William Morris and the Early Days of the Socialist Movement/14
CHAPTER XIV
LAST DAYS WITH MORRIS
MY visits to Morris at Hammersmith had incidentally an interesting result in my own family circle. Among the more active members of the Hammersmith branch was Sam Bullock, the lecture secretary, between whom and myself grew up a close friendship. Bullock's business as a consulting engineer caused him to make frequent journeys to Scotland, in the course of which he usually visited me in Glasgow. This led eventually to his engagement and marriage to my sister Kitty in 1893, whose home henceforth was at Ravenscourt Park, Hammersmith. Sam Bullock and my sister were often guests at Morris' Sunday evening supper parties. Sam had a humorous vein which Morris relished.
Meanwhile my own marriage, which took place at the same period, led to an abrupt change in the way of my life. My wife being as myself, we resolved to devote ourselves wholly to the work of the movement, setting forth together on our lifelong twain career as itinerant Socialist agitators. Our lecturing engagements henceforth led us both to make frequent visits to London, where my sister's home at Hammersmith became our headquarters. Thus a double link of attachment was now formed between the Hammersmith Socialist Society and myself.
Our first visit to Hammersmith after our marriage was during our honeymoon early in July 1893, when I introduced my wife to Morris, and received his benediction. We were both booked to lecture at Kelmscott House, myself on the first Sunday of our visit, and my wife on the following Sunday. Though it was midsummer, and indoor meetings were hardly inviting, there was a crowded audience to hear my wife speak for the first time in the famous little hall. Morris himself postponed his going away to his country house at Kelmscott expressly to preside at the meeting, and made some warm-hearted remarks when introducing her to the gathering, congratulating both the movement and ourselves on our 'apostolic wedding.'
A rather droll incident occurred during the lecture. Among those seated with Morris on the platform was the venerable E.T. Craig, famous as one of the pioneers of the Co-operative Movement, and as the founder of the remarkable Ralahine Co-operative Colony in Ireland, which after a few years of extraordinary success came to grief owing to the bankruptcy and ruin of the proprietor of the land.
Mr. Craig was now over ninety years of age, and though frail in body was extraordinarily alert in mind, and full of enthusiasm for the new Socialist movement. His queer little cramped-up figure as he sat on the platform with a grey Scottish shepherd's plaid round his shoulders, contrasted drolly with the burly form of Morris, who, despite several warning turns of illness, still looked in the height of health and energy.
Unfortunately, Craig was exceedingly deaf, and had to make use of a huge ear-trumpet. The better to hear my wife he planted his chair close by her on the right, and held the unwieldy-looking instrument almost up to her face when she was speaking, much to her embarrassment. My wife, who has always claimed for herself considerable freedom of action on the platform, was obliged therefore severely to restrain her customary gestures, as no one present could fail to observe. Imagine, therefore, the amusement of the meeting when at the conclusion of her address, the quaint old veteran sprang to his feet and while complimenting the lecturer most gallantly on her address, expressed his great disappointment that she had not put 'more vigorous action into it.' 'I always like,' exclaimed he, 'to see orators, especially when they are young and full of life like our lecturer, throw their arms well about,' and in order to illustrate his idea, he swung his own arm, brandishing the ear-trumpet in a great sweep round him, so that both my wife and Morris had to throw themselves hastily back to avoid being struck by the weapon.
The subject of my wife's lecture was 'The Dearth of Joy,' and though I knew the lecture was one which Morris was likely to approve, I had a moment's misgiving over one of the passages in it. In the course of her remarks she alluded to certain signs of a growing moral and intellectual enfeeblement in literature and art, and instanced in contrast with the sorrows of the workers the exaggeration of merely aesthetic griefs and pains on the part of some of our modern poets and artists, mentioning Rossetti as an example. This allusion was not, I knew, prompted in any way by the circumstances of the meeting, as I had heard her make the same reference when delivering the lecture elsewhere. Knowing, however, as I did, Morris' sensitiveness about anything that seemed in the nature of disparagement of the Pre-Raphaelites, and remembering the consequences of an unfortunate remark of my own about Burne-Jones, of which I have spoken in a previous chapter, I felt a bit concerned lest Morris should take umbrage at her stricture on Rossetti.
