William Morris and the Early Days of the Socialist Movement

Title page, Contents, etc.

J. Bruce Glasier, at work in his Study, May 14th, 1920. From a Snapshot by Mrs. Wright-Robinson, enlarged and reproduced by Fredk. Hollyer.

WILLIAM MORRIS

AND THE EARLY DAYS OF THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

Preface by May Morris

PREFACE

The most fitting introduction to the pages that follow would be Bruce Glasier's own words in an article called 'Why I am a Socialist.' He is describing his early life when during the summer months he kept his father's sheep on the braes of Kyle: 'Then came the days of herding, with Burns's poems turned over page by page among the heather, and the never-ceasing song of the streams down the glens.'

The whole passage—too long to quote—is steeped in the wonder of wild places; he who wrote it and possessed this memory of romance had the poet's heart, the poet's vision, and when, before mid-life, a treasure of friendship came to him, it was a gift for which he was spiritually prepared, prized at its full value. What he gave in return for the pure joy that the friendship with William Morris brought into his life can be judged in reading the memories written here. The man of Scottish and Highland blood and he of the Welsh kin had much in common; both gave unconsciously, with the simplicity of wise children, and to us who look back and begin to see their lives in due proportion, the record of such kindliness, such steadfastness, as united these two men in their labour for the common good, is something to rejoice over. For surely if ever an earthly love was illumined with light from the Unknown, it was the affection that Bruce Glasier bore my father. The feeling was neither blind nor uncritical, nor does it show in the younger man any abnegation of independence of spirit. In one of the last letters Bruce wrote to me, he says: 'I know I must have tried his patience sorely many a time, for I was a wee bit wild and boisterous in those days, and though I loved and indeed worshipped him as the greatest man then bearing us company on earth, our Socialist League equalitarian ideas sometimes led us into foolish affectations of almost irreverence. But his generous heart forgave us all.'

Glasier had been for some years busied with Socialist lecturing when my father became acquainted with the Scottish circle in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and the meeting with this 'half-mythical being,' who was pictured by the ingenuous young men as leading an Arcadian life in the world of poetry and art down South, was to them an exciting event. When the hero comes out of the clouds and stands before his admirers as a man and a good comrade, there is danger of disappointment, of a sense of disillusion. But in this case there was no shadow: indeed, the light of reality shone more warmly and happily, and Glasier writes with a sort of epic directness of the first meeting with the poet, and at once gives the keynote of the story he tells us: 'I felt as one enriched with a great possession.'

It is worth while attempting to get the full significance of such words, uttered by one who had spent his life as a young man in the grey atmosphere of Scottish manufacturing centres, dedicating every possible moment to the cause he had at heart: it meant the release of pent-up thoughts, the splendid proclaiming—by a master-voice—of one's own inarticulate ideals; it was indeed the blossoming of the wilderness.

The chapter on Glasgow in the Dawn is, to my mind, of the greatest interest, approaching the subject from the standpoint of a man in the centre of the Labour movement, with outlook and values professedly not those of the student. We get a series of intimate pictures of the Socialist doings of those days, as they might impress Bruce's friends who were either themselves of the working-class, or had cast in their lot with that of Labour. From first to last, indeed, the volume has this special weight: it is the story of that particular phase of British Socialism, told in vivid glimpses by a single-hearted apostle of the cause—himself a poet and 'dreamer'—told in plain language to his fellows, the men with whom he lived and worked and whom he has largely influenced by his force of character. For me it must always have a special value for the simple and serious expression of that unmoved affection which so coloured his life.

But this book does more than tell the story of a particular phase of Socialism in this country; it has a wider and more permanent value. British Socialism is not a purely materialistic criticism of economic theory; behind it there is a basis of ethical criticism and theory. Marxian economics—apart from Marx's historical survey—is little read or understood except by his foreign disciples. William Morris's criticism of modern society and his revolt against it was fundamentally ethical, and the tremendous import of his teaching depended upon his experience as poet and artist. 'It must always be remembered that behind and deeper than all political and economic Socialism there is somewhere present, giving vitality to the theory, just that criticism of life, that demand for freedom and beauty, that craving for fellowship and joy in creative work, that revolt against sordidness, misery, and ugliness of a cramped existence, which Morris so gloriously and with such magnificent humanity expressed. Morris had the heart of Socialism, and no critic has answered him yet.' But because his teaching was not purely economic, his influence on current Socialistic teaching is likely to be overlooked by historians, whereas there is not one of the older Socialist leaders who has not come under his personal influence to a greater or less extent, and this book gives an experience which was repeated in some degree all over the country in his many lecturing tours. Not everywhere was there a follower so prepared to profit by his opportunities, but nowhere was the teaching entirely without result.

