MiLMM Morris 
 
 PoEi; Artist, Socialist 
 
 SogIaC 
 
 SCIENCE 
 LIBRAR\^ 
 
H^'i^M^ 
 
 ^3L«*l/«k'^i 
 
 
CL 
 
 ^oVi-J 
 
 •<^., 
 
r- 
 
THE SOCIAL SCIENCE LIBRARY 
 
 Edited by W. D. P. BLISS. 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS 
 
 POET, ARTIST, SOCIALIST. 
 
 A SELECTION FRO 31 HIS WRITINGS TOGETHER 
 WITH A SKETCH OF THE MAN. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 FRANCIS WATTS LEE. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE HUMBOLDT PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 Clinton Hall, Astor Place. 
 
Copyright 1891, 
 
 BY 
 
 The HuMbOLDT Publishitg Co. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 
 INTRODUCTION, ..... 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. By William Clarke, 
 
 A DREAM OF JOHN BALL, 
 
 Chapter I.— The Men of Kent, 
 
 II.— The Man from Essex, 
 III. — They Meet at the Cross, 
 IV.— The Voice of John Ball, 
 V. — They hear tidings of Battle and 
 
 MAKE them ready, 
 
 VI. — The Battle of Township's End, 
 
 VII. — More Words from the Cross, - 
 
 VIII.— Supper at Will Green's, 
 
 IX.— Betwixt the Living and the Dead, 
 
 X. — Those Two Talk of the Days to 
 Come, .... 
 
 XI. — Hard it is for the Old World to 
 see the New, - - - - 
 
 XII. — III would Change be at whiles 
 were it not for the Change be- 
 yond the Change, 
 
 A KING'S LESSON, 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 vii 
 
 23 
 25 
 33 
 40 
 
 44 
 
 55 
 63 
 75 
 80 
 86 
 
 93 
 
 106 
 119 
 
 M192516 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I'AGE. 
 
 SIGNS OF CHANGE, .-..,. 129 
 
 Preface, ...... j^j 
 
 How WE Live and How we Might Live, - 135 
 
 The Hopes of Civilazation, - - - 163 
 
 The Aims of Art, - - - . jgg 
 
 Useful Work versus Useless Toil, - - 208 
 
 Dawn of a New Epoch, - - - 234 
 
 HOW THE CHANGE CAME, ... . 257 
 
 CHANTS FOR SOCIALISTS, ... 285 
 
 The Day is Coming, .... 287 
 
 The Voice of Toil, .... 291 
 
 All for the Cause, .... 293 
 
 No Master, . 1 - . . 295 
 
 The March of the Workers, - - - 296 
 
 The Message of the March Wind, - - 298 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE comparatively small body of revolutionary Social- 
 ists in England derive much of their importance from 
 the fact that they have at their head a man of great 
 genius in the person of Mr. William Morris — "poet, artist, 
 agitator" — who has devoted his splendid gifts to the service 
 of the Socialist Cause. In which of his many spheres of 
 activity Mr. Morris has exercised the widest influence it 
 would be hard to say ; but it is as the sturdy Socialist 
 lecturer -who may be seen any Sunday during the summer 
 months haranguing a crowd in one or another of the open 
 spaces of London, that he is dearest to the "Common 
 People" of the great metropolis. But his work is of far 
 more than mere local interest : wherever his earnest zeal 
 for human well-being becomes known, there he is sure to 
 have many ardent admirers. I was, therefore, very glad 
 when the editor of this series asked me to compile for it a 
 volume containing a selection from Mr. Morris's writings; 
 for I felt that the influence of such a writer upon those 
 earnest men and women who are to-day, in this country, 
 studying the social question, could not be other than 
 beneficent. 
 
 Of Mr. Morris's personality I have not to write, for I 
 am permitted, through the courtesy of the publishers of the 
 New England Magazine, to reprint here the excellent 
 
viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 paper which Mr. WilUam Clarke contributed to the February 
 number of that monthly. 
 
