William Morris and the Early Days of the Socialist Movement/16
CHAPTER XVI
CHARACTERISTICS: HIS PUBLIC SPEAKING
MORRIS was not what is called an orator or eloquent speaker. He was not reckoned among the front-rank speakers of the movement, though the high quality of the substance of his lectures, and the charm of his manner of speech, were generally recognised. In none of the biographical notices of him that I have seen is his platform speaking appraised among his chief accomplishments. His defect in oratory was not, needless to say, owing to any lack of intensity of feeling, or to any dearth of ideas, or command of language on his part. Nor can it be ascribed to the want of sufficient practice on the platform; for he must have addressed many hundreds of meetings in the course of his public career.
His lack of oratory belonged to the mould of his nature. This is easily discerned. His poetry no less than his prose writing showed that the absence in him of florid and emotional speech was a fundamental fact of his temperament and genius. Whether this characteristic is to be reckoned a merit or demerit in him is a matter of individual judgment. There are many who will consider it wholly to the good of his work and fame. For, as we all know, rhetoric and declamatory expression of all kinds have fallen nowadays into disrepute among almost all who pretend to art or literary culture. In this respect modern aesthetic feeling among the cultured classes is quite at variance with that of the ancient Greeks (as distinct from a few heretics like Plato), as it also is with modern popular taste. Rhetoric, or, at any rate, platform oratory, as is witnessed by the fact of the great vogue of eloquent preachers, and the huge crowds that assemble to listen to famous political speakers, irrespective of creed or party, is apparently as attractive to our presentday 'unsophisticated' fellow citizens as it was alike to the cultured and to the uncultured populace of Periclean Athens.
For myself, whom my readers may by now suspect of grudging any detraction whatever from Morris' excellences, I may as well make a clean breast of it, and confess that I am by no means persuaded that the gift of oratory or of eloquent and ornate writing is a spurious one, or is in any way allied to weakness of conviction or insincerity of mind. Fools and knaves are by no means always eloquent or even loquacious. Nor have I found—and this with me is a test example—that the more eloquent of our Socialist propagandists, or for that matter of politicians and preachers generally, are less reliable in thought, or in word, or in deed than their less eloquent brothers. Nor does history testify against the gift of 'tongues.' Many of the noblest teachers and reformers, heroes and masters, were men and women of powerful and attractive eloquence. Pericles, St. Paul, St. Dominic, Savonarola, Luther, and notable publicists in recent days, such as Ernest Jones, John Bright, Wendell Phillips, Colonel Ingersoll, Charles Bradlaugh, Annie Besant, Spurgeon, Jean Jaurès, all of them were remarkable orators; and no one would, I think, say that they were insincere or unreliable in character or speech. And I confess further that for myself, not only good oratory on the platform but eloquence and occasionally sheer rhetoric in writing have much charm. I am among those who can take whole-hearted delight in some of the more rhetorical passages of poetry which can be found, for example, in Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, and Victor Hugo. I shall even avow that where, rarely though it be, Morris himself seems to verge on the borderline of rhetoric, as in some parts of his 'John Ball' and his 'Aims of Art,' and perhaps, too, in some of his Socialist chants, I feel he is attaining the very highest pitch of sincerity of expression.
But having said that Morris was not an orator, and without judging this to be either a merit or a defect in him, I must hasten to say that his public speaking, to those who had ears to hear, was one of the finest things to listen to that could be heard on an English platform. It was so like what one expected of him, so characteristic of the man, so interesting in substance and manner, and withal so fresh, so natural and uneffortful, and full of personal flavour. It was as different from the customary platform oratory as a mountain spring is from a garden fountain. His speech did not come with a great rush and dazzling spray, bounding high above the natural level of common speech, but welled up easily and naturally, forming a fresh, translucent pool, and making its way, not as a sluice or channel, but tracking out its own course. It was conversational rather than oratorical, with breaks and pauses corresponding to the natural working of his thoughts. His voice, though not of deep compass, was distinctively male, fairly strong and flexible, but not loud or of great range; not noticeably sonorous, but never shrill, and always most pleasant to hear. Occasionally he paused for the right word, or appeared to grope his way for a moment, but he never stumbled in his sentences, or got tangled or lost in his argument. He was characteristically inclined, except when reasoning closely or dealing with the gravest subjects, to break into a humorous vein, and to express himself with a whimsical gesture or frank expletive. He did not harangue his audiences, or preach, or teach them, but spoke to them as a man to his friends or neighbours and as one on their own level of intelligence and goodwill. As I have said elsewhere, the English language had a new tune on his tongue, and when moved by deep feeling there was a cadence or chant in his voice that was sweet and good to hear.
