A GREAT PERSONALITY.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCIV, Issue 14360, 4 February 1911, Page 1 (Supplement)

A GREAT PERSONALITY.

WILLIAM MORRIS. ' It would be idle, but not uninteresting; to raise a discussion as to who was the greatest of the Victorians (writes Mr A. G. Gardiner, Editor of the '•'Daily News," in reviewing the new edition of tha complete works of William Morris.) The rival claims of Browning and Tennvson, of Carlyle and Ruskin, Dickens and Thackeray. Watts and Burne-Jones, Meredith and Swinburne, -would offer a field for a conflict as entertaining and as fierce as anything since the Battle of the Books. It is not improbable that such a. conflict would provide a surprise like that of the battle of tha North Inch at the end of which Hal o' th'Wynd, the lo*ly smith alone stood erect over the fallen chieftftinsl It is not improbable that the victor would be none of the obvious champions; but a jolly knight, robust and brown bearded, has eyes sparkling with inn and good humour, his face tanned like that of a country squire, his hair tumbling in great waves from his broad brow, his name William Morris. Certainly ha would b» the victor if greatness of spirit and variousness of achievement were tb» final considerations. '-TheM were greater writers. greater artiste, greater thinkers, perhaps even greater craftsmen than Morris; but there was no greater man. He carried- with him an atmosphere elemental and cleansing. When you saw him you thought of the Vikings and the heroes of Norse legend, when you heard his great joyous laugh the sky. seemed to widen and the earth seemed to grow more pure and fragrant, when you listened to his radiant talk the pettiness of life seemed to fall magically away and you passed out into a world of high adventure, and chivalrous purpose. Life at th? touch of his Dresenre became a noWe and splendid thins. The woods of the .world were full of song, the highwavs echoed with brave and generous deeds, the air thrilled with the spirit of love and good fellowship. HIS VERSATILITY. No category could contain him. He took all life lor his parish. He was the most prolific poet of his time, but his poetry seemed onlv the overflow of his full life and not the life itself. He wrote prose romances as lightly as another man might go into his garden and cull roses. He built up a great business and through it created a new and beautiful tradition of domestic art, h--' recovered the lost art of noble printing and gave to the world a heritage of beautiful books; he could paint a picture as easily as he could turn a verse; he could engrave a wood block as easilv as he could make a speech at a street; corner. And behind all this astonishing versatility there was the sense that the man was greater than anything he did, that the spirit was finer than the accomplishment.. His Socialism was only the expression of his exuberant passion for the jov and beauty of life. He revolted against the squalor and sordidness of tho age of commerce and machinery- into which lie was born and his mind took refuge in the world of_mediaevalisin and romance, of chivalrous deeds and noble craftsand out of it lie fashioned the palace of dreams with which he sought to refresh the tired hearts of men, to give them a new inspiration, to point them to a new goal. He himself took a modest view of his task: Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time, .Why should I strivefto set the crooked Etraifht? let jt suffice me that my murmuring Beats with light wing against the ivorv gnte, Telling a tale not too importunate To those who in the sleepy region stay tailed by the singer of an empty day. The stream of his life was as happv said generous as his verse, flowin-' through sunlit meadows, warmed bv £reat friendships, busy with a thousand noble activities. He threw himself into every task with the energy that a child throws himself into his. play. In the Introduction which his daughter provides to tlie.se volumes we have diamine; glimpses of the intimate li-'e of Morris—as a boy in the old hou-o - lt . Ley ton with the Forest hard In- to five a background of romance lor his dn-Tues nt Marlhormiiri. :,.;:,;„ ■, ith -, Foren |i companion, at Oxford where lie found Burne-Jones and fern a life-i u „„ friendship with him. Here in lfisr, j,o wrote his first poem. -The Willow arci toe Red Cliff, - ' which he took to read m Boroe-Jonea at breakfasts .'-.AtW

tliat," said Burns-Jones, ','P 0 ,, went bv without some poem. « ■ • -0011 alter, Uurinss a tour together 111 France, that Morris and Bumc-Juii a , decided to up the church <k ; rote themselves to art—Burne-Jones painting, Morris to architecture. it was a disappointment to Morns s mother. We have a delicious vifinette of the ulvi lady m later days when .Momss cliildren used to go off to * home. There, in the inpruing -ho servants trooped 111 to the k rt ' a M'V t room for family prayers conducted bv Morris in his splendid resonant vmee and his mother would remark a little regretfully "What a bishop he WJii.d have made." HIS ACTIVITIES. In a beautiful letter to his mother tell in"* her of his change of purpose np had said with that expuisiie that sat so nobly on his greatness "lou see I do not hope to be great at all in j anvthing but perhaps I may reasonably hope to be happy in my work." Never was reasonable hope more abundant-W fulfilled. Articled to Street, his mind soon turns uncbr the iuflpence of Ko>etti to painting. Then "Ned (BurneJones) and I are coins, to live together, " and there follow the gl .nous *'Ktd Lionsquare days," filled w»r-h Homeric laughter, strenuous wo-k and the* hundred fantastic experimen* * in furniture making and decorating _ that jijiyc* rise to "the establishment *•? tfca fit iL* of Morris, Marshall, Fau kner and C\». So he passes on to fcho? n It er Kelmscott davs, when from the beautiful homo in the valley of the Thames he issued the wonderful books which have made the Kelmseott Press the most famous name in typography. And all the time the stream of his poetry pours forth Tvitli the happy ease and abundance that marked all his labours. Not that he took no pains. In these introductions wo seo him throwing whole structures away, with a- splendid recklessness of labour, in order to recast his themes on better lines. And then later we see him plunging with whole-hearted joy into the Socialist movement, travelling hither and thither to speak at out of the way plaoes, now in a dingy schoolroom, now on a waggon, always giving his best, full measure, often, as I have seen him, going off afterwards with some unknown friends of the cause to some little abode, and there pouring out the treasures of his great nature in unaffected comradeship. A great life indeed. And here in this edition, to be complete in 24 volumes,* is a memorial worthy of it. One can imagine the joy with which the great printer woula handle tlieso beautiful volumes the tender pleasure with which he would see how admirably his daughter has presented to the world this memorial of her father's genius.