 Owing to the scope of this series it has been possible to 
 include in the present volume only such writings as bear 
 the direct impress of Mr. Morris's Socialist views, thereby 
 shutting out the great portion of his work* ; but what is 
 here printed will give a fair picture of the man and his 
 ideas in the later period of their development. It is most 
 strongly to be hoped that those who have not yet done so 
 will be led by the beauty of the Dream of JoJm Ball to 
 make themselves familiar with his other writings, and more 
 particularly with his pictures of the strength and fullness of 
 the early tribal and communal life of the Germanic Peoples 
 as presented in the The House of the Wolfings and The 
 Roots of the Mountains. 
 
 Morris is too often regarded by the unthinking as a 
 reactionist — one who would turn back the wheels of prog- 
 ress — and yet such a conception can only be founded on 
 a gross misunderstanding of the whole trend of his work. 
 The short poem which is printed immediately before 
 the Di^eam of fohn Ball and which is taken from the 
 title page of The House of the Wolfings is a sufficient 
 answer to any such notion — were any answer really needed. 
 Despite the fact that we are looking back from out of what 
 is truly, in too many respects, the "night" of the nineteenth 
 century into the brightness of the past, we are forced to 
 
 *His great poem, Pil^^rims of Hope, has been omitted on account 
 of its length. 
 
INTR OD UCTION. jx 
 
 recognize the fact that it is a brightness which we ' ' must 
 never enter more." The dark road still drives us onward 
 and there is no backw-ard way across the desert waste we 
 now travel. It must suffice us if we learn from looking 
 back upon those days some lessons which shall make the 
 new world which now lies in the womb of Time, better and 
 more joyous than the one we now know. 
 
 In presenting the Dream of John Ball to an Amer- 
 ican public it has been felt that it is hardly to be expected 
 that the average reader will have any very exact knowledge 
 of the conditions of daily life in England five hundred 
 years ago. It may therefore be that there will be some 
 things in the tale which will not be wholly clear without 
 a few words of explanation. And so it has seemed best 
 to incorporate in this introduction a slight sketch of the 
 economic circumstances which gave shape to the times in 
 which John Ball lived and labored, that the deep signifi- 
 cance of Mr. Morris's tale, as well as its matchless beauty, 
 may be the more readily appreciated. 
 
 The England of the Fourteenth Century was, in many 
 respects, a " Merrie England." Since the cessation of the 
 conflicts which had troubled the country during the reign 
 of Stephen, two centuries before, the land had enjoyed a 
 steady growth of material prosperity. The towns had 
 increased in size, and in them had grown up a mercantile 
 and artisan class whose guilds regulated their own affairs. 
 The mass of the people, who were devoted to agricultural 
 pursuits, were better off than the same class upon the 
 Continent. 
 
INTRO D UCriON. 
 
 Besides the growth of national prosperity a change 
 had been taking place in the condition of the villeins (or 
 serfs) whose "labor-dues" had been largely commuted 
 into money payments to the lord of the manor, while the 
 "amercements," or fines due the lord upon certain occa- 
 sions, such as the marriage of a daughter, were not infre- 
 quently remitted. This freedom was not complete, of 
 course ; but such as it was, it had been made possible by 
 the growth of a wage-earning class. That is of a class of 
 men who were attached to no estate, but sold their labor 
 for hire as in the present day. The growth of this class 
 benefited both the lords and the villeins : to the lords it 
 secured better and more regular work, and to the villeins 
 a condition approaching more and more toward "free" 
 tenancy. 
 
