1894] With Morris at Kelmscott 149 



as a George Augustus Sala, or a Druriolanus in the London literary and 

 dramatic world. Fortunately he was born 300 years ago. 1 



" On my way home I stopped at Kelmscott, where after dinner we 

 played at twenty questions, the things chosen for our guessing being 

 the white horse of White Horse Hill, the pen Chaucer wrote the first 

 line of the Canterbury Tales with, and the American volume of Ros- 

 setti's ' House of Life,' which Morris gave his wife. It is always a 

 pleasure to find Rossetti still a living memory in this house. 



" 16th Aug. — Made a late start as I dawdled on talking with 

 Morris, and trying to prove to him that he and Ruskin had done more 

 harm than good by their attempt to make English people love beauty 

 and decorate their architecture. He defended himself good-humour- 

 edly, but I think has doubts, nevertheless, for we are engulfed to-day 

 in a slough of ornament. I maintained that the old-fashioned square 

 cardboard box style was less abominable, as were the days when it was 

 considered bad taste to attempt any kind of prettiness. However at 

 noon I got away and drove in floods of rain to Uffington, and up the 

 face of White Horse Hill. There the sun came out, and I pitched my 

 tent under lee of the ancient camp where there was a splendid crop of 

 grass for the horses, and stopped for the night. There was a full 

 moon, and it was bitter cold. Morris declares the White Horse to be 

 a work of the Stone Age, probably 20,000 years old. In the night my 

 horses, which I had tethered to the carriage pole, broke loose and wan- 

 dered away, and I had a long run after them in the moonlight during 

 which I crossed the old white chalk one, without finding mine, but it 

 is hard to track horses on the grass, and we could do nothing till day- 

 light, and not much then. In the course of the morning they were 



1 Not long ago, being asked to write a sonnet for the Shakespeare Tercente- 

 nary I embodied my impression gathered on this occasion at Stratford in the 

 following: 



" A Tercentenary Sonnet 



" Shakespeare, what wisdom shall truth tell of thee, 



More than fame speaks? The world thy playhouse is 

 Packed floor to roof to-night with votaries 



Shouting thy author's name vociferously. 



They call thee to the curtain front. Ah me, 

 Hast thou no word for our sublimities, 

 No cryptogram of grace to crown our bliss? 



Nay speak out all, thou man of mystery. 



Tell us the truth. — I seem to hear a voice 

 From far-off Stratford, pestered at the call, 

 The voice of a hale man of middle age, 



Civic, respected : ' Who are these lewd boys 

 Would call me back to their fool's festival? 

 Truce to all mummings. I have left the stage.' " 



25 February, 1916. 



