374 Dc Morgan and Emery Walker \ l 9 11 



against the world's, and I am weary of a useless struggle. Belloc dined 

 with me last night, but I could not get him to take much interest in 

 anything but the parochical politics of the Insurance Bill. He asked me 

 who I thought ought to be Poet Laureate after Austin. I said Gilbert 

 Murray. [Because he had written no original verse.] 



" 29th Dec. — Went to see McCullagh at a nursing home in John 

 Street, where he has been for an operation. The Tripoli atrocities are 

 all condoned now by English public opinion as will be the Russian 

 atrocities at Tabriz. Grey has invented a formula about these things. 

 He has ' no official knowledge,' which means that the Consuls have not 

 reported them as having themselves witnessed what has been done. 

 They have had orders to hold their tongues. 



" Meynell dined with me to-night, and we discussed the future of 

 civilization. Meynell declares that the world will eventually come 

 round to my opinions and acknowledge me as a forerunner. I wish 

 I could believe it, but I see no sign of any such conversion. On the 

 contrary I fear I am a belated survival of an age which has almost 

 disappeared. The best chance the world has is perhaps the possible 

 resurgence of China, which yesterday proclaimed itself a republic, and 

 chose Sun Yat Sen, a Christian, its first President. But will not Europe 

 intervene to wreck its chances as it has intervened in Turkey and 

 Persia? It is all a question of material strength, and Asia, in order 

 to survive, is obliged to remodel itself according to European standards, 

 although in so doing it sacrifices half the value of its traditional ideas. 



" 31st Dec. (Sunday). — To-day a sad year ends, the worst politically 

 I can remember since the eighties, bloodshed, massacre, and destruction 

 everywhere, and all accepted here in England with cynical approval, 

 our Foreign Office being accomplice with the evildoers, and Grey their 

 apologist. It has been a losing battle in which I have fought long, but 

 with no result of good. I am old, and weary, and discouraged, and 

 would if I could slink out of the fight. I am useless in face of an en- 

 tirely hostile world. 



" In the afternoon I went to see Mrs. Morris at her daughter's house 

 in Hammersmith Terrace, and found her lying alone, quite invalided in 

 a chair. She had come up to London for her teeth, and other ailments, 

 but was glad to see me. We were, however, interrupted in our talk 

 by de Morgan and his wife, who looked in. He is a lugubrious little 

 man with a certain caustic wit battling with senility, his wife a busy 

 little woman, with a more cheerful manner. I remember having met 

 her at Kelmscott House when she was tending Morris, which she did 

 with great devotion during his last illness. Then I went on to Walker's, 

 who lives next door, who showed me some of his book treasures, 

 amongst them a complete set of the Kelmscott Press works in vellum. 

 He is a good and modest man, who began as a plain workman and has 



