CHAPTER XII
CAMPAIGNING DAY AT HAMMERSMITH
BETWEEN the years 1889 and 1893 I made occasional week-end visits to Morris at Hammersmith, taking part in the Sunday propaganda of the local branch. The branch, which on the break-up of the League in 1890 changed its name into the Hammersmith Socialist Society, had its headquarters at Kelmscott House, then the most active, as it was the most famous, centre of Socialist propaganda in London. An account of a typical week-end spent with Morris and our Hammersmith comrades will therefore, I think, be interesting to my readers.
Usually I arrived at Hammersmith from Scotland on the Saturday afternoon, and passed the evening with Morris at home. The earlier part of the evening would likely be spent with Mrs. Morris and Jenny in the drawing-room, when Morris would read aloud from some favourite book. Thereafter he and I would sit in the library, where one or two friends would gather for a chat. Among those likely to be with us were Emery Walker, John Carruthers, Philip Webb, Catterson Smith, Cobden-Sanderson, and other Socialist friends living in the neighbourhood; occasionally, after Sunday lectures, other friends from more distant parts of London might call in.
What rare symposia these little gatherings in the library were! Somewhere in the cabinets of my memory a record of the conversations and discussions has doubtless been preserved, but only as dried flowers are in the leaves of a
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