limp vellum. + +45. _The Water of the Wondrous Isles._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. Large 4to. +Chaucer type, in double columns, with a few lines in Troy type at the end +of each of the seven parts. In black and red. Borders 16a, 17a, 18a, 19, +and 19a. 250 on paper at three guineas, 6 on vellum at twelve guineas. +Dated April 1, issued July 29, 1897. Published at the Kelmscott Press. +Bound in limp vellum. + + Unlike _The Well at the World's End_, with which it is mainly uniform, + this book has red shoulder-notes and no illustrations. Mr. Morris + began the story in verse on February 4, 1895. A few days later he + began it afresh in alternate prose and verse; but he was again + dissatisfied, and finally began it a third time in prose alone, as it + now stands. It was first announced as in the press in the list of June + 1, 1896, at which date the early chapters were in type, although they + were not printed until about a month later. The designs for the + initial words "Whilom" and "Empty" were begun by William Morris + shortly before his death, and were finished by R. Catterson-Smith. + Another edition was published by Longmans on October 1, 1897. + +41g. _The Earthly Paradise._ By WILLIAM MORRIS. Volume VIII. February: +_Bellerophon in Lycia. The Hill of Venus. Epilogue. L'Envoi._ Medium 4to. +Golden type. In black and red. Borders 28a, 28, 29a, and 29. Finished +June 10, issued September 27, 1897. Published at the Kelmscott Press. +Bound in limp vellum. + + The colophon of this final volume of _The Earthly Paradise_ contains + the following note: "The borders in this edition of _The Earthly + Paradise_ were designed by William Morris, except those on page 4 of + Volumes ii., iii., and iv., afterwards repeated, which were designed + to match the opposite borders, under William Morris's direction, by R. + Catterson-Smith, who also finished the initial words 'Whilom' and + 'Empty' for _The Water of the Wondrous Isles_. All the other letters, + borders, title-pages, and ornaments used at the Kelmscott Press, + except the Greek type in _Atalanta in Calydon_, were designed by + William Morris." + +46. Two trial pages of the projected edition of Lord Berners's Translation +of Froissart's Chronicles. Folio. Chaucer type, with heading in Troy type. +In black and red. Border 32, containing the shields of France, the Empire, +and England, and a half-border containing those of Reginald, Lord Cobham, +Sir John Chandos, and Sir Walter Manny. 160 on vellum at a guinea, none on +paper. Dated September, issued October 7, 1897. Published at the Kelmscott +Press. Not bound. + + It was the intention of Mr. Morris to make this edition of what was + since his college days almost his favourite book a worthy companion to + the Chaucer. It was to have been in two volumes folio, with new cusped + initials and heraldic ornament throughout. Each volume was to have had + a large frontispiece designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones; the subject + of the first was to have been St. George, that of the second Fame. A + trial page was set up in the Troy type soon after it came from the + foundry, in January, 1892. Early in 1893 trial pages were set up in + the Chaucer type, and in the list for March 9th of that year the book + is erroneously stated to be in the press. In the three following lists + it is announced as in preparation. In the list dated December 1, 1893, + and in the three next lists, it is again announced as in the press, + and the number to be printed is given as 150. Meanwhile the printing + of the Chaucer had been begun, and as it was not feasible to carry on + two folios at the same time, the Froissart again comes under the + heading "in preparation" in the lists from December 1, 1894, to June + 1, 1896. In the prospectus of _The Shepheardes Calender_, dated + November 