William Morris and the Early Days of the Socialist Movement/5
CHAPTER V
HIS COMRADESHIP: TRAITS AND INCIDENTS
Mr. Mackail and other writers speak of Morris' dislike to going into society or taking part in the usual amenities of social intercourse. He lived, even as he worked, in his own way, heeding very little the conventionalities of his class or profession. This peculiarity has been noted as being a rather singular characteristic in one who laid so much emphasis on neighbourliness and mutual aid, and who enunciated the axiom that 'Fellowship is life and lack of fellowship is death,' and there are those who discover in his behaviour indications of an unsocial trait in his nature, a disposition of aloofness towards his fellows.
Therein, I think, Morris is misunderstood. I cannot, of course, speak of him from such familiar acquaintance as many of his older and more intimate friends enjoyed, but so far as my own knowledge of him during the last ten years of his life goes, I should say that instead of being in any degree of an unsocial or seclusive disposition, he was preeminently companionable by nature. I find also that in the biographies of Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Swinburne, and other of his more celebrated associates, he invariably figures as a delightful, even if sometimes a somewhat unmanageable, companion—always he is the leading spirit in the conversation and fun of their gatherings. True he displayed intense self-willedness so far as concerned his own ways of life and his work, and demanded a good deal of home seclusion when preoccupied with his writing and his art schemes. His 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 rank and file of the members might share the enjoyment of his company.
To Morris, who, quite apart from the aversion which his Socialist principles gave him to all assertions of class inferiority, was ever impatient of mere formalities and gentilities, and who had an intense dislike of 'lionising' or being 'on show,' it required as a rule no little self-restraint to endure any sort of display of personal homage, even when without any taint of snobbery. The fact, therefore, that he submitted himself so willingly as he did on those occasions to the fraternal exploitation of his fame is striking testimony to the basic good-heartedness of his nature.
One of the many testing experiences of this kind which I recall occurred in connection with his visit to Glasgow, when he spoke there for the first time under the auspices of the newly formed branch of the League. On the Saturday preceding the Sunday lecture he was taken on a steamboat excursion to Lochgoilhead, in order that he might enjoy a glimpse of the scenery of the Clyde, and that at the same time members and friends of the branch might have an opportunity of making the acquaintance of their distinguished comrade. A function of this kind in which the guest is obliged to submit himself to the process of being casually introduced to a multitude of strangers, to whom he is expected to make himself agreeable and interesting, is a trying enough ordeal even to public men who are accustomed to, and take a pleasure in, public receptions, but to a man of Morris' temperament it is usually a positive torture. Yet Morris bore the ordeal, an all-day-long one, magnificently. So full of pleasure was he in the thought of serving the movement in any capacity at all, that I doubt if he felt the task of the day's civilities half so irksome as would many a man of a more insensitive but much less enthusiastic nature. Only when he was pressed rather witlessly by some of the younger quidnuncs to give his opinion on much disputed questions of art or literature—subjects particularly distasteful to him in casual conversation—did he display signs of impatience. Happily, however, the majority of the party were content to let Mavor, Craibe Angus, and one or two other wiser heads act as the chief spokesmen of the company, with the result that we had from Morris many delightful discussions, brimful of history, folklore, and stories, old and new—so that a workman comrade remarked afterwards that the trip had been to him 'as good as a university education.'
Nor were there lacking some rather droll incidents, one of which particularly amused Morris, who chuckled over it many a time in after days. Attention had been called to the fact that a number of places which the steamboat passed on its way, such as Ardmore, Ardentinnie, Ardgoil, bore evidence from their names of the Norsemen's settlement in Scotland. This led Morris to relate one or two of the old Norse legends, whereupon one of our comrades, a professional man, who had been talking freely to Morris about literature, and had conveyed, perhaps unwittingly, the impression to all of us that he was familiar with Morris' works, stumbled on the remark, 'Have you never thought, Mr. Morris, of translating into English verse some of these old Norse tales? I feel sure they would take on with the general reader much better than Classic themes which have been rather overdone, don't you think, by our poets?'
The maladroitness of such a remark, addressed to one of the chief, if not the greatest modern versifier of both Norse and Classic themes, was perceived by most, if not all, the other listeners, and uncomfortable looks went round. Morris, however, beamed with enjoyment of the situation, 'But I assure our friend,' he replied, with sly emphasis, 'that I have thought about it, and have even tried my hand at the job. The result, however, has hardly "taken on" quite as well with the general reader as our friend supposes it would. He is probably right about the Classic business being overdone, and I confess myself one of the overdoers.' The conversation was mercifully switched on to a different topic.
Another member of the party, a city councillor, who was an ardent Henry Georgite, fancied he was making himself both entertaining and instructive to our guest, by immediately citing from a notebook, which was never out of his hand, the rent value of the land in the neighbourhood of any part of the landscape on which Morris' eye happened for a moment to rest.
Another friend, an enthusiastic vegetarian, was eager to ascertain what the dietetic habits were of Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Swinburne, and other men of genius with whom Morris was acquaint, and assured Morris that he would find his intellect much clearer, and feel fit for twice as much work, if he gave up flesh-eating and stimulants!
