Hugo's 'Les Misérables' were also mentioned among the books that had proved stepping-stones out of the old ways of thought.
Morris expressed surprise that none of us appeared to have read More's 'Utopia' or any writings of the more definite pre-Marxian Socialist thinkers—Robert Owen, St. Simon, Fourier, Louis Blanc, and the like. 'As for Marx,' he said, 'his writings were, of course, hardly known in this country outside the foreign revolutionary groups in London until Hyndman drew attention to them. Besides, until a couple of years or so ago, even his "Capital" was published only in German and French, and is of such an analytical character that it had practically no influence in creating Socialist thought in this country. I am not, however, so much surprised to find down here in Scotland that you working chaps apparently found each your own way to Socialism without even being in contact, as we in London were, with foreign revolutionary influences, as that you have all come the same road, so to speak, and that road has simply been the road of the reading and political experience common to the more thoughtful of the Scotch working class generally. Our comrade, the Rev. Dr. Glasse of Edinburgh, tells me practically the same thing. It looks as though one and all of you have been what is called "born" Socialists—Socialists, that is to say, by nature or temperament to begin with—and that, I suppose, is true of the majority of us who are as yet in the Socialist ranks, especially those who feel impelled to become apostles of the Cause.'
'The truth is,' Morris added, 'that there has always been a making of Socialists, and a making of Society towards Socialism, going on since human history began. I have recently been looking a good deal into the literature of the Middle Ages and earlier periods of European history, and have been struck with the definiteness of Socialist feeling, and even Socialist customs, among the people and monkish sects of those days. I am writing some chapters for Commonweal