12, 1896, it is announced as abandoned. At that time about + thirty-four pages were in type, but no sheet had been printed. Before + the type was broken up, on December 24, 1896, thirty-two copies of + sixteen of these pages were printed and given as a memento to personal + friends of the poet and printer whose death now made the completion of + the book impossible. This suggested the idea of printing two pages for + wider distribution. The half-border had been engraved in April, 1894, + by W. Spielmeyer, but the large border only existed as a drawing. It + was engraved with great skill and spirit by C. E. Keates, and the two + pages were printed by Stephen Mowlem, with the help of an apprentice, + in a manner worthy of the designs. + +47. _Sire Degrevaunt._ Edited by F. S. Ellis after the edition printed by +J. O. Halliwell. 8vo. Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 1a and 1, +and a woodcut designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. 350 on paper at fifteen +shillings, 8 on vellum at four guineas. Dated March 14, 1896, issued +November 12, 1897. Published at the Kelmscott Press. Bound in half +holland. + + This book, subjects from which were painted by Sir Edward Burne-Jones + on the walls of the Red House, Upton, Bexley Heath, many years ago, + was always a favourite with Mr. Morris. The frontispiece was not + printed until October, 1897, eighteen months after the text was + finished. + +48. _Syr Ysambrace._ Edited by F. S. Ellis after the edition printed by J. +O. Halliwell from the MS, in the Library of Lincoln Cathedral, with some +corrections. 8vo. Chaucer type. In black and red. Borders 4a and 4, and a +woodcut designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. 350 on paper at twelve +shillings, 8 on vellum at four guineas. Dated July 14, issued November 11, +1897. Published at the Kelmscott Press. Bound in half holland. + + This is the third and last of the reprints from the Camden Society's + volume of Thornton Romances. The text was all set up and partly + printed by June, 1896, at which time it was intended to include _Sir + Eglamour_ in the same volume. + +49. _Some German Woodcuts of the Fifteenth Century. Being thirty-five +reproductions from books that were in the library of the late William +Morris._ Edited, with a list of the principal woodcut books in that +library, by S. C. Cockerell. Large 4to. Golden type. In red and black. 225 +on paper at thirty shillings, 8 on vellum at five guineas. Dated December +15, 1897, issued January 6, 1898. Published at the Kelmscott Press. Bound +in half holland. + + Of these thirty-five reproductions twenty-nine were all that were done + of a series chosen by Mr. Morris to illustrate a catalogue of his + library, and the other six were prepared by him for an article in the + fourth number of _Bibliographical_ part of which is reprinted as an + introduction to the book. The process blocks (with one exception) were + made by Walker & Boutall, and are of the same size as the original + cuts. + +50. _The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs._ By +WILLIAM MORRIS. Small folio. Chaucer type, with title and headings to the +four books in Troy type. In black and red. Borders 33a and 33, and two +illustrations designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and engraved by W. H. +Hooper. 