There were, of course, several young aspirants to literary and art fame who took occasion to waylay Morris when he was by himself, and submit to him examples of their verses or specimens of their designs—all unconscious, let us hope, of the squirming of their victim!
Morris, I repeat, bore himself splendidly through all this prolonged heckling and harassment, and his forbearance never once gave way. Is there, I wonder, any other poet or artist of repute who would have endured a similar experience with so much patience and good-humour? I cannot think of anyone. Shelley would have fled the steamboat at the first port of call; Wordsworth would have ensconced himself on a campstool and gone to sleep; Tennyson would have hidden himself away somewhere—if need be, in the coal-hole.
The Lochgoilhead excursion was, however, an exceptional experience. Generally, Morris' experiences of the fraternal receptions arranged on the occasion of his visits to branches were of a less exacting kind. Even in Glasgow, where we were always apt to exploit the fame and zeal of our elect brethren to the utmost, we did better on after occasions. I remember how wholly delightful was the tea-party meeting we held in his honour on his next visit the following season. A more enjoyable and appropriate little celebration could hardly be wished. We had no lack of good singers amongst us, and we offered our guest a feast of Scottish song which he acknowledged was a real treat to him. He himself read the speech of John Ball at the marketplace from his own 'Dream of John Ball,' which was then appearing in weekly instalments in the Commonweal. He read, or rather chanted, that wonderful apologue in a rich, solemn strain, as one whose own heart and soul were in every word, and such was the effect of the recital that we all felt as though it were John Ball himself who was speaking to us and we were the yeomen assembled round him and were being consecrated with him to the Cause 'even unto life or death.' None of those present that evening would ever forget how strangely and deeply we were moved by that reading.
Our gathering, though only consisting of a few dozen members and friends of the branch, was noteworthily international in voice as in sentiment. Leo Melliet, a French refugee well known in scholastic circles, who had been Mayor and Minister of Justice in the Paris Commune, and was one of our earliest supporters in Glasgow, sang the 'Carmagnole' with such dramatic effect that we were roused to our feet and danced the chorus with him round the room. A German comrade, one of a small group of German glass-blowers who were members of the branch, sang a German workers' song, and a Russian Jew, a cigarmaker, sang a Yiddish revolutionary song which to our ears sounded as a weird sort of dirge. Between the songs we had several short speeches, including one from Morris, all pitched on an elated note, rejoicing in the hopes of the new civilisation which we were, we believed, bringing into birth.
Questions were put to Morris from all parts of the room which drew from him many characteristic sayings and stories. Towards the end of the evening Mrs. Neilson, a member of the Ruskin Society and our first woman recruit, surprised us with a little preceptorial address, in which she gently rebuked us for the warlike tone of some of our Socialist utterances, and pressed upon us her view that only by the extension of the franchise to women could Socialism ever be obtained, as men were far too stupid and selfish ever to do away with a system that satisfied their fighting and predatory instincts.
This was, I believe, almost the first definitely anti-militarist note, and the first sound of the new women's agitation that any of us had yet heard. She amused us greatly by admonishing Morris quaintly against becoming conceited because of his genius and the hero-worship of his Socialist comrades! Morris in reply playfully assured her that were she acquaint with his experiences for but one week as editor of the Commonweal, or as a member of the Council of the League with Joe Lane and Frank Kitz as colleagues and monitors, she would have no anxiety lest his personal vanity should become unduly inflated. I cannot recollect whether he alluded to her remarks about the militarist spirit and women's enfranchisement—a telltale forgetfulness on my part. But I doubt if any of us realised the prophetic importance of the precepts thus pitched upon us by the first woman's utterance in our midst.
Thus the evening sped with us till midnight, when we sang 'Come, comrades, come,' acclaimed the 'Social Revolution,' and dispersed on our various ways home. One group of us insisted on convoying our guest to the hotel door, chorusing along the streets his own 'March of the Workers,' and feeling almost persuaded that we were destined to forgather some not far distant day at the barricades!
Traditions of similar fellowship gatherings with Morris exist in many other towns where branches of the League were founded. In every instance his personal association with the members appears to have given a richer colouring to their idealism and bestowed an imperishable fragrance on the sentiment of comradeship in the Socialist cause. A halo of enthusiasm glows round his memory among the little groups of Socialist League members who still survive, such as rarely clings to the memory of any public man. I cannot think of any modern movement which inherits a more inspiring tradition of apostleship in this respect.
I have to go back to the lives (remote as they be in category as in time) of George Fox and William Tyndale, and to the legends of the great Celtic teachers, St. Columba, St. Cuthbert, St. Aidan (of Lindisfarne), and the Venerable Bede to find a like instance of a teacher or leader enshrining himself so perfectly in the affections and imagination of his friends and disciples. Indeed, I have often when recalling my own memories of Morris' visits, such as those described in the chapters 'A Red-Letter Day' and 'A Propaganda Outing,' and when listening to the recollections of some of our older comrades in Hammersmith, Norwich, Bristol, Leicester, Manchester, Edinburgh, and other towns, found the words in the story of the walk to Emmaus repeat themselves in my mind: 'Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?'