 All these changes received an impetus from the famine 
 of 1315-16, during which the poor suffered such hardship 
 that their numbers were considerably thinned, which caused 
 their services to be more valuable in proportion to their 
 scarcity, and resulted in a rise of about twenty per cent, in 
 wages. Then follow-ed a time of great prosperity, during 
 which the laborer was in many respects better off than he 
 is in the present day.* 
 
 But in 1348 the Great Plague, or "Black Death" as 
 
 * This may seem an exaggerated statement ; but those who are 
 unfamiliar with the economic conditions of this time ma}- obtain an 
 excellent idea of the relative conditions of the laboring classes from 
 the charts, illustrating the rise and fall of wages, which accompany 
 the first volume of this series — Six Centtiries of Work and Wages, 
 
INTRODUCTION. xi 
 
 our forefathers called it, came suddenly and mysteriously 
 from Asia. It appeared first in Italy, then crossed western 
 Europe, and arrived at the English ports of Bristol and 
 Southampton in August of that year. Whole districts were 
 depopulated by its frightful ravages, and, although the old 
 Chroniclers give grossly exaggerated estimates of the 
 number of deaths, it is probable that it carried off at least 
 one-third of the population. The scenes of horror and 
 desolation which it caused beggar all attempts at description. 
 The immediate result of the plague was a great scarcity 
 in the number of available laborers, because, while all 
 classes had suffered heavily, the poorest had yielded most 
 rapidly to the dire disease. This scarcity of labor meant, 
 of course, higher wages for the laborer. In the case of 
 agricultural workers this rise amounted to about fifty per 
 cent., while in the case of skilled artisans, such as carpen- 
 ters and masons, the same effect was felt, often more 
 markedly. The nobles and landlords — the capitalist class 
 of their day — objected, of course, as such a class always 
 does, to the payment of high wages ; and, without waiting 
 to call Parliament together, the King issued a proclamation 
 ordering all men to abide by the rates which had been 
 customary before the Black Death, and neither to demand 
 nor pay higher wages. He also forbade laborers to leave 
 the land to which they were attached, and assigned heavy 
 penalties for so doing. But the King's parchment counted 
 for no more, in the face of the needs of the country, than 
 had Knut's imperious command to the sea, centuries 
 
xii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 before. Parliament met in 1349 and made haste to ratify 
 
 this proclamation by reducing it to the form of a statute 
 
 the famous "Statute of Laborers;" but such legislative 
 measures were hopeless against the demand for workers, 
 and the very same men who passed these laws were them- 
 selves obliged to break them to prevent their land from 
 remaining untilled. The peasants went freely into those 
 districts where workers were most scarce and found ready 
 shelter and good wages. Complaints were constantly made 
 to Parliament, and the "Statute of Laborers" was again 
 and again enacted with added penalties, but to no purpose. 
 For once the Worker was able to meet the Capitalist with 
 the advantage on his side. 
 
 In spite of the great rise in the price of labor the price 
 of the laborer's food did not rise in proportion. Food did 
 not require much manual labor in its production and hence 
 the rate of wages was not much felt in its price. This will 
 be the more noticeable when we remember that a fat ox 
 (though it should be borne in mind that oxen were smaller 
 then) could be bought with a sum equal to only six days' 
 wages of an ordinary mechanic. What did rise was the 
 price of all articles which required much labor in their 
 production. And those who lost most by the change were 
 the holders of large estates, who had to pay more for the 
 labor which worked their land, and for the implements used 
 upon it. On the other hand the peasant and artisan 
 gained much higher wages while the cost of living hardly 
 increased at all. They had exchanged their former serfdom 
 
INTRODUCTION. xiii 
 
 for the ability to earn not only the necessaries of life, but 
 many of its comforts also. And these changes were so far 
 reaching in their effects that the landlords were obliged to 
 let their estates to tenants who worked them on their own 
 account, paying rent to the lord ; instead of, as formerly, 
 compelling villeins to work them for the master's profit. 
 Thus serfdom practically came to an end, though the land 
 owners and lawyers did all that they could to prevent it, 
 and succeeded in putting many obstacles in the path of the 
 peasants. The gain was not all on one side, however, as 
 the peasants began at this time to lose those rights in 
 the * ' commons ' ' and forests which until then they had 
 enjoyed. 
 
