MORRIS, WILLIAM. 



501 



revolution and in denunciation- of exist in-: tliixe with liis socialistic theories have taken pure 



i . T ,. 1 1_" .:i f \. _ \ . ii:_i.'. .1 __*!_ .1 



economic conditions. It is this side of his char- 



- tliat is least understood, and it may he frankly 

 admitted that it is the most dillicult to reconcile 

 with what we know of the man in other direction-. 

 A capitalist who was also a socialist ; a believer in 

 the more equal distribution of this world's g 

 who published books in such a form that only the 

 wealthiest could own them : a lover of beauty who 

 advocated a .-ocial upheaval, one of whose first ef- 



- would necessarily be the destruction of the 

 beautiful in very many of its forms at least such a 

 character must remain a problem to the generation 



delight in the music of his verse, in the char 1 

 the old stories he re-told to his generation, "f his 

 poetry one of his younger contemporaries ha> fitly 

 said : 



The little laugh of water falling down 



_'>ld 

 Close hoarded in the tiny waxi-u t>wn 



Has i a it ; and the old 



Half-withered reeds that waved in A ready. 

 Touched by his lips, break forth again t< > l're>her liar: 



Aside from the Icelandic translations produced 



in which he lived. And if we compare this wealthy with Mr. Magntisaon, and already named, the works 

 socialist, who died leaving a great fortune to his of William Morris include: ''The Defense of Guene- 



vere and Other Poems" London, 1858); The Life 

 and Death of Jason " (1867) ; " The Earthly Para- 

 dise " (1. W 68-'70) ; " Love is Enough, or the Freeing 

 of Pharamond," a morality which displays some 



family, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who 

 died in the same month leaving but a very small 

 one, the contradictions which the character of 

 Morris present become still more perplexing. In 

 theory, at least, Morris stood for the equalization of 

 ! conditions, while in the minds of many who 



curious but successful experiments in meter (\^ 

 " The JEneicls of Virgil done into English Verse." in 



listened to him in London squares an Archbishop the meter of Chapman's Homer (1875) ; "The Story 



-i /-I-_.L-_I-..: .^..i *__ i.v- L.ic.u _. :i u,i_^i * of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Xiblungs"" 



(1876) ; ' The Decorative Arts " (1878) ; " Hopes and 

 Fears for Art,'' a volume of lectures (1882) ; ' The 

 < Myssey of Homer done into English Verse " (Iss; ; 

 " The Dream of John Ball and a King'- 



3) ; " Signs of Change. ' seven lectures (1888) ; 

 " The Tale of the House of the Wolfings." in prose 

 and verse (1889) ; " The Roots of the Mountains " 



of Canterbury stood for the selfish withdrawal of 

 property from the many for the exclusive benefit of 

 the few. Yet of the thorough sincerity of William 

 Morris there can not be the slightest question. His 

 own words may offer a partial explanation of his 

 theories, while they help to convince one that he 

 had not pursued his opinions to their logical out- 

 come in all cases, and that the road by which he 

 had traveled toward socialism was artistic 

 rather than utilitarian. He was not a 

 sentimentalist in any weak interpretation 

 of the phrase, but it was the sentimental 

 side of the subject that most nearly ap- 

 pealed to him. He said: "I was led to 

 socialism by noting how ugly civilization is. 

 We have practically killed the beautiful in 

 this nineteenth century. Railroads are 

 ugly. Streets are ugly. Clothes are ugly. 

 Lives are ugly. Capitalism has plunged us 

 into a morass of ugliness, out of which there 

 seems no escape. Of course this is much 

 better expressed by Ruskin, but he thinks 

 the remedy is a return to the past, whereas 

 I look to a new future. My socialism has 

 its origin in artistic longing." It is an 

 open secret that Morris would have been 

 offered the laureateship after the death of 

 Tennyson but for his well known socialistic- 

 opinions, and it is equally certain that he 

 would not have accepted it. He looked 

 upon that office, as some one has said. " as 

 that of a glorified government lackey, 

 which, by some weird chance, had been fille'd 

 by two great men." 



In private life Morris was generous and 

 kindly, attaching tp himself the warm 

 friendship of men of widely different social 

 conditions. His interests were wide and 

 concerned themselves in many ways with 

 the life of the time. He was an enthusias- 

 tic lover of mediaeval architecture, the spirit 

 of which few men of his time understood 

 better than he. and he could express him- 

 self in conversation and in writing in very 

 vigorous English whenever, as has frequent- 

 ly happened of late years, certain indigni- 

 ties have been offered to that spirit in the 

 name of " restoration." 



In many ways the English-speaking world is a 

 much pleasanter. a much brighter world to live in 

 because of what this ''idle singer" accomplished. 

 Through his influence it has learned that ugliness 

 in the surroundings of everyday life is unnecessary, 

 that beauty may be the delight of the many instead 

 of the joy of the few, while those who least sympa- 



FACSIMILE OP THE FIRST DRAFT OF MR. MORRIS'S LAST ROMANCE, 

 "THE WELL AT THE WORLD'S END." 



(1890) : ' Xews from Nowhere " (1891) ; " The Story 

 of the Glittering Plain " ( London i : " Poems by the 

 Way" (1- ialism: Its Growth and 'Out- 



conic." with Belfort Bax (1893): "The Wood be- 

 yond the World " (1S94) : "The Well at the World's 

 End " (1896) ; " The Water of the Wondrous Isles " 

 (1897). 