160 on paper at six guineas, 6 on vellum at twenty guineas. Dated +January 19, issued February 25, 1898. Published at the Kelmscott Press. +Bound in limp vellum, with blue silk ties. + + The two borders used in this book were almost the last that Mr. Morris + designed. They were intended for an edition of _The Hill of Venus_, + which was to have been written in prose by him and illustrated by Sir + Edward Burne-Jones. The foliage was suggested by the ornament in two + Psalters of the last half of the thirteenth century in the library at + Kelmscott House. The initial A at the beginning of the third book was + designed in March, 1893, for the Froissart, and does not appear + elsewhere. + + An edition of _Sigurd the Volsung_, which Mr. Morris justly considered + his masterpiece, was contemplated early in the history of the + Kelmscott Press. An announcement appears in a proof of the first list, + dated April, 1892, but it was excluded from the list as issued in May. + It did not reappear until the list of November 26, 1895, in which, the + Chaucer being near its completion, _Sigurd_ comes under the heading + "in preparation," as a folio in Troy type, "with about twenty-five + illustrations by Sir Edward Burne-Jones." In the list of June 1, 1896, + it is finally announced as "In the press," the number of illustrations + is increased to forty, and other particulars are given. Four borders + had then been designed for it, two of which were used on pages 470 and + 471 of the Chaucer. The other two have not been used, though one of + them has been engraved. Two pages only were in type, thirty-two copies + of which were struck off on January 11, 1897, and given to friends, + with the sixteen pages of Froissart mentioned above. + +51. _The Sundering Flood._ Written by WILLIAM MORRIS. Overseen for the +press by May Morris. 8vo. Chaucer type. In black and red. Border 10, and a +map. 300 on paper at two guineas. Dated November 15, 1897, issued February +25, 1898. Published at the Kelmscott Press. Bound in half holland. + + This was the last romance by William Morris. He began to write it on + December 21, 1895, and dictated the final words on September 8, 1896. + The map pasted into the cover was drawn by H. Cribb for Walker & + Boutall, who prepared the block. In the edition that Longmans are + about to issue the bands of robbers called in the Kelmscott edition + Red and Black Skinners appear correctly as Red and Black Skimmers. The + name was probably suggested by that of the pirates called "escumours + of the sea" on page 154 of _Godfrey of Boloyne_. + +52. _Love is Enough, or the Freeing of Pharamond; A Morality._ Written by +William Morris. Large 4to. Troy type, with stage directions in Chaucer +type. In black, red, and blue. Borders 6a and 7, and two illustrations +designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. 300 on paper at two guineas, 8 on +vellum at ten guineas. Dated December 11, 1897, issued March 24, 1898. +Published at the Kelmscott Press. Bound in limp vellum. + + This was the second book printed in three colours at the Kelmscott + Press. As explained in the colophon, the final picture was not + designed for this particular edition. + +53. _A Note by William Morris on his Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press. +Together with a Short Description of the Press_, by S. C. COCKERELL. And +an Annotated List of the Books Printed Thereat. Octavo. Golden type, with +five pages in the Troy and Chaucer types. In black and red. Borders 4a and +4, and a woodcut designed by Sir E. Burne-Jones. 525 on paper at ten +shillings, 12 on vellum at two guineas. Dated March 4, issued March 24, +1898. Published at the Kelmscott Press. Bound in half holland. + +Various Lists, Leaflets, and Announcements Printed at the Kelmscott Press: + +Eighteen lists of the books printed or in preparation at the Kelmscott +Press were issued to booksellers and subscribers. The dates of these are +May, July, and December, 1892; March 9, May 20, May 27, August 1, and +December 1, 1893; March 31, April 21, July 2, October 1 (a leaflet), and +December 1, 1894; July 1 and November 26, 1895; June 1, 1896; February 16 +and July 28, 1897. The three lists for 1892, and some copies of that for +March 9, 1893, were printed on Whatman paper, the last of the stock bought +for the first edition of _The Roots of the