 Another of the important effects of the Black Death 
 was the spirit of independence which it helped to raise in 
 the breasts of the peasants, who now began to feel their 
 power. It is worth while to note that successful revolutions 
 are seldom the work of starving men. Empty stomachs 
 are not conducive to that clearness of vision which is 
 needed to plan and carry out such movements. The years 
 of prosperity following the Plague of 1348 had done more 
 to open the eyes of the working classes than all ihe 
 centuries of poor rations that had gone before. 
 
 It was during this period that John Ball began his 
 crusade. He was born in Yorkshire, probably about 1338, 
 and had witnessed the Black Death while a scholar at 
 St. Mary's, York. He was ordained to the priesthood not 
 long after 1356 and became one of the class called parochial 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 chaplains, who corresponded among the clergy to the arti- 
 san class among the laity. Thus near the end of the reign 
 of Edward III he began his work of prophesying against 
 the evils of his time, the pride of the rich, the avarice and 
 worldliness of the clergy, and the lustful carelessness of the 
 poor. This was seven years before Wiklif raised up his 
 voice at Oxford. He insisted on the necessity of marriage, 
 on a voluntary priesthood, and on the injustice of demand- 
 ing tithes of poor men, and in particular he denounced the 
 lords who were persistently trying to force the villeins back 
 into their condition before the Black Death. His enemies 
 give other and harsher accounts also of his doctrines which 
 it is impossible to believe in the light of what we know of 
 the man from undoubted sources.* 
 
 When he first began to attract the attention of the 
 authorities, he was accused of preaching manifold errors 
 and scandals and every one was enjoined, under pain of 
 excommunication, to withdraw from his sermons. He 
 himself was rebuked by the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 Simon Islip, for stirring up strife. This rebuke no doubt 
 weighed somewhat with the clergy ; but it made of him a 
 hero in the eyes of the common people, who received his 
 messages and letters with enthusiasm. Meantime he was 
 at work evangelizing the region about Norwich, where also 
 he incurred the excommunication of the Bishop. His 
 influence was continually growing throughout the length 
 
 *See C. E, Maurice's English Popular Leaders. Vol. II. 
 Chap. 3. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and breadth of the land, and his work extended in all 
 directions from his headquarters in Essex. He was grad- 
 ually becoming the recognized head of a labor party, whose 
 sections in the different parts of the kingdom were united 
 by a great and growing band of priests, who, by virtue of 
 their office, could travel unsuspected in all parts of the 
 country. These priests seem to have been at first a dis- 
 tinct body from the "poor priests" sent out from Oxford 
 by Wiklif ; but it is probable that the two bodies ultimately 
 became very closely allied if not entirely identical. 
 
 In 1366 there was a new Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 Simon Langham, who, as one of his first acts, summoned 
 Ball before him to "answ-er upon charges and questions to 
 be put to him by our office for the correction and salvation 
 of his soul," and, not being satisfied with his answers, most 
 graciously threw him into the dungeon of Lambeth prison. 
 As soon as he was released he began again his work, 
 undaunted by the persecution of which he was the victim. 
 
 While all this was going on e\^ents had been rapidly 
 preparing the way for insurrection. The long continued 
 attempts of the lords to reduce the peasants to serfdom 
 again were becoming unbearable, and, as Prof Rogers 
 remarks,* " Wiklif s poor priests had honeycombed the 
 minds of the upland folks with what may be called religious 
 socialism." As has been already remarked, the peasants 
 had been well organized by the poor priests, who now told 
 them that upon the password being given, they were at 
 
 Vol. I, of this series, page 64. 
 
XVI 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 once to gather at the appointed places to help on the great 
 work that God should perform for his chosen people. The 
 power of the poor priests over the minds of the peasant 
 class is hardly likely to be over estimated, and is not. at 
 all hard to understand in the light of the few fragments of 
 their sermons which have been preserved to us. I will 
 not quote from these fragments here, because a far better 
 idea of the spirit which inspired them may be obtained 
 from the two sermons Mr. Morris puts into the mouth of 
 Ball, in chapters iv and vii, than from any other source 
 except such patient study as has enabled him to write 
 these pages. 
 
