Identifier: williammorrishis00warw (find matches)
Title: William Morris, his homes and haunts
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Warwick, Frances Evelyn Maynard Greville, Countess of, 1861-1933
Subjects: Morris, William, 1834-1896 Authors, English
Publisher: New York : Dodge Publishing company
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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st number which sold out one editionof 5000 and then printed a second. Society at largesaw at last that Morris really meant business, and hecame in for the usual abuse that is hurled at any onewho is feared. As he spent most of his money infurthering Socialism, naturally the Radical and Torytried to stop him by the taunt that he, as a Socialist,had no right to any surplus wealth at all; to whichMorris very easily replied that it was his business tohelp the whole of the working classes to regain theirrights, rather than think only of the men in his ownbusiness. When Morris next went to Oxford tolecture, the platform was stormed at the finish of themeeting (mainly of course by harmless and brainlessundergraduates). Then Morris got himself arrestedin a London Police Court on a charge of havingassaulted a policeman. What really had happenedwas that Morris and his friends cried shame whenthe magistrate had imposed a sentence of two monthshard labour on one of their comrades for speaking in
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KELMSCOTT HOUSE, HAMMERSMITH, 1887 THE POLITICAL PEEIOD 41 the streets. Morris was hauled before the Bench, andwhen asked who he was, blazed forth: I am anartist and a literary man, pretty well known, I think,throughout Europe. This was an indiscretion Morrishimself must have regretted; it came on the spur ofan agitated moment. He was discharged. Then hard work and the worry of squabbling friendsmade Morris ill; he had a severe attack of his oldenemy, the gout, in October 1885, and for the time hewas helpless. Then came the famous Trafalgar Squaremeeting of the unemployed of February 1886, whenthe people broke a few windows in the west end—justto show that they were not out for a holiday, butbecause they were really starving. We find Burne-Joneswriting to Morris anxiously begging him not to involvehimself in any disorder; to which Morris replied thathe thought there was no chance of further rioting; andin the Editorial Notes of that week in the Common^ivealtk he wrote of these riots

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