But in those days, before the advent of free public libraries and popular art exhibitions, young men, like myself, of the common people, had scant opportunities of acquainting themselves with the works of any but the more orthodox and popular writers and artists of their own day. Controversial writings, such as, for example, those of Ruskin, Mill, and even Matthew Arnold, were rarely on the catalogues of libraries accessible to the working-class. Indeed, I hardly know how so many of us young enquirers got hold of them at all. For the most part, therefore, we had only dim ideas, mainly derived from magazine literature, concerning the new currents of thought that were agitating academic art and literary circles.
Morris was thus a sort of half-mythical being to me when, early in 1883, paragraphs in the newspapers announced that the author of 'The Earthly Paradise' was about to take an active part in the Socialist movement, and had enrolled himself a member of the Democratic Federation. The newspapers spoke of the remarkable genius and personality of the man, regretting that so distinguished a representative of arts and letters should have become obsessed by wild and impracticable revolutionary ideas, and ascribing his conduct to the eccentricity of genius.
The following paragraph, which appeared among a series of notes which I was contributing at that time to a little Radical and 'Land for the People' weekly in Glasgow, edited by my friend Shaw Maxwell, has a far-away sound to-day:
'William Morris is a remarkable man. By the publication of "The Earthly Paradise" he achieved fame as one of the most original poets of our age. He is the head of the celebrated firm of decorative artists "Morris & Co," and has created a new school for that important branch of art. Some years ago he startled his aristocratic and wealthy patrons by betraying unmistakable democratic proclivities. Up till recently, however, his practical sympathy with the