 Several causes delayed the actual outbreak for some 
 years yet, though in 1375 the leaders seem to have decided 
 that an appeal to arms would ultimately be necessary. 
 They had great difficulties in holding back the people 
 between 1375 and 1377, and riots were frequent and some- 
 times formidable. In the latter year Edward III died, and 
 every one became hopeful of better things under the new 
 regime, and the appeal to arms was again postponed. The 
 troubles with the French also served to distract attention 
 from troubles at home. The immediate causes of the 
 rising which finally came are said to have been the unpopu- 
 lar poll-tax which was levied in 1380, and an outrage offered 
 to the daughter of Tyler by one of the King's officers. 
 These events may have served to fan the glowing embers 
 into flame ; but the real cause of the outbreak lay far deeper, 
 as has been already shown. 
 
INTRO D UCTION. xvii 
 
 In the early part of 1381 Ball began sending letters ^-^ 
 to his friends in every direction, telling them that the time 
 had come for action. This angered Simon of Sudbury, 
 the Archbishop, who charged him with "tickling the ears 
 of the laity with attacks ' ' upon the constituted authorities. 
 In April Ball was caught and thrown into Maidstone jail ; 
 but not until he had laid all his plans, which were faithfully 
 carried out. The storm burst in June, 1381. The rise of 
 the people in all directions was simultaneous, which shows 
 that no mere personal outrage could have been the cause, 
 and orderly bodies of men began their march upon London 
 from almost every county. As Ball was the heart of this 
 movement, so Tyler was its military leader. He seems to 
 have been a man of rare good sense, to have maintained 
 the best of discipline among his forces, and to have severely 
 punished all thieves. It is worth noting that the men of 
 Kent took the lead in this revolt, though there were no 
 serfs in Kent, which can only be accounted for by the 
 sympathy with popular movements which is traditional in 
 that county. One of the first acts of the insurgents was 
 to release Ball from Maidstone jail : they then marched on 
 
 * Of which the following is a sample : 
 " Old John Ball he greeteth you well, 
 And bids you learn, he has sounded your bell, 
 Now let right go with might and will marry skill ; 
 God speed every dele (part) for now is the time. 
 Lady grant help to Jesu thy Son, 
 And thy Son to his Father to make a good e^^ 
 In the Trinity's name, of what is begun. 
 Amen and Amen. In mercy Amen." 
 
xviii INTRO D UCTION. 
 
 London and occupied Blackheath and Southwark, sending 
 their demands to the King by the hand of Sir John Manly. 
 They next crossed the bridge and burned the new palace 
 of the unpopular John of Gaunt, and the hospital of St. 
 John. The gold and silver vessels they smashed with axes 
 and flung into the Thames, and the jewels they brayed : 
 they stole nothing ; but utterly destroyed the palace and 
 all its belongings. These events happened on the nth, 
 1 2th, and 13th of June. The King had retired to the 
 Tower with those nearest him, during this time of terror, 
 and on the morning of the 14th, the insurgents demanded a 
 conference with him. This he granted, and went alone to 
 meet them at Mile End, where he asked them what they 
 wanted. They replied, "We will that you make us free 
 forever, ourselves, our heirs, and our lands, and that we be 
 no more bond or so reputed." The King at once gave his 
 assent and set thirty clerks writing and sealing characters 
 of manumission, which he gave them, bidding them return 
 home at once. Many were deceived by the apparent com- 
 pliance of the King with their demands, and left London. 
 While the King had been absent from the Tower, the 
 peasants had shown their hatred of the officers of the 
 Exchequer, by killing Archbishop Sudbury who was Chan- 
 cellor. On the 15th while Tyler was conferring alone with 
 the King he was slain by Walworth, the Mayor ; and thus 
 the rebels lost their chief and leader and fell victims to the 
 stratagem of the King, who, putting himself at their head 
 and promising them all they desired, succeeded in persuad- 
 ing them to leave London altogether. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xix 
 