Mountains_. Besides these, +twenty-nine announcements, relating mainly to individual books, were +issued; and eight leaflets, containing extracts from the lists, were +printed for distribution by Messrs. Morris & Co. The following items, as +having a more permanent interest than most of these announcements, merit a +full description: + +1. Two forms of invitation to the annual gatherings of the Hammersmith +Socialist Society on January 30, 1892, and February 11, 1893. Golden type. + +2. A four-page leaflet for the Ancoats Brotherhood, with the frontispiece +from the Kelmscott Press edition of _A Dream of John Ball_ on the first +page. March, 189 Golden type. 2500 copies. + +3. An address to Sir Lowthian Bell, Bart., from his employees, dated 30th +June, 1894. Eight pages. Golden type. 250 on paper and 2 on vellum. + +4. A leaflet, with fly-leaf, headed _An American Memorial to Keats_, +together with a form of invitation to the unveiling of his bust in +Hampstead Parish Church on July 16, 1894. Golden type. 750 copies. + +5. A slip giving the text of a memorial tablet to Dr. Thomas Sadler, for +distribution at the unveiling of it in Rosslyn Hill Chapel, Hampstead. +November, 1894. Golden type. 450 copies. + +6. Scholarship certificates for the technical Education Board of the +London County Council, printed in the oblong borders designed for the +pictures in Chaucer's Works. One of these borders was not used in the +book, and this is its only appearance. The first certificate was printed +in November, 1894, and was followed in January, 1896, by eleven +certificates; in January, 1897, by six certificates; and in February, +1898, by eleven certificates, all differently worded. Golden type. The +numbers varied from 12 to 2500 copies. + +7. Programmes of the Kelmscott Press annual _Wayzgoose_ for the years +1892-95. These were printed without supervision from Mr. Morris. + +8. Specimen showing the three types used at the Press for insertion in the +first edition of Strange's _Alphabets_ March, 1895. 2000 ordinary copies +and 60 on large paper. + +9. Cards for Associates of the Deaconess Institution for the Diocese of +Rochester. One side of this card is printed in Chaucer type; on the other +there is a prayer in the Troy type enclosed in a small border which was +not used elsewhere. It was designed for the illustrations of a projected +edition of _The House of the Wolfings_, April, 1897. 250 copies. + + + + +INDEX. + + + A + + _AEneid, The_, 122-124, 144 + + _AEschylus_, 262 + + _Agamemnon_, Browning's, 124 + + Allingham, William, 42, 48, 70 + + Amiens Cathedral, article on, by Morris, 34, 36-39 + + _Amis and Amile_, translation by Morris, 229 + + Archbishop of Canterbury, 177 + + Aristophanes, 262 + + Arnold, Matthew, 149 + + Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, The, 191 + + Art Worker's Guild, The, 192 + + _Atalanta in Calydon_, Swinburne's, 229 + + _Athenaeum, The_, 152 + + + B + + Bagehot, Walter, quoted, 36 + + _Ballads and Narrative Poems_, Rossetti's, 229 + + Batchelor, Mr., 221 + + Bax, E. Belfort, 218 + + _Beata Beatrix_, picture by Rossetti, 55 + + _Beauty of Life, The_, Morris's lecture on, 65 + + Belgium, 110 + + _Beowulf, The Tale of_, 230, 231, 262 + + Besant, Mrs., 180 + + Bethel, Alfred, article on, by Morris, 34 + + Bible, the, 262 + + _Biblia Innocentium_, Mackail's, 228 + + Bibliographical Society, The, 192 + + Birkbeck Hill, Dr., 47, 73 + + Birmingham Society of Artists, lecture to, 62 + + Blackburn, 168 + + Blake, William, 263 + + "Bloody Sunday," 179 + + Boccaccio, 263 + + _Book of Wisdom and Lies, The_, 230 + + Borrow, George, 263 + + British Museum, the woodblocks of Kelmscott Press in possession of, 235 + + Brown, Madox, 113 + + Browning, Robert, his poems, 37, 39, 40, 57-59 + + Bryant, William Cullen, his translation of _The Odyssey_ compared with + Morris's translation, 142 + + Bulgaria, 146 + + Burne-Jones, Edward, 1; + his first meeting with Morris, 23, 24; + the beginning of his art, 26; + his trip with Morris and Fulford through Northern France, 26, 27; + his decision to leave college and study art, 27; + his admiration for Rossetti, 26, 27 _et seq._ + + Bury Wood, 15, 16 + + Byron, 236 + + + C + + Cambridge University Library, 221 + + Canterbury Cathedral, Morris's early visit to, 6 + + _Canterbury Tales, The_, 115 + + _Captain Singleton_, 263 + + Carlyle, Thomas, 24, 150, 263 + + _Carmagnole, The_, song, 178 + + Carpets, 89 + + Catterson-Smith, R., 233 + + Catullus, 262 + + _Chants for Socialists_, 218 + + Chartres, 27 + + Chaucer, 115, 116, 119, 137, 231-234, 237, 238, 256, 262 + + Chaucer type, the, 224 + + _Child Christopher and Goldilands the Fair_, 231 + + Chingford Hotel, 15 + + Chiswick Press, the, 33, 205, 206 + + Clarke, William, 166 + + Clay Road, 15 + + Cockerell, S. C., 234 + + Coleridge's _Poems_, selection from, by Morris, 232, 263 + + _Colonel Jack_, 263 + + Colour, Morris's opinions on, 83, 84, 92 + + _Commonweal, The_, organ of the Socialist League, 175, 183, 185, 195, + 201, 203, 209, 210, 218 + + Crane, Walter, 175, 192, 229 + + + D + + _Daily Chronicle, The_, Morris's letters to, concerning Epping Forest, + 12-18; + letter by Morris on Socialism, 186-189 + + _Daily News, The_, quotation from, 146-148 + + _Daisy Chain, The_, its influence on Morris, 24 + + Dante, 262 + + Day, Lewis, 31, 78 + + _Defence of Guenevere, The_, 54, 59, 228 + + Democratic Federation, the, 157, 168, 170, 174, 180 + + De Vinne, Th., on the Kelmscott Press, 224 + + Dickens, Charles, 263 + + Dixon, Canon, 34 + + _Dream of John Ball, A_, 195, 201-203, 228 + + Dumas, Alexandre, 263 + + Duerer, 261 + + Dyes, Morris's preferences in, 91 + + + E + + _Earthly Paradise, The_, 59, 115, 116-120, 144, 219, 233 + + Eastern Question Association, The, 148 + + _Edda, The_, 262 + + Ellis, F. S., 221-232, 237 + + _English Illustrated Magazine, The_, 218 + + _Epistola de Contemptu Mundi_, 230 + + Epping Forest, Morris's early familiarity with, 7, 11; + his letters concerning its destruction, 11-18 + + _Erewhon_, Kingsley's, 163 + + _Eve of Crecy_, poem by Morris, 55 + + Exeter College, 193 + + _Exile, The_, 262 + + _Eyrbyggja Saga, The_, 144 + + + F + + Fair Mead Bottom, 15 + + Farringdon Road, 101, 177 + + Faulkner, Charles, 47, 70, 73, 108, 111, 263 + + _Floure and the Leafe, The_, 233 + + Forman, Buxton, 205, 206 + + Freeman, E. A., 149 + + Froissart, 57, 233 + + + G + + _Germ, The_, 33 + + _Gertha's Lovers_, 36 + + _Ghirlandata, The_, picture by Rossetti, 55 + + Giotto, 261 + + Gisli, 109 + + Glasgow, 168 + + _Glittering Plain, The_, 221, 229, 246, 248 + + Godefrey of Boloyne, Caxton's history of, 228 + + _Golden Legend_, Caxton's, 221, 223, 227, 228 + + Golden type, the, 221 + + _Goldilocks and Goldilocks_, 7, 228 + + _Good King Wenceslas_, ballad printed at the Kelmscott Press, 4, 5 + + _Gothic Architecture_, lecture by Morris, 228 + + Green, J. R., 149 + + Grettir, 109 + + Grimm, 263 + + Gudrun, 109 + + + H + + Hammersmith, 97, 107, 108, 176, 181, 257 + + Hammersmith Socialist Society, The, 185, 189 + + _Hand and Soul_, Rossetti's, 231 + + _Hardy Norseman's Home of Yore_, 149 + + Havre, 27 + + _Heir of Redclyffe, The_, 24 + + Herodotus, 262 + + Herrick's _Poems_, 231 + + Hesiod, 262 + + High Beach, 17 + + _History of Florence_, Arezzo's, 220 + + _History of Oversea_, translated by Morris, 230 + + _Historyes of Troye_, Caxton's, 223, 228 + + _Hollow Land, The_, 36, 40 + + Homer, 262 + + Hornbeams, Morris's liking for, 13 + + _House of the Wolfings, The_, 195, 203-205, 207, 239, 246 + + _Huckleberry Finn_, 263 + + Hughes, Arthur, 49 + + Hugo, Victor, 263 + + + I + + Iceland, Morris's first voyage to, 108-110; + second voyage, 110 + + _Idylls of the King_, Tennyson's, 126, 136 + + Irish