Artists From England

"I must now shock you by telling you that we have no longer anything which you, a native of another planet, would call a government."

"A terrible tyranny our Communism, is it not? Folk used often to be warned against this very unhappiness in times past, when for every well-fed, contented person you saw a thousand miserable starvelings. Whereas for us, we grow fat and well-liking on the tyranny; a tyranny, to say the truth, not to be made visible by any microscope I know. Don't be afraid, my friend; we are not going to seek for troubles by calling our peace and plenty and happiness by ill names whose very meaning we have forgotten!"

"As a matter of fact, the history of the terrible period of transition from commercial slavery to freedom may thus be summarised. When the hope of realising a communal condition of life for all men arose, quite late in the nineteenth century, the power of the middle classes, the then tyrants of society, was so enormous and crushing, that to almost all men, even those who had, you may say despite themselves, despite their reason and judgement, conceived such hopes, it seemed a dream. So much was this the case that some of those more enlightened men who were then called Socialists, although they well knew, and even stated in public, that the only reasonable condition of Society was that of pure Communism (such as you now see around you), yet shrunk from what seemed to them the barren task of preaching the realisation of a happy dream. Looking back now, we can see that the great motive-power of the change was a longing for freedom and equality, akin if you please to the unreasonable passion of the lover; a sickness of heart that rejected with loathing the aimless solitary life of the well-educated man of that time: phrases, my dear friend, which have lost their meaning to us of the present day; so far removed we are from the dreadful facts which they represent."

"Go back again, now you have seen us, and your outward eyes have learned that in spite of all the infallible maxims of your day there is yet a time of rest in store for the world, when mastery has changed into fellowship — but not before. Go back again, then, and while you live you will see all round you people engaged in making others live lives which are not their own, while they themselves care nothing for their own real lives — men who hate life though they fear death. Go back and be the happier for having seen us, for having added a little hope to your struggle. Go on living while you may, striving, with whatsoever pain and labour needs must be, to build up little by little the new day of fellowship, and rest, and happiness."

"William Morris, [is] a prime favourite with a Socialist like myself, but also, in my view - especially in the Defence of Guinevere - a great poet."

"I cannot help thinking that it does not matter what goes into the Clarion this week, because William Morris is dead. And what socialist will care for any other news this week, beyond that one sad fact? … William Morris was our best man; and he is dead. It is true that much of his work still lives, and will live. But we have lost him, and, great as was his work, he himself was greater. Many a man of genius is dwarfed by his creations. We could all name men whose personalities seem unworthy of their own words and actions; men who resemble mean jars filled with honey, or foul lamps emitting brilliant beams. Morris was of a nobler kind. He was better than his best. Though his words fell like sword strokes, one always felt that the warrior was stronger than the sword. For Morris was not only a genius, he was a man. Strike at him where you would, he rang true. … His face was as honest as a lion's and you accepted his word as you accept a date from the almanac. This is a censorious world, and as a rule, let a man be chaste as ice, pure as snow, he shall not escape calumny. Yet I have never heard a single word of detraction or dislike spoken of William Morris. Nor is there a Socialist to-day in England but will feel that he has lost a friend. He was our best man. We cannot spare him; we cannot replace him. In all England there lives no braver, kinder, honester, cleverer, heartier man than William Morris. He is dead, and we cannot help feeling for a while that nothing else matters."

"When I first knew Morris nothing would content him but being a monk, and getting to Rome, and then he must be an architect, and apprenticed himself to Street, and worked for two years, but when I came to London and began to paint he threw it all up, and must paint too, and then he must give it up and make poems, and then he must give it up and make window hangings and pretty things, and when he had achieved that, he must be a poet again, and then after two or three years of Earthly Paradise time, he must learn dyeing, and lived in a vat, and learned weaving, and knew all about looms, and then made more books, and learned tapestry, and then wanted to smash everything up and begin the world anew, and now it is printing he cares for, and to make wonderful rich-looking books — and all things he does splendidly — and if he lives the printing will have an end — but not I hope, before Chaucer and the Morte d'Arthur are done; then he'll do I don't know what, but every minute will be alive."