Morris's teaching was in truth no new departure; it was a continuation of the British Socialist tradition (as compared with the French, or the Italian or German), but he carried it to a higher point and set a permanent mark on it, as these memories help to show.

In what estimation William Morris held his Scottish friend will be gathered in the letters which are included at the end of the volume. He stood high in my father's confidence, and in those stormy days, when sordid quarrels perforce wasted the time of men who were meant for better things, Bruce was one to be relied on for his loyalty and steadiness of purpose—a comfort and solace to that unwilling leader of turbulent spirits.

In some of the letters, Morris's standpoint between the Parliamentarian Socialists and the Anarchists is brought out clearly, and, as he has been claimed by both parties, it is well to have the story of it now given definitely in his own words. It is well, too, that those who in future days may be interested in his life and thought should know that he saw the drawbacks—faults, weaknesses, what you will—of both parties, and declined to be committed to theories and acts he did not accept.

In writing to friends about this proposed volume, Glasier showed diffidence and hesitation; 'lest I might unwittingly in any way deface your Father's image,' he told me in one letter. 'But,' he added, 'it has been borne in upon my mind that I ought not to allow my recollection of these wonderful days with your Father to perish with me.' And so, having taken leave of a busy life that had become more and more dedicated to lecturing and writing in the cause of Socialism, he set to work. In the last protracted illness, in an atmosphere of unclouded serenity, this active spirit, though rejoicing in the coming freedom, did not allow itself to waste precious hours in contemplation; till the last, Glasier went on writing untiringly. 'The Meaning of Socialism' was finished before 'William Morris and the Early Days of the Socialist Movement' was written, and the last of his literary work, besides articles for the weekly Labour Leader, was the preparation of a volume of poems of various dates.

Of the satisfaction of leaving practically completed this tribute to his friend and teacher I will say nothing. There are moments in a man's life that one cannot intrude upon, though Glasier himself has allowed us a glimpse of what this meant to him.

Something of the beauty of Glasier's character is shown unconsciously in these pages, his integrity, loyalty, unswerving sense of duty, his disinterestedness in labouring for no material reward, besides the lighter qualities, his comradeship and good humour, his sense of fun and enjoyment of adventure—all the things that endeared him to my father. Indeed, the work breathes of the unaffected, unselfish spirit of the man, and scarcely calls for any such introducing words. But in writing them, two pictures linger persistently and unbidden in my mind: first, the young lad lying on the braes, drinking in the poetry of sky and earth, welcoming life and its riddle; then, the man of middle age, sitting at a desk with bowed head, writing on the blotted page his lament over the dead hero. The song of youth and the lament are now alike part of a story, and in the picture of Glasier that accompanies this volume, where he lies freed of all questionings and all griefs, something may be divined of the calm peace and expectancy with which he waited for the future.

MAY MORRIS

Kelmscott, January 1921.

Chapter I

William Morris From a Photograph by Fredk. Hollyer.

WILLIAM MORRIS AND THE EARLY DAYS OF THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

CHAPTER I

introduction

Think of the joy we have in praising great men, and how we turn their stories over and over, and fashion their lives for our joy; and this also we ourselves may give to the world.—William Morris. (Mackail's Life, i. 334.)

William Morris was to my mind one of the greatest men of genius this or any other land has ever known. In abundance of creative energy and fullness of skill in arts and letters it is doubtful if he has ever been excelled. Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Albrecht Dürer, and the builders of the great medieval cathedrals, are among the few master-craftsmen that rank on an equal plane with him in respect of the eminence and variety of his gifts. This appraisement may perhaps appear an exaggerated one to those who are accustomed to regard painting and sculpture as the highest, if not the only great, arts; for Morris did not devote himself to painting and sculpture, though as a matter of fact he could, and in his earlier days did, paint admirably. But to those, and happily they are now many, who have a better understanding of art, and who see in the industrial and decorative handicrafts scope for the highest and most delightful exercise of the imagination and skill of eye and hand, the statement will hardly appear an extravagant one.

It was, I think, the late Theodore Watts-Dunton who said of Morris that he had accomplished in his life the work of at least six men of front-rank literary and artistic capacity. This is not mere eulogy. No question has ever been raised in Morris' case as to whether he was or was not a true poet or a great master of his art. The genuineness in quality no less than the remarkable range of his accomplishments is acknowledged by all competent judges.