National League, The, 180 + + + J + + _Jorrocks, Mr._, 263 + + _Justice_, organ of the Democratic Federation, 168, 169 + + + K + + Kalevala, 262 + + Keats, John, 24, 27, 34, 229, 238, 263 + + Kelmscott Church, 258 + + Kelmscott House, 108, 221 + + Kelmscott Books, prices of, 238 + + Kelmscott Manor House, 101-108 + + Kelmscott Press, The, 177, 219-239, 255 + + _King's Lesson, A_, 203 + + Kingsley, Charles, 24, 25 + + Koburger, Anthony, 223 + + + L + + Lang, Andrew, 122-124 + + _Laudes Beatae Mariae Virginis_, 233 + + _Laxdaela Saga, The_, 116 + + Lechlade, 101 + + Leeds, 168 + + Leicester, 168 + + Leonardo, 261 + + _Lesser Arts, The_, lecture by Morris on, 94 + + _Life and Death of Jason, The_, 114, 231, 238 + + _Life of Cardinal Wolsey_, Cavendish's, 228 + + Linnell, Alfred, 180, 181 + + _Looking Backward_, Bellamy's, 209 + + Loughton, 15 + + _Love is Enough_, 120-122, 219, 234 + + _Lovers of Gudrun, The_, 116 + + Lowell, J. R., quoted, 57, 229 + + Lucretius, 262 + + + M + + _Mabinogion_, 263 + + Mackail, Mr., 24, 33, 62, 71, 97, 110, 111, 120, 122, 150, 191, 193, + 229, 263 + + Maeterlinck, Morris compared to, 57 + + Madox-Brown, Ford, 70 + + Magnusson, Mr., 108, 125 + + _Mahabbarata_, 262 + + _Making the Best of It_, lecture by Morris on house-decoration, 83 + + Manchester, 168 + + Marlborough College, Morris a student in, 6, 9 + + Marshall, Peter Paul, 70 + + _Maud_, Tennyson's, 228 + + Meinhold, William, 229 + + _Men and Women_, Browning's, reviewed by Morris, 34, 39 + + Merton Abbey, 175, 190 + + Milton, 263 + + _Moll Flanders_, 263 + + Monk Wood, 15 + + Morris, May (Mrs. Sparling), daughter of Wm. Morris, 177 + + Morris, Mrs., wife of William Morris, 51, 53, 59, 66 + + Morris and Co., 69; + formation of the firm, 69; + prospectus of, 71, 72; + dissolution of, 111-113 + + _Morte d'Arthur_, painting from, at Oxford Union, 49, 263 + + Murray, Fairfax, 230 + + + N + + _Nature of the Gothic, The_, 160, 228 + + _Newcomes, The_, quotation from, 30 + + Newman, Jno., 25 + + _News from Nowhere_, 98, 102; + quotation from, 103-107, 163-165, 195, 200, 209-212, 213, 238, 258 + + _Nibelungen Lied_, 262 + + Njal, 109 + + + O + + _Odyssey, The_, 142-144, 210 + + _Old Story Retold, An_, see _A King's Lesson_ + + _Omar Khayyam_, 262 + + Orbeliani, Sulkhan-Saba, 230 + + _Order of Chivalry, The_, Caxton's translation of, 228 + + _Ordination of Knighthood_, Morris's translation of, 228 + + Ovid, 262 + + Oxford, 191; + Morris's life at, 1-29; + abuses at, 22-23, 31, 41, 168, 193 + + _Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, The_, 33 + + Oxford Union, paintings for, 49-52, 54 + + + P + + _Pall-Mall Gazette, The_, 189, 261 + + Paper used at Kelmscott Press, 222 + + Patmore, Coventry, on Oxford Union paintings, 52, 120 + + _Penitential Psalms, The_, 230 + + Pennell, Joseph, 181 + + _Percyvelle of Gales, Syr_, 231 + + _Piers Plowman_, 262 + + _Pilgrims of Hope, The_, poem by Morris, 195-201 + + _Pilgrim's Progress_, 263 + + Plato, 262 + + _Pliny_, Jensen's 220 + + _Poems_, Keats's, 229 + + _Poems_, Shakespeare's, 228 + + _Poems by the Way_, 7, 227 + + Pollen, J. Hungerford, 49 + + _Praise of My Lady_, poem by Morris, 52, 53 + + _Prinsep_, Valentine, 49 + + _Prioress's Tale, The_, Burne-Jones's paintings from, 47 + + Professorship of Poetry at Oxford, Morris declines, 149 + + _Proserpine_, picture by Rossetti, 54 + + Pugin, 31 + + + Q + + Queen Square, Morris's residence in, 97, 101 + + _Quest, The_, article by Morris in, 102 + + + R + + Raphael, 261 + + _Rapunzel_, poem by Morris, 57 + + Red Lion Square, 46, 71, 81 + + Red House, The, 61-68, 96, 97, 101, 114 + + Rembrandt, 261 + + Restoration of ancient buildings, 32 + + _Reynard the Fox_, 263 + + _Robinson Crusoe_, 263 + + Robinson, Ralph, 213, 228 + + Rome, 61 + + _Roots of the Mountains, The_, 195, 207-209, 246 + + _Rosamond_, Swinburne's, 54 + + Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 1, 9, 27; + Morris's first meeting with, 40-42; + his service to Morris, 43-46; + at Oxford, 49-51; + and Jane Burden, 51; + _The Defence of Guenevere_ dedicated to, 54, 55; + his part in the formation of the firm "Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, + & Co.," 69-74; + at Kelmscott, 101-103, 108; + his attitude respecting the dissolution of the firm, 111-113; + his _Hand and Soul_, 231 + + Rossetti, William, 70, 112, 113 + + _Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, The_, 144 + + Rubens, Jacobus, 220 + + _Ruin, The_, 262 + + Ruskin, 19, 23, 24, 27, 151, 160, 263 + + + S + + St. Mark's Cathedral, 154 + + Savernake Forest, Morris's early familiarity with, 7 + + Savonarola, 230 + + Schoeffer, Peter, 223 + + Scott, Gilbert, 31, 152 + + Scott, Walter, 5, 19, 263 + + _Shahnameh_, 262 + + Shakespeare, 24, 137 + + Shaw, Bernard, on _Nupkins Awakened_, 31, 179 + + Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 24, 101, 230, 263 + + _Shepherde's Calender, The_, 233 + + _Sidonia the Sorceress_, Lady Wilde's, 228 + + _Signs of Change_, lectures by Morris, 218 + + Sigurd, 109 + + _Sir Galahad_, 54 + + _Sire Degravaunt_, 66, 234 + + Socialism, 162-218 + + _Socialism from the Root Up_, book by Morris and Bax, 218 + + Socialist League, The, 175-177, 180, 182, 185 + + Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings, The, 153, 157 + + Society of Antiquaries, 192 + + Sophocles, 262 + + _Spectator, The_, letter from Morris in, 252 + + Stanhope, Spencer, 49 + + Stanmore Tapestry, The, 99 + + Stead, William, 263 + + Stevenson, Robert Louis, his letter to his father, 9, 124 + + _Stones of Venice, The_, 27, 160, 228 + + _Story of the Glittering Plain, The_, 109, 218, 227, 243 + + _Story of Sigur the Volsung, The_, 125-142, 144, 146, 227, 234, 238 + + Street, George Edmund, 31, 42, 63 + + _Sundering Flood, The_, 234, 239, 240, 242, 257 + + Surts-hellir, cave at, 109 + + _Svend and his Brethren_, 36, 37 + + Swainslow, 256 + + Swinburne, A. C., 229 + + _Syr Ysambrace_, 234 + + + T + + _Tables Turned, The; or, Nupkins Awakened_, farce by Morris, 177 + + _Tale of the Emperor Constans, The_, translated by Morris, 230 + + _Tale of King Florus and Fair Tehane_, translated by Morris, 227 + + Taylor, George Warrington, Morris's business manager, 97 + + Tennyson, Alfred, 24, 177 + + _Teutonic Mythology_, 263 + + Tewkesbury, restoration of the Abbey Church at, 152 + + Thackeray, William M., 24 + + Theocritus, 262 + + _Thousand and One Nights, The_, 263 + + _Three Northern Love-Stories and Other Tales_, translations by + Morris, 125 + + Trafalgar Square, 161, 179-181 + + Troy Type, The, 223, 225 + + Tyndall, Prof., 177 + + + U + + _Uncle Remus_, 263 + + Upton, Morris's residence at, 62, 96 + + _Useful Work versus Useless Toil_, lecture by Morris, 165 + + _Utopia_, More's, 213-217, 228, 263 + + + V + + Van Eyck, his motto chosen by Morris, 68 + + Velasquez, 261 + + Verona, 61 + + Viollet-le-Duc, 31 + + Virgil, 122-124, 262 + + _Volsunga Saga, The_, 125 + + _Voyage Round the World_, 263 + + + W + + Wagner, Richard, 135, 141 + + _Wake, London Lads!_ ballad by Morris, 148 + + Walker, Emery, 22, 205, 209 + + Wall-papers, 81-83 + + Wallace, Alfred, his suggestion that Epping Forest be planted with + North American trees, 11 + + Walthamstow, 3, 10 + + Wardrop, Oliver, 230 + + Warren, Sir Charles, 179 + + _Water of the Wondrous Isles, The_, 233, 240, 245, 248-251 + + Watts-Dunton, Theodore, 69 + + Waverley Novels, the, Morris's early fondness for, 3 + + Weaving, 85, 86 + + Webb, Philip, architect of the Red House, 61, 70, 75, 82, 111 + + _Well at the World's End, The_, 232, 245, 248 + + Westminster Abbey, 154, 181 + + White Horse, The, 30 + + Whitney, Miss Anne, 229 + + Whittingham, Charles, 33 + + Wilde, Lady, 228 + + _Women and Roses_, Browning's, 39 + + _Wood