"We take Morris's poem into the woods with us and read it aloud, greedily, looking to see how much more there is in store for us . If ever you have an idle afternoon , bestow it on the Earthly Paradise."

"His talk indeed is wonderfully to the point and remarkable for clear good sense. He said no one thing that I remember, but I was struck with the very good judgment shewn in everything he uttered. He’s an extraordinary example, in short, of a delicate sensitive genius and taste, served by a perfectly healthy body and temper. All his designs are quite as good (or rather nearly so) as his poetry. Altogether it was a long rich sort of visit, with a strong peculiar flavour of its own."

"B[urne] J[ones] was in all ways the biggest. He had the most glorious sense of humour. Morris had none. It annoyed him as flies annoy cattle . But to hear the two together , discussing the workshop side of their art - fabrication of colours ; design of glass windows and the inlay of the little bits , and how the lines cut each other , as they loafed in the studio between whiles was a thing to be grateful for , even though one did not comprehend it."

"William Morris was one of the most versatile, energetic and original men of his time, a force that impinged decisively on the world of practice."

"Other stories have only scenery: his have geography. He is not concerned with ‘painting’ landscapes; he tells you the lie of the land, and then you paint the landscapes for yourself. To a reader long fed on the almost botanical and entomological niceties of much modern fiction—where, indeed, we mostly skip if the characters go through a jungle—the effect is at first very pale and cold, but also very fresh and spacious. We begin to relish what my friend called the ‘Northernness’. No mountains in literature are as far away as distant mountains in Morris. The world of his imagining is as windy, as tangible, as resonant and three dimensional, as that of Scott or Homer."

"My great author at this period was William Morris...I found The Well at the World's End. I looked—I read chapter headings—I dipped—and next day I was off into town to buy a copy of my own. Like so many new steps it appeared to be partly a revival- 'Knights in Armour' returning from a very early period of my childhood. After that I read all the Morris I could get, Jason, The Earthly Paradise, the prose romances. The growth of the new delight is marked by my sudden realisation, almost with a sense of disloyalty, that the letters WILLIAM MORRIS were coming to have at least as potent a magic in them as WAGNER."

"Where Morris beats the cerebral utopists all hollow is in the materiality of his imagination. To lead a decent human life in a cramped, featureless, unvaried environment is a tough job; the twenty-story-slab housing development, the hundred-cubicle office, the windows that cannot be opened because the interior "climate" is controlled, the faceless Bauhaus exterior-all utopian in their way, I guess. But not my utopia, or his."

"We need a return to the William Morris broad conception of art in relation to life, in terms of colours and designs and craftsmanship, and windows opening on to Heaven, instead of narrowing it down to the preciosities of cliques and coteries who seek through their obscurities to keep art esoteric."

"William Morris's News from Nowhere, an anarchist utopian novel in which women possess both equality and a natural predilection for the tasks of domesticity...Morris, along with a host of other nineteenth-century men, obviously believed that to engage in the role of helpmeet, to cook, to clean, and to run a house were natural female functions. Therefore, women of his utopia did not consider such duties evidence of inequality."

"News from Nowhere was one of Voltairine de Cleyre's favorite books"

"It is Morris... who can properly be called the first English Marxist. This truth has been but slowly recognised, not only by the reformists and anarchists who each, in their own fashion, have tried to annex him, but also by Marxists."

"It was William Morris who in modern times first joined these two words [bookmaking and art] together by the publication of his magnificent Kelmscott volumes. Such type, such decorations, such presswork, such sheer, composite beauty! ... from the very beginning Morris' innovations showed the world that printing still belonged among the fine arts."

"So far Morris is the true prophet of the 20th century. We owe it to him that an ordinary man's dwelling-house has once more become a worthy object of the architect's thought, and a chair, a wallpaper, or a vase, a worthy object of the artist's imagination."

"He is beaten gold."

