Part 8 (1/2)

Toward the end of his activity for the cause of Socialism he became connected with a society which perhaps would not have existed without his influence, although he was not directly responsible for its formation.

This was the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society [founded in 1888], the aims of which were described by one of its members in the following words: ”To a.s.sert the possibilities of Art in design, applied even to the least pretentious purpose and in every kind of handicraft; to protest against the absolute subjection of Art in its applied form to the interests of that extravagant waste of human energy which is called economic production; to claim for the artist or handicraftsman, whose ident.i.ty it has been the rule to hide and whose artistic impulse it has been the custom to curb (until he was really in danger of becoming, in fact as in name, a mere hand), some recognition and some measure of appreciation; to try and discover whether the public cared at all, or could be brought to care, for the Art which, good or bad, is continually under their eyes; and whether there might not be, in a.s.sociation with manufacture, or apart from it, if that were out of the question, some scope for handicraft, some hope for Art.”

Morris's point of view is apparent in these aims, and the society was composed chiefly of young men who, says Mr. Mackail, ”without following his principles to their logical issues or joining any Socialist organisation, were profoundly permeated with his ideas on their most fruitful side,--that of the regeneration, by continued and combined individual effort, of the decaying arts of life.” The Art Workers' Guild, dating from 1884, was the source from which the new society sprang, the immediate purpose of the latter being to get the work of men who combined art with handicraft before the public by means of exhibitions, the committees of the Royal Academy and kindred a.s.sociations refusing to accept examples of applied art for the exhibitions which they devoted to what they called ”fine art proper.” Mr. Mackail calls attention to the fact that Morris at this stage of his life was so thoroughly imbued with the idea that the general public were ignorant of and indifferent to decorative art, as to feel more sceptical of the success of the exhibitions than was justified by their outcome. He lent his aid, however, with his customary energy, guaranteeing a considerable sum of money, and contributing some valuable papers and lectures, the exhibitions being combined with instruction by acknowledged masters of handicraft. In 1891 he was elected President of the Society, holding that office until the time of his death, when he was succeeded by Walter Crane. He was a member of the Art Workers' Guild as well, and was elected Master of the Guild in 1892. He also belonged to the Bibliographical Society formed in that year, and in 1894 was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

The societies were all directly concerned with questions in which Morris had all his life been interested, and his connection with them was not only natural but almost inevitable. He was not a man to whom public business made a strong appeal. He undertook it with reluctance and relinquished it with delight. Nor did he care for the labels of distinction for which most men, even among the greatly distinguished, have a measure of regard. He was, however, gratified when, in 1882, he was unanimously elected Honorary Fellow of Exeter College at Oxford, an honour which is rarely conferred, and is generally reserved, says Mr. Mackail, ”for old members who have attained the highest official rank in their profession.”

CHAPTER IX.

LITERATURE OF THE SOCIALIST PERIOD.

Despite the large amount of time and comparatively unproductive thought given by Morris to his Socialism, the period of his greatest activity in this direction was not without result in the field of pure literature. The years from 1884 to 1890 were crowded with pamphlets, leaflets, newspaper articles, manifestoes, and treatises, all with the one object--the making of Socialists. Many of these were more or less works of art--but of art in fetters; in the main they bore sad witness to the havoc made in the aesthetic life of their author by his propagandising policy, and in their deadly dulness betrayed the unwillingness of his mind to labour in a field so foreign to it. Not even the overwhelming tasks imposed upon him sufficed, however, to subdue entirely his restless imagination. From time to time in the arid desert of his writings for ”the cause” a poem of romance appeared of a quality to show that the sap still ran in the products of his mind. Between the first issue of _The Commonweal_ and the inauguration of the Kelmscott Press he wrote in the following order: _The Pilgrims of Hope_, _A Dream of John Ball_, _The House of the Wolfings_, _The Roots of the Mountains_, and _News from Nowhere_.

Each is interesting as throwing a varied yet steady light upon his mental processes, and the first is especially interesting despite its conspicuous defects, as one of the very few examples of its author's style when treating a subject belonging to the actual present, not to the past or future. In it the reader leaves dreamland and is confronted by modern problems and situations set forth in plain modern English. A garden is no longer a garth, a dwelling-place is no longer a stead, the writer no longer wots and meseems. So violent a change in vocabulary could hardly be accomplished with entire success; at all events it was not, and much of the phraseology is an affliction to the ear, showing a peculiarly deficient taste in the use of a style uninspired by mediaeval tradition.

Yet, withal, _The Pilgrims of Hope_ is touched with life, as many of Morris's more artful compositions are not. The old bottles will not always serve for the new wine, Lowell warns us, and there is a noticeably quickening element in this wine poured from the bottle of the day. It is mentioned in Mr. Mackail's biography that Morris once began to write a modern novel, but left it unfinished. The fabric of _The Pilgrims of Hope_ is that of a modern novel, and the characters and incidents are such as Morris might easily have found in his daily path. A country couple leading a life of peaceful simplicity go down to London, and among the sordid influences of the town become converts to Socialism. Much that follows may be considered a record of Morris's personal experience. The husband in the poem tries, as Morris tried, to learn the grounds of the Socialist faith, and takes up, as he did, the burden of spreading it among an indifferent people. The following description might very well have been culled from the diary kept by Morris during a part of his period of militant Socialism, but it must be confessed that the balance of poetic charm is all in favour of the account in the diary.