As a poet he ranks in the great modern constellation with Burns, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Browning, and Tennyson. As a prose writer, especially of pure romance, he holds a place of his own. He was the supreme craftsman of his age. In the arts of the design and manufacture of furniture, wall decoration, stained glass, book illumination, and book-printing he created a new tradition. He rescued these arts from the degradation of mere commercialism, revived the best observances of old craftsmanship, and pioneered the new. In various other crafts—arras tapestry, weaving, and wood-engraving, for example—he attained notable proficiency. Nor was he, as many men of creative faculty frequently are, careless and incompetent in regard to the ordinary affairs, occupations, and amusements of life. He took a keen interest and displayed an expert hand in many of the often despised tasks of the household, as well as in outdoor employments and recreations. He had a good understanding of all country matters, and was an angler, oarsman, and swimmer. He was a first-rate cook, and never was more happy than when, on a house-boat excursion, he was installed in the cooking galley or the kitchen, amidst pots and pans, cooking meals of his own choice for his friends. He used to say half-jestingly that he could bake bread and brew ale with any farmer's wife in Oxford . His knowledge of birds, Mr. Mackail tells us, was extraordinary; and he was continually surprising his friends with an unexpected acquaintance with modern science and industrial processes which he sometimes affected to despise. Unlike many of his literary and artistic friends, he took an eager and indeed an absorbing interest in politics and all matters relating to the public welfare; and he was, as we know, one of the most ardent propagandists and unflinching agitators of his day.

Morris was not only great as a man of genius and of general attainments; he was great in the high manliness and in the amplitude and richness of his nature. The impression of strength, of self-sufficiency, of action, of great individuality in him was felt by everyone in his presence. Among his immediate friends, many of them men of remarkable attainments, such as Burne-Jones, Philip Webb, Rossetti, Swinburne, and De Morgan, he was acknowledged the most masterful personality of them all. He occasionally showed a towering temper, but it was wholly without malice, and seemed given him merely by way of emblasonry. He was singularly unaffected, companionable, and good-humoured. There was not a particle of acidity or bitterness in him. He was simply incapable of cruelty or any act of meanness or oppression, of lying or pretence. And while one of the hardest-working, and in some respects most seriously minded men of his age, he was also full of jollity and boyishness, delighting in fun and merry-making, in games and story-telling, and in outings with friends. Limitations and even positive defects of character he had—they were conspicuous enough. But these notwithstanding, he had in him such an unusual combination of noble and delightful qualities, that he stands out as one of the grandest and most attractive personalities of our time.

And forth from his genius and character there sprang as a great flower his art, wherein was made manifest the word and teaching which, alike by precept and by the example of his life, he gave to the world. He taught us as no one ever before the lesson that art was the greatest expression of joy in work and life, and the highest evidence (as I will put it) of man's likeness to, and his worship of, his Creator. In the intensity of this conviction, no less than in the splendour of his example, concerning the high importance of art as a fundamental test of man's real freedom, of democracy, and of civilisation itself, Morris stands out unique among the greatest teachers of the modern world.

Lastly, and inevitably, Morris was a Socialist. He was a Socialist because he could not be William Morris without being a Socialist. His Socialism was not, as some of his admirers have supposed, an incidental occurrence in his life a sort of by-product of his career; it was integral with his genius; it was born and bred in his flesh and bone. He derived his Socialist impulse from no theory or philosophy or reasoning of his intellect, but from his very being. Under no circumstances of life could he ever have been happy in making his fellow-man a slave, or in deriving advantage from his fellows' pain or misery; nor could he have done so at all without being conscious of doing it, for the very nature of him would have perceived the fact through whatever conventions might obscure it. It was simply impossible for him to accept from others any service or gift which he himself was not ready in his heart to give to others even more abundantly if he could.

Fellowship, he said, is life, and lack of fellowship is death; and in saying this he was expressing not a mere judgment of his mind, but what he felt within himself and what he expressed in his art and whole conduct of life.

All these things about Morris I did not, of course, know when I first met him and fixed my youthful homage upon him: indeed, it was not until after his death that the greater qualities of his character and achievement revealed themselves to me. But I felt from my first acquaintance with him, as did so many others, that he was greater than his fame, or than even his remarkable personality betokened him to be.

It was something, then, even to know such a man. It was much not only to know him, but to be privileged to enjoy his friendship. That I was among those fortunate enough to gain that boon, I reckon as one of the greatest rewards of my Socialist apostleship, and as part of the good fortune of my life. It has not only coloured my Socialist ideals and hopes, but has tinged with a glow of romance the memory of all my after days.