My apprehension, however, proved a false alarm. So far from dissenting from her observation, Morris in his few concluding remarks expressed his entire accordance with her. 'I quite agree with the lecturer,' he said. 'We have surely enough very real and very terrible woes in modern life to evoke our sympathy and lamentation, without make-believing any fanciful ones. Those I am sure who have themselves experienced, or who have any knowledge whatever of such suffering as that endured by the poor miners and their families during the recent lock-out, and who know what it is to see "little ones cry for bread" when bread for them there is none, are not likely to have much patience with poets who moan and melodise about their broken hearts (which, of course, are never broken) and the imaginary slights of their sweethearts or mistresses, especially when, as in so many instances, the sweethearts and mistresses are as fanciful creatures as the supposed heart-breaks.'
After the meeting Morris took us to supper—the company including my sister and brother-in-law, Sam Bullock, Philip Webb, Andreas Scheu, and several others. Morris (I may be pardoned the vanity of noting) was most attentive towards my wife, talking with her about her college and propaganda experiences. Recollecting that the decorations and furnishings of her college (Newnham) had been the work of the Morris Company, he inquired about their state of preservation, and was pleased to hear that they had proved durable and were appreciated by the students. He was greatly interested when he discovered that she had been brought up at Walthamstow, where he himself had been born, and inquired about some of the folk he remembered there, particularly a vehement old character, Farmer Hitchman.
Next day we came round at his request to see him for an hour in his study, when he showed my wife some of his literary treasures, and gave us as a wedding token a copy of one of his Kelmscott Press books in vellum, inscribed with our names.
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Morris was now entering upon the closing period of his life, of which only three years were yet to run. His career as an active worker in the Socialist movement was already virtually over. He had but recently given no little time and much earnest thought to the project of trying by means of a joint Socialist Committee to bring about formal unity between the different sections of the movement. This Committee, which comprised delegates from the S.D.F., the Fabian Society, and the Hammersmith Socialist Society, and included, among others, Hyndman, Quelch, Shaw, Webb, Walter Crane, and Morris, after weeks of discussion drew up a united Socialist manifesto; but no practical result, however, came of it. Morris was greatly disappointed over the business. Though he never had much hopes of, or indeed belief in, what was termed 'Socialist Unity,' this further experience of factional prejudice and fruitless effort in connection with the mere mechanism of Socialist organisation, following upon the break-up of the League, was very discouraging to him. It closed up the only prospect then visible to him of forming a great Socialist Party with broad but definite and inspiring Socialist aims. True there was the new political Labour movement in which Socialists and Trade Unionists were combined, of which the recently formed Independent Labour Party (the I.L.P.) was the chief expression but this movement, operating, as it did, mainly in the North, hardly came within his view in London. He was not in touch with its leaders, nor did he quite understand its Socialist position. His friends of the Social Democratic Federation had no good word to say of it, and his Fabian friends were hardly more sympathetic in their attitude towards it. What appeared to be its intensely electioneering character repelled him, though later on he came to form a more favourable and just opinion of its principles and objects.
Thus he felt isolated from the general throng of Socialist factions and forced back into his own idealist world, his still almost undiminished creative energies finding scope during this period of declining bodily vigour in his new printing schemes for the Kelmscott Press and in the writing of his splendid prose romances. To the last, however, he preserved his connection with the Hammersmith Socialist Society, keeping unbroken his comradeship with his old friends, and occasionally, as far as the state of his health would allow, lecturing at Hammersmith and elsewhere in London and in provincial towns.
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One of his last links with the active propaganda of the movement was formed by the publication of the Hammersmith Socialist Record, a little monthly magazine, or rather tract, issued by the Hammersmith Socialist Society. The Record was begun shortly after Morris and the Society ceased their connection with the League and the Commonweal, as a means of voicing the distinctive Socialist views of the Society; and its trim little pages continued to receive articles and notes from his pen till its expiry in 1895. It was, I should think, entitled to the distinction of being the smallest and most homely Socialist publication in the country. Morris and myself were, as the editor, Sam Bullock, drolly put it, the 'chief contributors' and sometimes the only ones, and it is pleasant to me to think that I was privileged by means of this little publication to collaborate with Morris in the forlorn journalism of Socialist propaganda, even 'unto this last.'