I read day after day Whatever books I could handle, and heard about and about What talk was going amongst them; and I burned up doubt after doubt, Until it befell at last that to others I needs must speak (Indeed, they pressed me to that while yet I was weaker than weak).

So I began the business, and in street-corners I spake To knots of men. Indeed, that made my very heart ache, So hopeless it seemed, for some stood by like men of wood.

And some, though fain to listen, but a few words understood; And some but hooted and jeered: but whiles across some I came Who were keen and eager to hear; as in dry flax the flame So the quick thought flickered amongst them: and that indeed was a feast.

So about the streets I went, and the work on my hands increased; And to say the very truth, betwixt the smooth and the rough It was work, and hope went with it, and I liked it well enough.

A similar pa.s.sage, also showing the style at its worst, renders the actual scene encountered by Morris at many a lecture, and contains a careful portrait of himself as he appeared in his own eyes on such occasions. For the sake of its accuracy its touch of self-consciousness may well be forgiven. Not a conceited man, and curiously averse to mirrors, Morris was not in the habit of using their psychological counterparts, and it is impossible to surprise him in the act of posing to himself in becoming att.i.tudes. There is, therefore, no irritation to the mind in his occasional frank a.s.sumption of interest in himself as a feature of the landscape, so to speak. Here he is on the Socialist platform as the Pilgrim of Hope beholds him, the Pilgrim explaining how it happened that he got upon his track.

This is how it befell: a workman of mine had heard Some bitter speech in my mouth, and he took me up at the word, And said: ”Come over to-morrow to our Radical spouting-place; For there, if we hear nothing new, at least we shall see a new face; He is one of those Communist chaps, and 'tis like that you two may agree.”

So we went, and the street was as dull and as common as aught you could see.

Dull and dirty the room. Just over the chairman's chair Was a bust, a Quaker's face with nose c.o.c.ked up in the air.

There were common prints on the walls of the heads of the party fray, And Mazzini dark and lean amidst them gone astray.

Some thirty men we were of the kind that I knew full well, Listless, rubbed down to the type of our easy-going h.e.l.l.

My heart sank down as I entered, and wearily there I sat While the chairman strove to end his maunder of this and that.

And partly shy he seemed, and partly indeed ashamed Of the grizzled man beside him as his name to us he named; He rose, thickset and short, and dressed in shabby blue, And even as he began it seemed as though I knew The thing he was going to say, though I never heard it before.

He spoke, were it well, were it ill, as though a message he bore.

A word that he could not refrain from many a million of men.

Nor aught seemed the sordid room and the few that were listening then Save the hall of the labouring earth and the world which was to be, Bitter to many the message, but sweet indeed unto me, And every soul rejoicing in the sweet and bitter of life: Of peace and good-will he told, and I knew that in faith he spake, But his words were my very thoughts, and I saw the battle awake, And I followed from end to end! and triumph grew in my heart As he called on each that heard him to arise and play his part In the tale of the new-told gospel, lest as slaves they should live and die.

He ceased, and I thought the hearers would rise up with one cry, And bid him straight enroll them; but they, they applauded indeed, For the man was grown full eager, and had made them hearken and heed.

But they sat and made no sign, and two of the glibber kind Stood up to jeer and to carp his fiery words to blind.

I did not listen to them, but failed not his voice to hear When he rose to answer the carpers, striving to make more clear That which was clear already; not overwell, I knew He answered the sneers and the silence, so hot and eager he grew; But my hope full well he answered, and when he called again On men to band together lest they live and die in vain, In fear lest he should escape me, I rose ere the meeting was done, And gave him my name and my faith--and I was the only one.

He smiled as he heard the jeers, and there was a shake of the hand, He spoke like a friend long known; and lo! I was one of the band.

There is nothing impressive in such rhyming save its message, the form costing little trouble and awakening little interest. Here, obviously, Morris, like Dante, would rather his readers should find his doctrine sweet than his verses. Parts of the poem are, however, upon a much higher plane of accomplishment. The first section, called _The Message of the March Wind_, contains exquisite images and moves to a fresh elastic measure; a world both real and lovely being evoked by the opening stanzas:

Fair now is the springtide, now earth lies beholding With the eyes of a lover the face of the sun; Long lasteth the daylight, and hope is enfolding The green-growing acres with increase begun.

Now sweet, sweet it is through the land to be straying 'Mid the birds and the blossoms and the beasts of the fields; Love mingles with love and no evil is weighing On thy heart or mine, where all sorrow is healed.

From towns.h.i.+p to towns.h.i.+p, o'er down and by tillage Fair, far have we wandered and long was the day, But now cometh eve at the end of the village, Where o'er the grey wall the church riseth grey.