Part 12 (1/2)
On the day following our first forgathering at the ”c.o.c.k,” I was lunching there with another poet-a friend of his-when the waiter, who knew me well, said, ”That was a loudish gent a-lunching with you yesterday, sir.
I thought once you was a-coming to blows.” Morris had merely been declaiming against the Elizabethan dramatists, especially Cyril Tourneur.
He shouted out, ”You ought to know better than to claim any merit for such work as 'The Atheist's Tragedy'”; and wound up with the generalization that ”the use of blank verse as a poetic medium ought to be stopped by Act of Parliament for at least two generations.” On another occasion, when Middleton (another fine spirit, who ”should have died hereafter”) and I were staying with him at Kelmscott Manor, the pa.s.sionate emphasis with which he declared that the curse of mankind was civilization, and that Australia ought to have been left to the blacks, New Zealand to the Maoris, and South Africa to the Kaffirs, startled even Middleton, who knew him so well.
It was this boisterous energy and infinite enjoyment of life which made it so difficult for people on meeting him for the first time to a.s.sociate him with the sweet sadness of 'The Earthly Paradise.' How could a man of such exuberant animal spirits as Morris-so hearty, so noisy often, and often so humorous-have written those lovely poems, whose only fault was an occasional languor and a lack of humour often commented on when the critic compares him with Chaucer? This subject of Chaucer's humour and Morris's lack of it demands, however, a special word even in so brief a notice as this. No man of our time-not even Rossetti-had a finer appreciation of humour than Morris, as is well known to those who heard him read aloud the famous ”Rainbow Scene” in 'Silas Marner' and certain pa.s.sages in Charles d.i.c.kens's novels. These readings were as fine as Rossetti's recitations of 'Jim Bludso' and other specimens of Yankee humour. And yet it is a common remark, and one that cannot be gainsaid, that there is no spark of humour in the published poems of either of these two friends. Did it never occur to any critic to ask whether the anomaly was not explicable by some theory of poetic art that they held in common? It is no disparagement to say of Morris that when he began to write poetry the influence of Rossetti's canons of criticism upon him was enormous, notwithstanding the influence upon him of Browning's dramatic methods. But while Rossetti's admiration of Browning was very strong, it was a canon of his criticism that humour was, if not out of place in poetry, a disturbing element of it.
What makes me think that Morris was greatly influenced by this canon is the fact that Morris could and did write humorous poetry, and then withheld it from publication. For the splendid poem of 'Sir Peter Harpdon's End,' printed in his first volume, Morris wrote a humorous scene of the highest order, in which the hero said to his faithful fellow captive and follower John Curzon that as their deaths were so near he felt a sudden interest in what had never interested him before-the story of John's life before they had been brought so close to each other. The heroic but dull-witted soldier acceded to his master's request, and the incoherent, muddle-headed way in which he gave his autobiography was full of a dramatic and subtle humour-was almost worthy of him who in three or four words created the foolish fat scullion in 'Tristram Shandy.' This he refused to print, in deference, I suspect, to a theory of poetic art.
In criticizing Morris, however, the critic is apt to forget that among poets there are those who, treating poetry simply as an art, do not press into their work any more of their own individual forces than the work artistically demands, while another cla.s.s of poets are impelled to give full expression to themselves in every poem they write. It is to the former cla.s.s of poets that Morris belongs.
Whatever chanced to be Morris's goal of the moment was pursued by him with as much intensity as though the universe contained no other possible goal, and then, when the moment was pa.s.sed, another goal received all his attention. I was never more struck with this than on the memorable day when I first met him, and was blessed with a friends.h.i.+p that lasted without interruption for nearly a quarter of a century. It was shortly after he and Rossetti entered upon the joint occupancy of Kelmscott Manor on the Thames, where I was staying as Rossetti's guest. On a certain morning when we were walking in the fields Rossetti told me that Morris was coming down for a day's fis.h.i.+ng with George Hake, and that ”Mouse,”
the Icelandic pony, was to be sent to the Lechlade railway station to meet them. ”You are now going to be introduced to my fellow partner,”
Rossetti said. At that time I only knew of the famous firm by name, and I asked Rossetti for an explanation, which he gave in his usual incisive way.
”Well,” said he, ”one evening a lot of us were together, and we got talking about the way in which artists did all kinds of things in olden times, designed every kind of decoration and most kinds of furniture, and some one suggested-as a joke more than anything else-that we should each put down five pounds and form a company. Fivers were blossoms of a rare growth among us in those days, and I won't swear that the table bristled with fivers. Anyhow, the firm was formed, but of course there was no deed, or anything of that kind. In fact, it was a mere playing at business, and Morris was elected manager, not because we ever dreamed he would turn out a man of business, but because he was the only one among us who had both time and money to spare. We had no idea whatever of commercial success, but it succeeded almost in our own despite. Here comes the manager. You must mind your _p's_ and _q's_ with him; he is a wonderfully stand-off chap, and generally manages to take against people.”