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The last occasion on which I met Morris was in August 1895, about a year before his death. My wife and I were on a visit to my sister and brother-in law at Hammersmith. We all four attended the Sunday evening meeting at Kelmscott House—Herbert Burrows being the lecturer on that occasion—and had a merry supper afterwards. Morris asked me to come round next morning for a chat, inviting my wife to join us later for lunch.
Morris had then but recently recovered from the most serious illness of his life, and was noticeably weak and out of trim. He only briefly alluded to his illness, however, and that, as I thought, in a spirit of humbleness. He wanted, he said, to talk to me about the movement, especially in the North. Did I think it was making progress? What did I think about the I.L.P.? Was it aiming genuinely for Socialism? I answered his questions reassuringly, explaining how that my wife and I were now putting our whole energy into the new party, the I.L.P., and frankly avowing that I had abandoned my old Socialist League opinions against parliamentary action. He listened to my apologia attentively, sitting back in his chair smoking, keeping his eyes fixed on me reflectively while I spoke. He told me, what doubtless, he said, I had gathered from his more recent letters to me, that he himself had now realised that revolutionary Socialism was impossible in England—the working class were too deeply attached by temperament as well as by tradition to compromise and progressive politics to pursue with any genuine zeal abstract principles or revolutionary methods of change. Perhaps they were wiser than we were, even if their wisdom was only what Grant Allen called 'animal instinct.' Animal instinct was quite as likely to be right as armchair philosophy. Anyway they knew their own capacities better than we did. He had, he said, resumed friendly relations with the leaders of the S.D.F., but he still disliked much of their spirit and many of their political methods. He asked me about Keir Hardie, and was manifestly pleased to hear me speak warmly and trustfully of him. 'I have had, I confess, rather my doubts about him,' he said, 'because of his seeming absorption in mere electioneering schemes, but his fight for the unemployed has had something great in it.'
He spoke also of Robert Blatchford, whose extraordinary popularity as a journalist and as the author of 'Merrie England' and editor of The Clarion was then uprising. He had heard, he said, a good deal about the remarkable influence of Blatchford's writings among the factory workers in the North. That, he thought, was a most encouraging sign, for he seemed to have a true grip of Socialism, and appeared to possess the faculty of understanding the mind of the working class and of being understood by them. He (Blatchford) had been to see him at Kelmscott House, and they had had an interesting talk together, though Blatchford seemed rather a taciturn man. 'He is a queerish, black-looking chap,' Morris remarked. 'But I'm not sure he came quite out of his shell.'
He inquired about what our old League comrades in Scotland were doing, the Rev. Dr. Glasse, John Gilray, and others in Edinburgh, Webster, Leatham in Aberdeen, and Muirhead, Joe Burgoyne, Sandy Haddow, Dr. Stirling Robertson, and others in Glasgow. I was struck with the distinctness which these far-away and but seldom seen comrades had in his mind.
He showed me, I remember, a letter in MS. he had written to the Athenæum or Academy (I forget on what subject), and I had no little delight in pointing out the word 'paralel' and several similar misspellings in it, as he had reprimanded me for my own misspelling on a recent occasion. 'Oh,' he said, 'I don't profess to spell correctly—spell, that is to say, according to rule. Spelling and grammar were made for man, not man for spelling and grammar.'
On my wife joining us he brought in cider and cakes, as we both had to go into the City early, and could not wait for lunch. He displayed a number of new designs for the Kelmscott Press, saying he was greatly pleased with them, and speaking, as always, with affectionate admiration of his collaborator, Burne-Jones. I asked if Burne-Jones was getting at all inclined towards Socialism. He shrugged his shoulders. 'The Trafalgar Square riots terrified him against Socialism at the outset,' he said. 'If only we could guarantee that the Social Revolution would not burn down the National Gallery he might almost be persuaded to join us, I think. But who is going to guarantee what the people, or, for that matter, the soldiers, will do or will not do, should ever the flames of revolution burst forth?'