 The Peasants' War was over in a week ; but the peas- 
 ants had yet to learn the foolishness of putting their trust 
 in Princes. No sooner was peace restored than the King 
 proceeded, with a high hand, to withdraw all his conces- 
 sions and to arrest and execute the principal leaders of the 
 people. Ball seems to have made an unsuccessful attempt 
 to rally the peasants again ; but he was finally caught at 
 Coventry, where he was condemned by one of the King's 
 minions, Tressilian, and after the delay of a day, during 
 which the Bishop of London labored to "convert him from 
 his errors," he was hung, drawn, and quartered, after the 
 pious method of the time. ' ' The peasants were dispersed 
 and defeated ; their leaders were tried, sentenced, and 
 hanged ; but the solid fruits of the victory rested with the 
 insurgents of June 1381 :" says Professor* Rogers. "Once 
 in the history of England only, once, perhaps, only in the 
 history of the world, peasants and artisans attempted to 
 effect a revolution by force. They nearly succeeded ; at 
 least they became for a short time, the masters of the situa- 
 tion. That they would have held the advantages they 
 gained at Mile End, had they provided against the tragedy 
 of Smithfield, is improbable. But they caused such terror 
 by what they actually did, that they gained all they claimed, 
 and that speedily. The English laborer, for a century or 
 more, became virtually free and constantly prosperous." 
 
 The Golden Age of English Labor had begun. 
 
 FRANCIS WATTS LEE. 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS, 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM CLARKE, M.A. 
 
 UPWARD of a century has passed since the new 
 birth of EngHsh poetry. Into the deadly routine 
 and dreary formaHsm of the eighteenth century, 
 wkh-4ts worsiiip of the "Httle wasp of Twickenham," there 
 projected itself a new enthusiasm for nature and for man. 
 The note first struck by Thomson was deepened by 
 Cowper, and merged into the magnificent symphonies of 
 Wordsworth and Coleridge. The theme was nature, but 
 nature blended with human reason and imagination. With 
 the love for nature came the deeper love for man. This 
 mirrored itself in the writings of Goldsmith, in the poetry 
 of Cowper and Burns, in the greater poetry of the Lake 
 School, and in the revolutionary poetry of Byron and 
 Shelley ; while the lives of the poor were invested with a 
 new interest through the realism of Crabbe. The French 
 Revolution fanned the flame of human sympathy, and 
 furnished the motive force of a whole generation of English 
 poetry. Scott alone turned to the past for romance and 
 beauty. But Burns, Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron, Cole- 
 ridge and Southey were all inspired by the wonderful 
 outburst of human force which the Revolution awakened. 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 We all know how the revolutionary fires blazed up, 
 abated, and died away, leaving the cold, dead ashes of a 
 past social order. Still more quickly died the enthusiasm 
 for the Revolution in the breasts of the Lake poets. Its 
 hasty, shallow methods ; its utter ignorance of history, 
 leading to the most absurd perversion of truth ; its poor, 
 inadequate ideals, could not satisfy them ; — and Southey, 
 Coleridge, and Wordsworth became reactionists. Yet the 
 two latter certainly could never rid themselves of the new 
 passion for man which the Revolution had helped to 
 awaken in them. Even in the most conservative and 
 apparently reactionary poems of Wordsworth, we find those 
 deeper elements which are of the essence of a far profounder 
 revolution than the enthusiasts of '89 ever imagined. 
 Byron and Shelley retained their revolutionary fervor 
 through the whole of their too brief lives ; but when they 
 passed away, the spiritual force of the Revolution passed 
 away with them. The prolonged shocks of social earth- 
 quake were over ; agitated Europe had a brief respite, and 
 the thoughts of men were turned back once more to history 
 and romance. The poet of this period was Keats, whose 
 nature, poetry, and sensuous beauty bear absolutely no 
 trace of the new spirit awakened in Wordsworth, as truly 
 as in Byron. Struggle and tumult have ceased, and we 
 are lapped in delicious dreamland. 
 