beyond the World, The_, Morris's, 7, 230, 242, 252 + + Woodford Hall, home of the Morrises, 3 + + Working Men's College, Burne-Jones's visit to, 40 + + Wyatt, A. J., 230 + + + Y + + Yonge, Miss, 24 + + + Z + + Zainer, Gunther, 223 + + + + +Messrs. MORRIS & COMPANY have appointed as their general agent Mr. A. E. +Bulkley of 42 East 14th St., New York City, and he will be pleased to give +all information respecting the various fabrics, etc., designed by the late +Mr. Morris and sold by MORRIS & COMPANY. These may also be obtained of Mr. +A. H. Davenport, 96-98 Washington St., Boston. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] When the _Utopia_ appeared with this introduction an Eton master who +had ordered forty copies in advance, intending the books to be used as +prizes for the boys in his school, withdrew his order, Young England not +being allowed at that time to keep such Socialistic company. + +[2] The trustees are now publishing the remainder of Morris's own works in +the type of the Kelmscott Press, though without the ornaments, that a +uniform edition may be had. + +[3] The reader here is expected to note the correspondence between the +names of the ladies and the titles of their lovers, and the same +correspondence is carried out in the colour of the ladies' garments and +the armour of the knights. + +[4] Lewis F. Day. + +[5] This bibliography is reprinted, with certain slight additions, from +the bibliography prepared by S. C. Cockerell for the monograph entitled, +"A Note by William Morris on his Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press." + +[6] At the Ellis Sale (1901) a presentation vellum copy brought L114. + +[7] The first sheet was printed on the 2d of March, the last on the 4th of +April. + +[8] At the Ellis Sale a presentation vellum copy brought L60. + +[9] In this line as it originally stood, "dawn" was the rhyme provided for +"corn." In the new line the rhyme for corn is "daylight new-born;" but Mr. +Buxton Forman writes that Morris was wont to declare that "No South +Englishman makes any difference in ordinary talk between dawn and morn for +instance." + +[10] "When Adam dalf and Eve span, who was thanne the gentleman." + +[11] This book realised at the Ellis Sale L8.5s. for the paper copy, and +L61 in vellum. Since its publication it has sold as low as L2.15s. for +paper copies, and L29 for vellum. + +[12] Mr. Ellis's presentation copy sold for L91. + +[13] This "foreword" is a socialist document occupying pp. III to VIII. + +[14] At the Ellis Sale a copy on vellum (not presentation) brought L9.10s. + +[15] This story Morris said he translated in a day and a quarter. + +[16] At the Ellis Sale a paper copy brought L25.10s., while in 1900 one +brought L27.5s. + +[17] Mr. Vallance says, "This is noteworthy as being the sole instance of +a heraldic device among the _published_ designs of William Morris." + +[18] In the list of Dec. 1st, 1894, the 2d and 3d volumes are announced to +follow "early in the New Year." The third volume did not, however, appear +until the autumn of 1895. + +[19] Dull red silk ties. Gold lettering on back. + +[20] Also that 7 of the 8 vellum copies have been subscribed for. + +[21] In the prospectus the price for full white tooled pigskin binding +executed under Mr. Cobden-Sanderson's direction is given at L13. + +[22] The quotations heading each stanza are in red, the initial letters +pale blue, the remaining text in black. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of William Morris, by Elizabeth Luther Cary + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM MORRIS *** + +***** This file should be named 39725.txt or 39725.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/7/2/39725/ + +Produced by Chris Curnow and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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