True, my acquaintance with him was in actual quantity of intimacy very small, though it covered a period of over ten years—from 1884 till the time of his death. Even at that I only met him some three or four times a year, either while he was visiting Scotland on a Socialist lecturing tour, or when I was visiting him at his house in Hammersmith, and on each occasion only for a day or two. But during these visits I was brought closely in touch with him, and was so eagerly interested in all he said and did, and all things concerning him, that I gained the utmost from these personal experiences. Besides, he corresponded frequently with me, writing always to me most frankly concerning himself and the affairs of the Socialist movement.

Alike, therefore, because of the interest which is generally felt in the personal characteristics of a man of such great attainments as Morris, and because of the interest and importance which his work in the Socialist movement has for so many of the younger generation of Socialists, I propose to set down in these pages some of my recollections of him.

Often during the past twenty years I have been eagerly asked about him, when I have been sitting with comrades round the fire after addressing Socialist meetings, and on such occasions I have always been implored to write down my reminiscences of him. That, however, I have hitherto shrunk from doing, partly because I have felt so much reverence for the memory of the man that I have been loth to risk writing about him, lest in so doing I should unwittingly deface in any way the true image of him; and partly because I have hitherto been too much absorbed in my every-day work to afford the leisure for the task—little as it may seem. But now, confined as I am to bed, and with only, as it would seem, a few more months at most in which to write or to do anything more in this realm of life, I feel a longing which I cannot allay to leave some of the treasures of my memories of him as a legacy to the Socialist movement.

And should anyone object to the number of these chapters, and to the minuteness of the details recorded in some of them, I can only plead that to myself and, I hope, to many Socialists at least all that concerns a true appreciation of Morris' character, and the circumstances of his propaganda career, are as interesting and important as anything that can be recorded of any notable thinker and worker in modern history.

It may be asked whether, in recording Morris' conversations, I have relied upon notes taken at the time, or solely upon my memory. I have done neither. Fortunately I have preserved diary notes covering several years of our acquaintance, in which there are brief jottings concerning him. These have enabled me to check dates of meetings and some other details. As for my memory, it is one of the poorest so far as concerns retaining in the ordinary way a recollection of words or phrases, but it is usually exceedingly retentive of visual or pictorial impressions. During the past twenty or thirty years I have often, as I have said, had occasion when talking over early times with friends to recall many of the incidents recorded here, and have rarely found any difficulty in bringing back a vivid recollection of the scenes, but have usually had to content myself with giving the barest indication of the conversations. How then am I to account for being able to set down, as I have done in many instances, what I give as the actual words used by him?

It is right that I should explain this matter, so that my readers may judge how far they may place reliance on my narrative.

I do not know whether my experience in this matter is at all a common one with writers of reminiscences, but I have found that my memory is, on many occasions, subject to what seems to be a sort of 'illumination' or 'inspiration.' Thus, when I have fixed my mind on one, say, of the incidents recalled in these chapters, the scene has begun to unfold itself—perhaps slowly at first, but afterwards rapidly and clearly. Meditating upon it for a time, I have lifted my pen and begun to write. Then, to my surprise, the conversations, long buried or hidden somewhere in my memory, have come back to me, sometimes in the greatest fullness—word for word, as we say. Nay, not only the bare words, but the tones, the pauses, and the gestures of the speaker. The whole scene, in fact, with all that was at the time visible to (or at least noted by) the eye, and all that was heard or noted by the ear, has returned and rehearsed or repeated itself in my mind. Or, to put the experience in another and perhaps as true a way, my mind has been taken back—winged imaginatively across the gulf of years—to the actual occurrence, and I have seen and heard once more what I then saw and heard.

In writing, for example, the account given in the chapter 'A Red-Letter Day,' of our meeting on the cinder-heap, I was taken back, so to speak, to that Saturday afternoon thirty-two years ago, and lived over again its minutes and hours. I sat again with Morris in the train; I listened to the inebriated house-carpenter's chatter; I turned away shamefaced on the station platform, while Morris fulminated against the unlucky railway guard. I stood by the cinder-heap and listened to Morris give his address, hearing his voice and observing his mannerisms, watching the faces and hearing the occasional remarks of the audience, and noting the dreary surroundings of dismal buildings and bristling chimney stalks—I passed again, I say, through all this experience, the scenes all re-enacting themselves over again, as vividly (so at least it seemed to me) as when they occurred.

Not, of course, in every instance has the resurrection of the incidents or conversations been equally full and distinct. In some cases I have had difficulty in calling up a complete replica of the scenes and in recollecting the spoken words, and so have given the spirit rather than the letter of his remarks. But, so far as I am aware, I have set down nothing in these pages that is not true in circumstance and substance, if not in every instance in precise delineation and phrase, of what actually occurred.

In this way, then, have these recollections been written, and the reader must judge for himself what trust he can place in the accuracy of the record.