 With 1830 came the new reforming spirit, manifesting 
 itself alike in Liberalism, on the one hand, and in the new 
 church movement on the other. Although the Tractarian 
 movement appears on the surface thoroughly reactionary, 
 and although it led Its greatest spirit into the bosom of the 
 Catholic Church, yet, looked at more deeply, it made for 
 reform and change. It revived in England the study of 
 history, and indirectly gave us the writings of Stubbs, 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 Freeman, and Bryce. At first, purely conservath'e in 
 criticism, it has now borne strange and unexpected fruit in 
 the essays called Lux Mundi. It inspires such men as 
 Cardinal Manning to stretch out a right hand to labor 
 agitators, and is making Christian Socialists of many of the 
 younger men among the High Church clergy. It gave 
 birth to the pre-Raphaelite revival of art, and endowed 
 England with whatever is worth looking at in her modern 
 architecture. It has reconstituted the whole political frame- 
 work of England, and has given her, under the old monarch- 
 ical forms, a constitution essentially as democratic, if not 
 more so, as that of the United States. 
 
 The poets of this ne w era o X_£ nergv_ and iqmiin^of 
 hope and it pprovement, w ere Tennyson and Browning, 
 whose early manhood was synchronous with the dawn of 
 the period. What buoyancy and sympathy, what unswerv- 
 ing faith and courage do we find in the early works of both 
 poets and, indeed, in the whole work of Browning ! Many 
 politicaL-ceihrmers andthinkers^ shared the same feeling. 
 If illumines the earlier writings of John Stuart Mill, and 
 burns even in the pages of the somber sage of Chelsea. 
 By the middle of the centur y, the fires of 1830 had begun 
 t o pale, a nd the clj safipointn~ent andJbre boding;^of the time 
 are evidjgntjnthejater writings of Carlyle. The poets of 
 this period are Matthew Arnold and Arthur Hugh Clough, 
 on both of which precious spirits rested ' ' the weary weight 
 of all this unintelligible world." Both, it is true, sound 
 the note of courage ; but Arnold became more and more 
 the stoic of modern poetry, brave and patient, but expecting 
 little. Both poets symbolize for us the breaking wave, on 
 the crest of which Tennyson and Browning had climbed to 
 glory and renown. A new criticism of life had already over- 
 cast the native hue of resolution with the pale cast of thought. 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 Then followed the period of quietism analogous to that 
 of Keats ; and it found its poets in Rossetti and William 
 Morris. With the exception of one sonnet, there is not a 
 single poem of Rossetti' s which gives any indication that 
 the poet lived in the nineteenth century, or that he took the 
 faintest interest in human affairs. Rossetti' s art is the 
 same ; it is the art of one quite withdrawn from contempo- 
 rary business and strife. Of th e same sc hool is the poetry 
 of_William Morr is. This deTip^ht ful pnot - ^oes back to 
 ancient G ^-ffk anr* ^Id Nnr^p thpmpc ; for his inspiration, 
 abjures modern life, and describes himself in those oft- 
 quoted lines, as ' ' the idle singer of an emptv day^ ' ' Such 
 is William Morris, the poet who wrote The Defense of 
 Guinevere, and The Earthly Paradise, and Love is Enough. 
 This is the side of Morris's nature known to. the lovers of 
 poetry the world over. But of late years Morris may be 
 said to have undergone a new birth, which has not destroyed 
 his old self, but which has given him new and different 
 interests in life. And it is of the new William Morris, as 
 some of us know him to-day, that I am to say something. 
 
 Morris's figure is the most picturesque in prosaic 
 England. A stout, sturdy, stalwart man, with ruddy face, 
 who looks frankly out upon the world with bright blue 
 eyes. His grand, massive head is covered with a shock of 
 gray hair, tumbled about in wild disorder, while upper lip 
 (which is short) and chin are covered with gray moustache 
 and beard. He is always clad in the same fashion when I 
 see him : a black slouch hat, black sack coat, and a most 
 picturesque blue shirt with a collar to match. In winter 
 time he envelops himself in a thick, dark Inverness cape. 
 A lady informed me that the poet had taken her in to 
 dinner at a party in irreproachable evening dress ; but I 
 have never seen him in that conventional garb, and have 
 
WILLIAM IMORRIS. 
 
 no wish to. Many years ago he sat accidentally upon his 
 silk hat and crushed it ; he has never worn one since. 
 His subsequent career may be said to have consisted, 
 metaphorically speaking, in the crushing of silk hats gener- 
 ally, as well as all other symbols of our artificial society. 
 Not even Shelley or Whitman is a more unconventional 
 figure than is Morris. His very aspect is a perpetual 
 challenge to all that is smug and respectable and genteel. 
 
