dislike, too, of many of the ways of modern life, and especially his impatience with the mere banalities of conversation and trivialities of politeness that make up so much of the routine of conventional society, caused him to shun many of the customary modes of social intercourse. But it was the ardour and strength of his social feelings, rather than any lacking or weakness of amiability in him that caused him to detest these conventions.
In the working class there is, generally speaking, much greater freedom of social intercourse, or, at any rate, much less routine and rigidity in the customs of friendship and civility, than among the middle and upper classes. Men and women of the working class may more freely choose their companions and company, and are commonly more sincere, if sometimes more ungainly, in their modes of coming and going amongst their friends. It is noteworthy, therefore, that whatever aloofness or exclusiveness, whatever of that element of aristocratic reserve of which Mr. Mackail speaks, Morris may have shown in his earlier or later years amongst his own class, he betrayed not the least disposition of that kind in his later years when amongst his Socialist comrades of the working class. In these associations he exhibited no trace of inurbanity, except perhaps a certain shade of shyness at times. On the contrary, he was always esteemed one of the most friendly and jolly of comrades.
It would be an easy and a delightful task for me to multiply these pages with incidents bringing into view the companionableness and unfailing sense of equality displayed by Morris when campaigning with his Socialist comrades, whether when amongst those, as at Hammersmith, with whom he was personally acquaint, or amongst those up and down the country who were for the most part strangers to him. So generally known in the movement was his sociability in this respect that there were few occasions of his visiting branches on his lecturing tours but some sort of a special gathering or outing was arranged in order that the