On looking over again what I have written, I discover that I have brought myself a good deal into my narrative. My intention was wholly otherwise. Indeed, my first idea was to write in the third person throughout, and avoid any reference to myself other than such as cropped up incidentally. But when I tried to write in that fashion, the light failed me altogether; I could see nothing clearly, and the whole thing seemed destitute of reality and life. I had no alternative, therefore, but to write as the recollections flashed into my mind, or not at all. I must bear cheerfully, therefore, whatever rebuke my egotism—seeming or real—brings upon me, as ordained by my task.

All that is contained in these pages, as I have said, has been written lying on a bed of pain, with no expectation that I shall ever again walk out amongst my fellows. Rather is my mind set upon the new and strange journey that is dimly before me. And notwithstanding long years of agnostic belief I cannot rid myself of the surmise, the hope, the wonder—call it what you will—that any hour or day I shall find myself in the 'abode where the eternal are,' and shall again meet my splendid comrade face to face. Nay, strange as the thought may appear, I have in a sort of half-dream imagined myself going, while yet some filaments of my present earthly vesture cling to me, to greet him gladly, and placing this book of mine in his hand, without any misgiving lest he should find in it aught that is untrue concerning him, or that might bring a shadow of frown on his brow, or make me shrink from his eyes. And if I can say this in all sincerity, as I do, what else need I say? What else but repeat his own memorable words: 'Think of the joy we have in praising great men, and how we turn their stories over and over, and fashion their lives for our joy; and this also we ourselves may give to the world.'

Chapter II

CHAPTER II

the socialist league

It is necessary to ask my readers who wish to follow understandingly the story of these chapters to bear with me while I give a short account of the position of the modern Socialist movement in this country at the period when the narrative in these pages begins. Without some notion of the origin of the Socialist movement and the circumstances that led to the formation of the Socialist League, under whose banner William Morris accomplished the greater part of his work as a Socialist agitator, many of the references in these chapters would be unintelligible to the reader, and the true significance of his career as a Socialist pioneer would escape observation.

I shall confine myself, however, to the barest outline of events.

There was at the period when Morris began his Socialist career, early in 1883, only one political Socialist body in this country—namely, the Democratic Federation. This body was, in fact, the first political Socialist organisation formed in this country. Needless to say, Socialism itself, or rather Socialist ideas and Socialist teaching, did not originate with the Democratic Federation, or indeed with any modern movement. The prophecy and power of Socialism has come down the ages of history with the growing idealism and social culture of mankind. Only in recent times, however, has the industrial and political progress of civilisation rendered the achievement of Socialism on a large community or national scale possible by means of political organisation.

Already by the time of the formation of the Democratic Federation there was a widespread unrest in thoughtful minds with the existing conditions of society, and heralding voices of the coming Socialist movement were heard in every land. Robert Owen in this country, and St. Simon and Fourier in France, and Fichte and Weitling in Germany, had earlier in the century brought forward their various schemes of co-operative workshops and communistic associations, and in the revolutionary outbreaks of 1848 abroad, and in the Chartist agitation at home—notably by the voice and pens of Bronterre O'Brien and Ernest Jones—the cry of 'the Wealth for the Workers' in almost clear, class-conscious notes had resounded throughout the world. But the extraordinary advance of capitalist industry, aided by steam production and transport, together with the great exodus to America, Australia, and other colonies, had distracted the attention of the people from their misery, and aroused hopes of more prosperous days. Nevertheless, the gathering currents of Socialist thought were pressing on and rinding fitful expression in the writings of Carlyle, Disraeli, Ruskin, Mill, and the more earnest Radicals, and in the Christian Socialist movement of Kingsley, Maurice, Ludlow, and Mackay. Lastly, there came upon the scene about 1880 the outbreaks of the Irish and Highland Land Leagues, and the 'Land for the People' propaganda of Henry George, Michael Davitt, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Philip Wicksteed, which aroused widespread discussion.

But as yet, notwithstanding these signs of social insurgency, Socialist ideas had not assumed any definite political form in this country. The working-class in the bulk were completely under the sway of the capitalist political parties—whose most advanced projects were embodied in Mr. Gladstone's Midlothian speeches of 1879–1880, in which no reference whatever to Socialism, or even to Labour in a political sense, occurs. There were no Socialist meetings, no Socialist literature. The Guild of St. Matthew, founded in 1877 by the Rev. Stewart Headlam, the Rev. W.E. Moll, and a small group of earnest Church reformers, who avowed themselves Socialists and declared that Socialism and Christianity were one, may rightly claim to have sounded the note of the forthcoming Socialist movement, but it had a religious rather than a political basis.