"So he still paces ahead of us, no longer ‘lonely’ but still in the van — beckoning us forward to the measureless bounty of life. He is one of those men whom history will never overtake."

"Hence has arisen that exaltation of the defective, of which John Ruskin and William Morris were such eager spokesmen in their time; and on this ground their propaganda of crudity and wasted effort has been taken up and carried forward since their time. And hence also the propaganda for a return to handicraft and household industry. So much of the work and speculations of this group of men as fairly comes under the characterization here given would have been impossible at a time when the visibly more perfect goods were not the cheaper."

"When we can get beyond that smoky world, there, out in the country we may still see the works of our fathers yet alive amidst the very nature they were wrought into, and of which they are so completely a part: for there indeed if anywhere, in the English country, in the days when people cared about such things, was there a full sympathy between the works of man, and the land they were made for: — the land is a little land; too much shut up within the narrow seas, as it seems, to have much space for swelling into hugeness: there are no great wastes overwhelming in their dreariness, no great solitudes of forests, no terrible untrodden mountain-walls: all is measured, mingled, varied, gliding easily one thing into another: little rivers, little plains, swelling, speedily- changing uplands, all beset with handsome orderly trees; little hills, little mountains, netted over with the walls of sheep- walks: all is little; yet not foolish and blank, but serious rather, and abundant of meaning for such as choose to seek it: it is neither prison nor palace, but a decent home."

"To give people pleasure in the things they must perforce use, that is one great office of decoration; to give people pleasure in the things they must perforce make, that is the other use of it. Does not our subject look important enough now? I say that without these arts, our rest would be vacant and uninteresting, our labour mere endurance, mere wearing away of body and mind."

"Come — pain ye shall have, and be blind to the ending! Come — fear ye shall have, mid the sky's overcasting! Come — change ye shall have, for far are ye wending! Come — no crown ye shall have for your thirst and your fasting, But the kissed lips of Love and fair life everlasting! Cry out, for one heedeth, who leadeth you home!"

"O hearken the words of his voice of compassion: "Come cling round about me, ye faithful who sicken Of the weary unrest and the world's passing fashions! As the rain in mid-morning your troubles shall thicken, But surely within you some Godhead doth quicken, As ye cry to me heeding, and leading you home.""

"Love is enough: ho ye who seek saving, Go no further; come hither; there have been who have found it, And these know the House of Fulfilment of Craving; These know the Cup with the roses around it; These know the World's Wound and the balm that hath bound it: Cry out, the World heedeth not, "Love, lead us home!""

"All wonder of pleasure, all doubt of desire, All blindness, are ended, and no more ye feel If your feet treat his flowers or the flames of his fire, If your breast meet his balms or the edge of his steel. Change is come, and past over, no more strife, no more learning: Now your lips and your forehead are sealed with his seal, Look backward and smile at the thorns and the burning. — Sweet rest, O my soul, and no fear of returning!"

"Love is enough: while ye deemed him a-sleeping, There were signs of his coming and sounds of his feet; His touch it was that would bring you to weeping, When the summer was deepest and music most sweet..."

"Eve shall kiss night, And the leaves stir like rain As the wind stealeth light O'er the grass of the plain. Unseen are thine eyes Mid the dreamy night's sleeping, And on my mouth there lies The dear rain of thy weeping."

"Let us speak, love, together some words of our story, That our lips as they part may remember the glory! O soft day, O calm day, made clear for our sake!"

"Morn shall meet noon While the flower-stems yet move, Though the wind dieth soon And the clouds fade above. Loved lips are thine As I tremble and hearken; Bright thine eyes shine, Though the leaves thy brow darken. O Love, kiss me into silence, lest no word avail me, Stay my head with thy bosom lest breath and life fail me! O sweet day, O rich day, made long for our love!"

"Dawn talks to Day Over dew-gleaming flowers, Night flies away Till the resting of hours: Fresh are thy feet And with dreams thine eyes glistening, Thy still lips are sweet Though the world is a-listening. O Love, set a word in my mouth for our meeting, Cast thine arms round about me to stay my heart's beating! O fresh day, O fair day, O long day made ours!"

