GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



circumstances. At one period of his life he had to attend the 

 meetings of a board of directors, and actually kept a tall hat for 

 the occasion. At the end of four years he resigned his directorship 

 and solemnly sat down upon the hat, which was never replaced ! 

 His little daughter one day found it, and asked her mother what 

 the strange object was, and whether Papa ever wore it. 



I myself once heard Morris lecture ; it was towards the end of 

 his life, on an occasion supposed to be big with possibilities for the 

 revival of the arts in this country the meeting of -an Art Congress 

 in Liverpool. His delivery, so far as I recall it, was not effective, 

 and I cannot recollect what he said, but I remember well his appear- 

 ance his sturdy figure, his artisan-like dress, and his cheerful, 

 kindly, rubicund face. Artists, and those men of light and leading 

 whose work came at all within the scope of the conference from 

 the President of the Royal Academy downwards had accepted 

 the cordial invitation of the sanguine and enthusiastic promoters 

 of this festival of the Arts, and crowded to the sea-city of the north 

 to take part in the proceedings. I remember well certain grandiose 

 prophecies to the effect that Liverpool, proudly standing on the 

 banks of Mersey, would become, to the present age, what Venice, 

 mistress of the seas, had once been, i.e., the commercial centre of the 

 fine arts. 



The congress was to inaugurate a new era, and to be the first of 

 many similar meetings. Alas ! for the futility of human hopes, 

 the thing was repeated once at Edinburgh, where Morris attended 

 and afterwards stated, I think in a letter, that only Walter Crane 

 and he himself spoke to any purpose : after that it fizzled out, 

 and nothing more came of a very praiseworthy undertaking. But, 

 in the meantime, the first occasion was a considerable success. Sir 

 Frederick Leighton presided, and the various sections met, each 

 under the presidency of a man distinguished in his own branch 

 of art ; papers were read, and the discussions that followed them 

 were interesting if not always illuminating. As a social event it 

 was noteworthy. Hospitality, always great in Liverpool, was 

 unbounded ; civic and private entertainments were the order of 

 the day and night. To this great gathering of people came many 

 genuinely earnest in the cause of art ; came the dilettanti, and the 

 simply curious ; and those who followed, because their superiors 

 in the social scale set the fashion ; came too William Morris. On 



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