He was full grown in all his habits and capacities, and thoroughly commonsense and competent to the finger-tips in all the affairs of life. But yet there was ever in him that spontaneity of liking and disliking, that wilfulness and yet tractability, that predisposition at one moment to engage in amusement and frolic, and the next to fall to desperate seriousness, which makes unselfconscious childhood such an unfailing source of perturbation and charm. His love of bright colours, and all natural objects and beautiful things; his restless eagerness to be doing something with his hands; his delight in companionship, in art and play, were all part of this elemental freshness of his nature.
Perhaps the greatest charm of childhood is its unselfconscious egoism, its 'ownselfness,' its un-posturingness. No man was ever less capable of attitudinising or showing off than Morris. One simply could not conceive of him saying or doing anything in order to attract attention upon himself or win admiration.
When, as so often he did, he told stories, or commented seriously or amusingly on people or buildings or happenings by the way, one felt that so far from doing so for the purpose of making himself noticeable, he would have made the same reflections to himself had no one been with him. The descriptions given us of many notable men of genius, even of such stately beings as George Meredith, staging their behaviour or remarks beforehand when expecting interesting visitors, would be unbelievable of William Morris.