But these things do not fully explain the secret of the peculiar power and charm of Morris' platform speech. If he was not an orator, he had something that was greater than oratory, though I find it hard to define what I mean by that saying. Perhaps the prime quality of his speaking was its veracity. I mean by that the quality of saying precisely no more and no less in words or in the emotion or colour imparted to the words than the speaker thinks, feels, or wishes to say. He expressed what was in his mind as exactly as words could do. Except occasionally in conversation or private correspondence when in an expletive or whimsical mood, he never indulged in over-emphasis or hyperbole, as Carlyle and Ruskin so often did. His meaning was never overmastered by his words—was never encumbered or cloyed by conventional phrase or literary jargon, or unduly heightened or barbed by metaphor or epigram. Yet on the other hand he unhesitatingly used the commonest idioms and tritest sayings when these adequately expressed what he wished to say. His integrity of utterance in this respect, both in writing and in speaking, was, considering the custom of exaggerated and over-emphasised expression in literature and public speech, truly remarkable. This temperance and probity of speech is one of the rarest qualities among educated and literary people. Only amongst the simpler-minded and stronger-natured type of the working class, especially among northern countryfolk, can it be found, and then far from commonly.
There was yet another quality in Morris as a speaker or teacher which I may perhaps touch upon here, though it belongs rather to the substance of his teaching than his manner of speech. From the first time I heard him lecture I was aware, though unable to say why, that there was something in his attitude towards his hearers, something, too, in his vein of feeling towards the world in which we dwell, that was different from that customary with speakers in public address. What was it? I tried to define it to myself, but was puzzled.
On one occasion when he was addressing an open-air meeting at Glasgow Green gates, I was struck so forcibly with this characteristic, whatever it might be, that I fixed in my mind several passages that seemed to me to be particularly distinctive of the posture of his mind towards the audience. I give one or two of them as nearly word for word as I can remember:
'I feel quite at home in addressing you here in Glasgow this afternoon. It is just such a meeting as this that I am accustomed to address when at home in London on Sundays. I find before me here just the same type of audience, mostly working men, looking by no means particularly happy and, if you will forgive my saying so, by no means particularly well-fed or well-clothed. And I feel that what I have to say to you this afternoon is just what I should feel compelled to say were I speaking instead at Hammersmith Bridge or in Hyde Park in London.
'Coming along to the meeting this afternoon our comrade the secretary was telling me that there is a distressing amount of unemployment in Glasgow, and that huge unemployed demonstrations have been held. That is just what is told me wherever I go to speak. And I never hear, or read, or think about it but my blood boils, and indignation rises in my heart, against the whole system of what is so proudly called "modern civilisation."
'I can speak, perhaps, on this subject of work with less prejudice or personal bias than most men. I am neither what you would call a working man nor an idle rich man, though in a way I am a bit of both—with, as some folk might say, the bad qualities of both and the good qualities of neither! I am, as some of you know, a literary man and an artist of a kind. I work both with my head and my hands: but not from compulsion as most of you and my comrades here do, nor merely as a sort of rich man's pastime, as doubtless some of the Dukes do. I have never known what I fear many of you unfortunately have known, actual poverty—the pain of to-day's hunger and cold, and the fear of to-morrow's, or the dread of a master's voice, or the hopeless despair of unemployment. I have, I truly believe, lived as happy a life as anyone could wish to live, save for the misery of seeing so much cruel wrong and needless suffering around me. Yet I am no more entitled to that happiness than any of my fellows.
