I CANNOT help thinking that it does not matter what goes into the Clarion this week, because William Morris is dead. And what Socialist will care for any other news this week, beyond that one sad fact? He was our best man, and. he is dead. How can we think of the movement to-day but as a thing struck motionless? How can we remember our own poor feeble trials, aspirations, desires, as we stand by the brink of that mysterious silence into which our brightest spirit has disappeared? Who cares to read, who to write in such an hour?
When the news reached me first, I thought of asking some friend who had known William Morris more intimately. or longer than I had, to write his obituary for the Clarion. I did not do that because, though I felt very ill-fitted for the task, I yet felt a strong desire to attempt it. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that I could not persuade myself in this case to relinquish the post of honour to another.
I have long held William Morris in great esteem, and I feel his loss too nearly be able to write much or well about him or his work at this present time. "William Morris was a noble artist and a noble man. We loved him, and honoured him, and we deplore his death." That is what every Socialist, will say—for Morris had not an enemy in the world—and when that is said, who feels like saying more—as yet?
I have just been reading the obituary notices in some of the London papers, and I feel sick and sorry. The fine phrases, the elaborate compliments, the ostentatious parade of their own erudition, and the little covert sneers at the Socialism Morris loved; all the tawdry upholsteries of these journalistic undertakers seem like desecration. Under any circumstances it would anger a man to hear a professional orator uttering rounded periods over the body of a dear dead friend, but in this case it revolts one, for William Morris was the soul of sincerity, and the Press is notoriously insincere.
William Morris was our best man: and he is dead. It is true that much of his work still lives, and will live. But we have lost him, and great as was his work, he himself was greater. Many a man of genius is dwarfed by his own creations. We could all name men whose personalities seem unworthy of their own words and actions; men who resemble mean jars filled with honey, or foul lamps emitting brilliant beams. Morris was of a nobler kind. He was better than his best. Though his words fell like sword strokes, one always felt that the warrior was stronger than his sword. For Morris was not only a genius, he was a man. Strike him where you would, he rang true. Look him straight in the eyes, and it was like looking up at the heavens—there was nothing but purity between you and the stars. Grip him by the hand, and you would feel like thanking God you had met a man. His face was as honest as a lion's, and you accepted his word as you accept the date from an almanac. This is a censorious world, and as a rule, let a man be chaste as ice, pure as snow, yet he shall not escape calumny. Yet have I never heard on single word of detraction or dislike spoken of William Morris. Nor is there a Socialist in England but will feel that he has lost a friend.
He was our best man. We cannot spare him, we cannot replace him. In all England there lives no braver, kinder, honester, cleverer, heartier man than William Morris. He is dead, and we cannot help feeling for a while that nothing else matters.
You may give over the plough, boys
You may take the gear to the stead,
All the sweat o' your brow, boys,
Will never get beer and bread.
The seed's waste, I know, boys,
There's not a blade will grow, boys,
'Tis cropped out, I trow, boys,
And, Willie's dead.
That is how we Socialists feel today. William Morris was the only “celebrity” I ever sought. I am glad to think I sought him before it was too late. It was about a year since I went over to his house one Sunday, and sat with him for a few hours.[1] He told me to come again as often as I pleased. But I was loth to trouble him: it was a pity to waste him in talk. But it was a red-letter day. It was grand to find my one hero better than his work. It was grand to find him in his loose clothes and flannel shirt, looking like some jolly sea captain fresh from the brine. For there was something strangely and wonderfully nautical about this man. He was of Viking breed. He had the eyes of a Norseman, the odour of an old salt—the bluff ways of a sailor also. You could not be in his company for five minutes without thinking of the English admirals. He smelt of the sea; and the cadence of the tides sounds in his poetry. When he lectured on Socialism or art, the platform suggested a quarter-deck, and you felt that he ought to have worn a sword and carried a large telescope under his arm. He had often been mistaken by strangers for a mariner, and was proud of it. Had he been a post-captain in Nelson's time, I should like to have been his master gunner. How we should have enjoyed ourselves.
He was verily, as he said of himself in his beautiful fore-words to the “Earthly Paradise,” “born out his his due time.” He would have been more at home under Elizabeth, with Raleigh and Sidney and Drake. He was as true a gentleman as Sir Philip or Sir Walter, as good a poet, and would have been as great a fighter. Read his great battle in “The Roots of the Mountains,” and you will recognise the mind of a general and the heart of a soldier there. Read the battle at the township’s end in “John Ball,” and you’ll realise at once how happy William Morris would have been at Agincourt among the bowmen, or with Sir Richard Grenville amongst the Spaniards at the mobbing of the Revenge. One of the papers I have been reading hardly mentions the work done by Morris for Socialism, but lays great stress upon the quality and value of his decorative designs. Indeed, from reading that article one would gather that our lost teacher would be remembered chiefly for his improvements in wall-papers. But did Morris ever design a wall-paper as handsome as himself? Or did any decorative artist ever produce work as noble and as valuable as the personality of william Morris?
