CHAPTER XV
HIS SOCIALISM: FELLOWSHIP AND WORK
IN an earlier chapter I recalled how Morris, when he first met us in Gla gow, had flatly declared his indifference to Marx's theory of value, or any other dogmas of political economy. Yet in an interview published a year or two later in Cassell's Saturday Magazine, Morris was reported to have said that he had been led towards Socialism by Ruskin's teaching and his own artistic feeling, but that it was the reading of Marx's 'Capital' that had finally made him a convinced Socialist. This statement rather surprised me, and on visiting him shortly afterwards in London I referred to the article, and asked him if it was true that Marx had influenced in an important way his Socialist ideas.
'I don't think the Cassell's Magazine chap quite put it as I gave it him,' Morris replied; 'but it is quite true that I put some emphasis on Marx—more than I ought to have done, perhaps. The fact is that I have often tried to read the old German Israelite, but have never been able to make head or tail of his algebraics. He is stiffer reading than some of Browning's poetry. But you see most people think I am a Socialist because I am a crazy sort of artist and poet chap, and I mentioned Marx because I wanted to be upsides with them and make believe that I am really a tremendous Political Economist—which, thank God, I am not! I don't think I ever read a book on Political Economy in my life—barring, if you choose to call it such, Ruskin's "Unto This Last"—and I'll take precious good care I never will!'
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