'One of your university men was lamenting to me this morning that the working class in Scotland were more and more taking to cheap periodical literature and shoddy professional music-hall jingles, to the neglect of your beautiful vernacular Scottish songs and the works of Walter Scott and other good writers. And it is, don't you think, a lamentable thing that the literary taste of the people should, despite the fact of the spread of what is called Education, or perhaps largely in consequence of it, be turning away from one of the few wholesome and beautiful things of the past now left us, to the silly and trashy and mostly vile stuff written and published nowadays merely as a means of money-grabbing.
'In England they have a beautiful custom in the churches of celebrating the gathering of the harvest by having a special thanksgiving service, on which occasion the churches are decorated with flowers, and the altar laden with all manner of fruits, grains, and vegetables. I suppose you have a similar custom in Scotland. The custom indeed seems to be observed in all parts of the world, by peoples of all races and all creeds.
'A friend and comrade of mine, a master engineer, who has carried out great engineering schemes in South America, tells me that in dealing with the natives there, it is much more important to treat or seem to treat them kindly—humanly, that is to say—than even to treat them justly. If, for example, when asked to do something—help, say, in finding cattle, food, or material—they are asked rather as friends than as inferiors, they will respond far more willingly, even if the task is an unduly hard one. So also, if when paying them for any work or purchases, miserable though the payment may be, if what is given them is given in a cheerful way, as though acknowledging a favour rather than conferring one, the natives will hardly think of counting what they receive or of disputing as to the amount due.'
Such are a few snatches from his address on the occasion referred to. Readers of his art lectures and his political addresses will recall many passages attuned on a kindred personal note. There is, for example, the striking personal apologia in his lecture on 'Art and the Beauty of the Earth.'
'Look you, as I sit at my work at home, which is at Hammersmith close to the river, I often hear go past the window some of the ruffianism of which a good deal has been said in the papers of late, and has been said before at recurring periods. As I hear the yells and shrieks and all the degradation cast on the glorious tongue of Shakespeare and Milton, and I see the brutal, reckless faces and figures go past me, it rouses in me recklessness and brutality also, and fierce wrath takes possession of me, till I remember, as I hope I mostly do, that it was my good luck only of being born respectable and rich that has put me on this side of the window amid delightful books and lovely works of art, and not on the other side in the empty street, the drink-steeped liquor shops, and the foul and degraded lodgings. What words can say what it all means?'
What, I have asked myself, is there in those expressions that mark them in my mind as so distinctive of Morris? I think I have found the answer. It is, I think, because of the absence in them of any air of oracularity, any aloofness of mind, or assumption of superior wisdom or virtue, any speaking down to his hearers as though they were on an inferior human or intellectual level. Always he had a disposition to allude to his own comrades in his remarks, to speak as one of them, and to make them and himself friends with the audience. In other words it is, I think, because they betoken in Morris an innate predisposition to regard himself as one of the general community, as part of the common fellowship of those around him, a fellow man, a fellow citizen, a fellow dweller on earth, not only with those whom he is addressing, but with all people in the world.
How rare that posture of mind is among writers, reformers, and public leaders, even those who are reckoned democratic! Of the poets I can recollect none except Robert Burns (different in temperament as he was) who is at all akin to him in this respect. Shelley always seemed to belong to a different world from mankind generally. Ruskin and Carlyle both acclaimed the dignity of labour, and both spoke as men who recognised the indivisible unity of rich and poor, educated and uneducated. We are all of the one body in God's sight, so they said. Nevertheless, they both posed as men of higher spiritual calling, higher moral and intellectual perception, than the mass of their fellows. The public, the people, the democracy, were a rather shapeless, nebulous mass or herd down below somewhere. With Ruskin, the people are always 'You', with Carlyle they are even farther away, they are 'They'; but with Morris the people are always 'We.' Ruskin and Carlyle are for ever scolding, are admonishing the public and mankind as 'Schoolmasters.' Morris always (except in explosive moments when he seemed kindled into a flame of Olympian or Jehovist wrath) spoke as a fellow-man and a fellow-sinner. Even when referring to the wrong-doings and stupidities of the public he almost invariably included himself as one equally guilty with the rest. Seldom, even in his most passionate protests as a Socialist against the evils of existing society, did he think of separating himself, or Socialists as a whole, from the full sweep of his expostulation.