”What is he like?” I said.
”You know the portraits of Francis I. Well, take that portrait as the basis of what you would call in your metaphysical jargon your 'mental image' of the manager's face, soften down the nose a bit, and give him the rose-bloom colour of an English farmer, and there you have him.”
”What about Francis's eyes?” I said.
”Well, they are not quite so small, but not big-blue-grey, but full of genius.”
And then I saw, coming towards us on a rough pony so diminutive that he well deserved the name of ”Mouse,” the figure of a man in a wideawake-a figure so broad and square that the breeze at his back, soft and balmy as it was, seemed to be using him as a sail, and blowing both him and the pony towards us.
When Rossetti introduced me, the manager greeted him with a ”H'm! I thought you were alone.” This did not seem promising. Morris at that time was as proverbial for his exclusiveness as he afterwards became for his expansiveness.
Rossetti, however, was irresistible to everybody, and especially to Morris, who saw that he was expected to be agreeable to me, and most agreeable he was, though for at least an hour I could still see the shy look in the corner of his eyes. He invited me to join the fis.h.i.+ng, which I did. Finding every faculty of Morris's mind and every nerve in his body occupied with one subject, fis.h.i.+ng, I (coached by Rossetti, who warned me not to talk about 'The Defence of Guenevere') talked about nothing but the bream, roach, dace, and gudgeon I used to catch as a boy in the Ouse, and the baits that used to tempt the victims to their doom.
Not one word pa.s.sed Morris's lips, as far as I remember at this distance of time, which had not some relation to fish and baits. He had come from London for a few hours' fis.h.i.+ng, and all the other interests which as soon as he got back to Queen's Square would be absorbing him were forgotten. Instead of watching my float, I could not help watching his face with an amused interest at its absorbed expression, which after a while he began to notice, and the following little dialogue ensued, which I remember as though it took place yesterday:-
”How old were you when you used to fish in the Ouse?”
”Oh, all sorts of ages; it was at all sorts of times, you know.”
”Well, how young then?”
”Say ten or twelve.”
”When you got a bite at ten or twelve, did you get as interested, as excited, as I get when I see my float bob?”
”No.”
The way in which he said, ”I thought not,” conveyed a world of disparagement of me as a man who could care to gaze upon a brother angler instead of upon his own float.
II.
In whatsoever William Morris does or says the hand or the voice of the poet is seen or heard: in his house decorations no less than in his epics, in his illuminated ma.n.u.scripts no less than in his tapestries, in his philippics against ”restoration” no less than in his sage-greens, in his socialism no less than in his samplers. And first a word as to his poetry. Any critic who, having for contemporaries such writers as Tennyson, Browning, Swinburne, and William Morris, fails to see that he lives in a period of great poets may rest a.s.sured that he is a critic born-may rest a.s.sured that had he lived in the days of the Elizabethans he would have joined the author of 'The Returne from Parna.s.sus' in despising the unacademic author of 'Hamlet' and 'Lear.' Among this band of great contemporary poets what is the special position held by him who, having set his triumphant hand to everything from the sampler up to the epic, has now, by way of recreation, or rather by way of opening a necessary safety-valve to ease his restless energies, invented a system of poetic socialism and expounded it in a brand-new kind of prose fiction?
A special and peculiar position Morris holds among his peers-on that we are all agreed; but what is that position? We must not talk too familiarly about the Olympian G.o.ds; but is it that, without being the greatest where all are great, Morris is the one who on all occasions produces pure poetry and nothing else? Without affirming that it is so, we may at least ask the question. If other poets of our time show more intellectual strength than he, are they, perchance, given sometimes to adulterating their poetry with ratiocination and didactic preachments such as were better left to the proseman? Without affirming that it is so, we may at least ask the question. If other poets of our time can reach a finer frenzy than he and give it voice with a more melodious throat, are they, perchance, apt to forget that ”eloquence is heard while poetry is overheard”? Without affirming that it is so, we may at least ask the question. If others, again, are more picturesque than he (though these it might be difficult to find), are they, perchance, a little too self-conscious in their word-pictures, and are they, perchance, apt to pa.s.s into those flowery but uncertain ways that were first discovered by Euphues? Without affirming that it is so, we may at least ask the question.
But supposing that we really had to affirm all these things about the other Olympians, where then would be the position of him about whose work such questions could not even be asked? Where would then be the place of him who never pa.s.ses into ratiocination or rhetoric, never pa.s.ses into excessive word-painting or into euphuism, never speaks so loud as to be heard rather than overheard, but, on the contrary, gives us always clear and simple pictures, and always in musical language? Where would then be the place of him who is the very ideal, if not of the poet as _vates_, yet of the poet as ”maker”-the poet who always looks out upon life through a poetic atmosphere which, if sometimes more attenuated than suits some readers, is as simple and as clear as the air of a May morning? A question which would be variously answered according to the various temperaments of those who answer-of those who define poetry to be ”making,” or those who define it to be ”prophesying,” or those who define it to be ”singing.”