"Live on, for Love liveth, and earth shall be shaken By the wind of his wings on the triumphing morning, When the dead, and their deeds that die not shall awaken, And the world's tale shall sound in your trumpet of warning, And the sun smite the banner called Scorn of the Scorning, And dead pain ye shall trample, dead fruitless desire, As ye wend to pluck out the new world from the fire."

"Love is enough: cherish life that abideth, Lest ye die ere ye know him, and curse and misname him; For who knows in what ruin of all hope he hideth, On what wings of the terror of darkness he rideth? And what is the joy of man's life that ye blame him For his bliss grown a sword, and his rest grown a fire?"

"With no rest of the night; for I waked mid a story Of a land wherein Love is the light and the lord, Where my tale shall be heard, and my wounds gain a glory, And my tears be a treasure to add to the hoard Of pleasure laid up for his people's reward."

"And the Shadow of the Night and not Love was departed; I was sore, I was weary, yet Love lived to seek; So I scaled the dark mountains, and wandered sad-hearted Over wearier wastes, where e'en sunlight was bleak, With no rest of the night for my soul waxen weak."

"Love is enough: through the trouble and tangle From yesterday's dawning to yesterday's night I sought through the vales where the prisoned winds wrangle, Till, wearied and bleeding, at end of the light I met him, and we wrestled, and great was my might."

"Wherewith will ye buy it, ye rich who behold me? Draw out from your coffers your rest and your laughter, And the fair gilded hope of the dawn coming after! Nay this I sell not, — though ye bought me and sold me, — For your house stored with such things from threshold to rafter. — Pass by me, I hearken, and think of you not!"

"Ye know not how void is your hope and your living: Depart with your helping lest yet ye undo me! Ye know not that at nightfall she draweth near to me, There is soft speech between us and words of forgiving Till in dead of the midnight her kisses thrill through me. — Pass by me and harken, and waken me not!"

"Love is enough: draw near and behold me Ye who pass by the way to your rest and your laughter, And are full of the hope of the dawn coming after; For the strong of the world have bought me and sold me And my house is all wasted from threshold to rafter. — Pass by me, and hearken, and think of me not!"

"It sprang without sowing, it grew without heeding, Ye knew not its name and ye knew not its measure, Ye noted it not mid your hope and your pleasure; There was pain in its blossom, despair in its seeding, But daylong your bosom now nurseth its treasure."

"Nay, Spring was o'er-happy and knew not the reason, And Summer dreamed sadly, for she thought all was ended In her fulness of wealth that might not be amended; But this is the harvest and the garnering season, And the leaf and the blossom in the ripe fruit are blended."

"And what do ye say then? — That Spring long departed Has brought forth no child to the softness and showers; — That we slept and we dreamed through the Summer of flowers; We dreamed of the Winter, and waking dead-hearted Found Winter upon us and waste of dull hours."

"Love is enough: it grew up without heeding In the days when ye knew not its name nor its measure, And its leaflets untrodden by the light feet of pleasure Had no boast of the blossom, no sign of the seeding, As the morning and evening passed over its treasure."

"Ah, what shall we say then, but that earth threatened often Shall live on for ever that such things may be, That the dry seed shall quicken, the hard earth shall soften, And the spring-bearing birds flutter north o'er the sea, That earth's garden may bloom round my love's feet and me?"

"Lo, the lovers unloved that draw nigh for your blessing! For your tale makes the dreaming whereby yet they live The dreams of the day with their hopes of redressing, The dreams of the night with the kisses they give, The dreams of the dawn wherein death and hope strive."

"O surely this morning all sorrow is hidden, All battle is hushed for this even at least; And no one this noontide may hunger, unbidden To the flowers and the singing and the joy of your feast Where silent ye sit midst the world's tale increased."

"The wind is not helpless for any man's need, Nor falleth the rain but for thistle and weed."