As we arose to go I alluded to an article by him which had appeared with his photograph in the January number of the Labour Prophet—the organ of the new Labour Church movement. I said that some of his old friends were surprised to see him writing in what they regarded as a religious publication, and hoped he was not becoming evangelical! He explained that he had been urged to write something about Socialism for that journal because the Labour Church movement reached many earnest-minded people who were averse from the anti-religious tone of so much of our Socialist literature. He did not know what the theological views of the Labour Church were, but he understood that the idea was to push Socialism on religious lines, and he thought that was useful and in sympathy with many kindly folks' difficulties. Anti-religious bigotry was twin brother to religious bigotry, and the Socialist movement had suffered from it. He meant the article to be a frank reconsideration of his anti-parliamentary attitude, and hoped he had made his position in that respect quite clear.
In my diary notes written at the time, I find against this date (August 26, 1895) simply the laconic word 'Good-bye,' though I had no thought at the time that it might prove our last meeting. But I remember that at the gate he held my hand longer than was his custom, and said 'I have been greatly cheered by what you say about Keir Hardie and the Labour movement. Our theories often blind us to the truth.' Then, laying his hand on my shoulder, he said 'Ah, lad! if the workers are really going to march—won't we all fall in! Again, good-bye, and good luck.'
These were, I think, the last words I ever heard from his lips.
A few months later I stayed for a few days with my sister at Hammersmith, but knowing that he was exceedingly ill, and that it had been made known that he was unable to see any visitors, I did not call at Kelmscott House, greatly as I longed to do so. Yet I could not leave Hammersmith without getting as near to him as I could. So one day I went round to the Mall, and sat for an hour under the elm tree on the bastion overlooking the river in front of the house. Prayer was not a means of expressing emotion with me in those days, yet as I thought of William Morris lying ill somewhere within that house, a flood of supplication that he might not be in pain, and might get well again, filled my heart. I looked at the library window, and could just catch a glance of the book-shelves. How sacred that room was! What priceless treasures were there! What wonderful memories were enshrined in it of him and of his superb comradeship! I looked out on the river and recalled his description of the scene in 'News from Nowhere,' and I recalled also how when he was writing that book I told him that I had fallen in love with Ellen, and he said he had fallen in love with her himself! 'Oh, and I shan't give her up to you not without a tussle for her anyway,' he said, with a smile, but almost jealously, I thought. I found it hard to come away, not daring even to knock at the door, lest it might seem as if I wished to intrude on his seclusion.
He recovered from this attack of illness, but his frame was completely shaken by it, and he was never well again.
On Sunday, August 9, 1896, I again, and for the last time, lectured at Kelmscott House. Morris was then away by his doctor's advice on a cruise to Spitzbergen with his friend John Carruthers, in the forlorn hope of regaining his health, and there was a subdued and inert air about the place. My lecture raised a brisk discussion in the meeting, but the debaters were mostly young men, newcomers into the movement. Robert Blatchford and E.F. Fay (the 'Bounder' of The Clarion), with whom I was at that time intimately associated, came with me to the meeting, and Blatchford said a few words, but none of the old warriors unsheathed their blades. Already the old Kelmscott régime seemed passing away. After the meeting, instead of our having supper in the house, we had supper at my sister's, and made merry till the morning hours; but the thought that he 'My Captain, O My Captain' was fading away, haunted my mirth. He returned from his cruise in no wise benefited by it.
Two months later, on Saturday, October 3, 1896, William Morris died. I read the news in the Umpire next day in Bury, where I was lecturing—a dreary wet day in a dismal town. I spent next day in J.R. Clynes' house in Oldham, writing a memorial notice of him for the Labour Leader, my pages stained with many a tear. The sun of my Socialist firmament had gone out. It seemed as though the colour and music had gone out of my life also. I felt bereft and forlorn. For ten years his friendship over my 'living head, like heaven was bent.'
To me he was the greatest man in the world.
In my diary for October 4, I find it noted: 'Socialism seems all quite suddenly to have gone from its summer into its winter time. William Morris and Kelmscott House no more!'