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!'