For my part I can say but little of his craftmanship, as he called it. I have seen few of his designs; little of his printing. What I have seen seemed to me very beautiful and strong. But indeed all his work is beautiful and true, because the soul was true and beautiful from whence it came.
Of his literary work I know more and can speak with greater confidence. It is all good. All that he wrote, poetry or prose, bears the impression of genius and of the master craftsman’s hand. All his work is careful, conscientious, and sincere. He never scamped. He never presumed upon his reputation. He never hurried, nor trifled, nor showed off. Beautiful as much of his poetry is, I am inclined to think his prose still better. “The Dream of John Ball” is a classic. “News from Nowhere” is the best work of its kind since “Utopia.” I know of no ideal world so pure, so noble, so possible as that to which William Morris leads us. The authorship of either of these two books, or of “The Roots of the Mountains,” would have made the reputation of any ordinary man. But Morris was not an ordinary man, and left his fame to take care of itself.
Morris’s value to Socialism was incalculable. He did honour to the cause. Its bitterest opponent could not deny the genius, nor question the integrity of William Morris. Nor could the fervour and thoroughness of his Socialism be gainsaid or discounted. or could the purity of his motives be so much as questioned. Here was a man of courage, probity, genius, culture, character, who believed in Socialism with the whole of his great heart and virile intellect. He was too great to be ignored, too high to be slandered, too thorough to be misrepresented or misunderstood. He stood there an unimpeachable witness whose testimony gained tenfold force from his character. He could not be depreciated, nor silenced, nor explained away. He had to be acknowledged, and heard with deference. Now death has taken him from us, and though we have many brave, steadfast, and pure men and women left in our ranks, we have none so highly placed, so fortunately circumstanced.
Morris proves for us the truth of Goethe’s saying that no man can render the world a greater service than by making good the faculties of himself. Versatile as was his genius, he never made a mistake as to the nature of his real work; nor did he falter in its execution. To produce and to pay honour to beautiful things was his vocation, and all his experience and #knowledge of social questions, added to his fervid indignation against wrong, and his melting sympathy for the unfortunate, never betrayed him into the quagmire of politics. Had he been less single-minded, less tenacious of purpose he might have wasted his talents on uncongenial work, might have squandered golden years in useless drudgery, might have soiled his reputation and spoiled his powers by deteriorating into leadership and “practical” affairs. We have to be grateful to him for preserving his true vocation and standing firm to it. The value to Socialism of a name and a fame, a personality and a life like William Morris’s can hardly be estimated. He was of greater advantage to the cause than a dozen clever politicians all rolled into one.
When a man like William Morris dies, I always feel tempted to rebel against the course of nature. Why should not the brave, the good, the clever, the handsome—all the useful and lovable men and women, live on until the world is peopled with the best, and we have a race of immortals worthy [of] immortality? It seems such a wicked shame to let our Shakespeares, Nelsons, Sidneys, Carlyles, Turners, Gordons die, and give place to feebler and less worthy men. There are millions of us who might have been spared, who are of little use and less ornament to the world., who have has enough of it—but we are left here, and Morris dies. This is not pleasing. All our bravest knights, fairest ladies, sweetest singers, cleverest sailors; all our sweetest, gentlest, wisest, truest, best, ride away into the darkness, and leave the world to the follies and the greediness of crowds of money-grubbers, pot-hunters, fops, bores, cowards, inanities, imbecilities, and persons with a stake in the country.
There is not sense in such a system—unless our best may go to better worlds. Perhaps they do. Let us hope so. Meanwhile, one of our very best has just left us far too soon. Some of his books are beside me as I write. They are beautiful books, true books, human books, and we wanted more of them; but we have heard the last word from William Morris. A strenuous worker, an undaunted fighter, he has worn out his lusty life, and laid down his trenchant blade, and gone to sleep with Raleigh and Spenser, and the wistful, wise Omar of the East.
Yet ah, that Spring should vanish with the rose!
That youth’s sweet-scented manuscript should close!
The nightingale that in the branches sang,
Ah when, and whither flown again, who knows?
The voice that sang of the Earthly Paradise was a sweet voice; the hand that wrought the “Dream of John Ball” was a strong hand. We shall not see such good work again for many a weary day. William Morris is dead.
R.B.
1. See letter #2124 from William Morris, dated 21st April 1893 (The Collected Letters of William Morris, Vol. IV, ed. Norman Kelvin), where Morris mentions meeting Blatchford for the first time the previous day. The following notes discuss the discrepancy in dates.
The Clarion, Saturday 10th October 1896, pp4-5
Graham Seaman, January 2023.