Therein, I say, we discern something of that remarkable quality in Morris which makes so unique and attractive, and, I think, so prophetic, his character as a man and his teaching as a Socialist.
It is generally supposed that Morris' health was seriously impaired by his public speaking and agitation. Mr. Mackail, in his 'Life of Morris,' and other writers on Morris speak in this strain. A similar idea, as my readers know, prevails with respect to many other public men, even those who have lived, as so many public men do, to an advanced age.
This idea that popular agitation, especially in the form of public speaking, is injurious to the health, is, I think, except in the case of particularly weak and excitable men, an erroneous one, and is not supported by the testimony of political biography. On the contrary, the evidence goes to show that platform agitation, even when it takes the form of arduous indoor and outdoor speaking, day after day, is on the whole beneficial rather than harmful to both body and mind. Politicians and preachers are comparatively a long-lived class of men. Talleyrand, Lord John Russell, M. Guizot, M. Thiers, Lord Beaconsfield, John Bright, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, Sir Charles Dilke, Lord Halsbury, M. Clemenceau, and Dr. John Clifford, who are among the most active public men in recent history, all have lived to a ripe old age. And even if we turn to the more democratic class of agitators, who have spent the greater part of their lives in popular (or perhaps I should say unpopular) agitation, often having to undergo great strain and hardship in constant travelling and speaking in all sorts of conditions and seasons, do we not find the same testimony? Robert Owen; John Wesley in his eighty-ninth year; George Jacob Holyoake lived till nearly ninety; and Mr. Robert Applegarth, the veteran Trade Union leader, is still with us at over eighty years. And have we not the striking instance of Mrs. Besant, who when a young woman was, as she herself tells us, consumptive and was told by her doctor that public lecturing would either kill or cure her? It cured her, and she is still alive and splendidly energetic though well over seventy years.
It would seem, therefore, that the notion that public agitation is inimical to health is a delusion.
Nor does it appear to me that the belief that Morris' health was undermined by the wear and tear of his work in the Socialist movement is well founded. Indeed, I am persuaded that his Socialist agitation, so far from doing his health harm, refreshed his spirit, and was physically beneficial to him. He never, so far as I can ascertain, was more vigorous or freer from ailments, or more cheerful and happy, in the latter half of his life, than during the five years of his most active participation in Socialist propaganda.
Doubtless the irritation and worry of the internal strife in the movement in later years tended to depress him; but even then, may we not say that, so far from the strain of his exertions being the cause of his break-down, it was not until these dissensions led to his retirement from active propaganda that his health began to give way? Who knows but, had he been able to keep clear of these irritating controversies and had continued in the thick of the agitation, he might have lived another twenty years? And anyway, let us remember that countless men and women of robust constitutions, who never put foot on a public platform or become embroiled in political strife, die long before they reach Morris' age, which was sixty-two years.
I have, I think, already, as Mackail and others have done, likened Morris in many ways to a child. This characteristic of childlikeness has been frequently noted in men of creative and imaginative minds. Goldsmith, Blake, and Shelley are familiar instances. But in Morris the trait of childlikeness was the more singular because of the otherwise dominantly manly, self-reliant, and exceedingly manifest practical capacity of the man. In Shelley's case the childlikeness marked the poet's whole disposition, and constantly showed itself in his thoughtlessness concerning not only the feelings and interests, but even the existence of others, including his wife and family, in the common affairs of life, and in wholly wayward and irrational impulses and fancies. He was full of superstition about ghosts and dreams, and, grown man and father of a family as he was, would at times run truant in the woods for days, or burst naked into a drawing-room assembly of men and women. Morris showed none of these more 'infantile' (shall I say?) peculiarities. 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.