 Morris is a born rebel, an anarchist by nature. His 
 protests against convention ha\-e in them absolutely nothing 
 of the artificial : they are the genuine expression of his 
 character. I was once talking with him about a forthcom- 
 ing election to the London School Board, and was express- 
 ing a hope that the progressive party would win. "Well," 
 said the poet, striding up and down the room, "I am not 
 sure that a clerical victory would not be a good thing. I 
 was educated at Marlborough, under clerical masters, and 
 I naturally rebelled against them. Had they been advanced 
 men, my spirit of rebellion would have probably led me to 
 conservatism merely as a protest. One naturally defies 
 authority, and it may be well that the London School 
 Board should be controlled by Anglican parsons, in order 
 that the young rebels in the schools may grow up to defy 
 and hate church authority." This curious reasoning led 
 me to express my doubt whether the average London boy 
 or girl could be trusted to grow up a good rebel like 
 Morris ; but his enthusiastic conviction would not allow of a 
 doubt on the point. Rebel and heretic Morris Is and ever 
 will be. " '' 
 
 It is singular that Morris, anarchist as he is, owes his 
 new birth to one who Is the great apostle of obedience and 
 lawful rule; viz., to his friend, John Ruskin, who, still 
 partly bound himself, has yet liberated so many bright and 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 eager souls. INIorris was at Oxford along with Burne Jones 
 (who was at that time, curiously enough, meditating Holy 
 Orders in the Anglican Church), and he was of the same 
 generation with Dante Gabriel Rossetti. All were brought 
 under Ruskin's influence, and none more so than Morris. 
 From Ruskin, Morris imbibed the idea that our present 
 politico-commercial civilization is absolutely hostile to art. 
 Ruskin saw beauty and the love and passion for making 
 beautiful things dying out of modern life. He saw crystal 
 streams polluted by manufacturers, green fields blasted, and 
 hillsides denuded of their trees and flowers, ancient and 
 venerable objects torn down, — and all for the purpose of 
 producing things neither beautiful nor desirable in them- 
 selves, not because they were needed, but in order that 
 profit might be made out of their sale. I do not know any 
 more terrible satire on certain aspects of our modern 
 civilization than is re\^ealed by a walk through some of 
 England's manufacturing districts. Here nature is abso- 
 lutely degraded and ruined. Green hillsides are scarred 
 and blackened, huge heaps of cinder and slag replace the 
 flowers which nature gave, hideous black pits yawn before 
 and behind, even the sky is blotted out with a dense pall 
 of black, poisonous smoke. Not one single object of 
 beauty is visible ; and amid such natural surroundings, 
 millions of English people are condemned to live. 
 
 It Is conceivable that v\^e might tolerate this defacement 
 of nature, did it lead to any beautiful artistic result. No 
 doubt the marble hills of Carrara were less beautiful after 
 repeated excavations than before ; but then, as a compen- 
 sation, we have the palaces and churches of Italy. Under 
 modern industrialism there is no such compensation. In 
 England's manufacturing districts, everything that is built 
 is hideous. The rows of little brick houses of the square 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS, 
 
 box order of architecture are hideous ; the churches and 
 chapels and town halls were, until Ruskin's ideas had in 
 some measure penetrated the thick ugly hide of the British 
 Philistine, still more hideous ; the slated roofs, the corru- 
 gated-iron mission-halls, the dingy, monotonous streets, 
 the huge, square factories, the iron bridges, the dirty rail- 
 way stations — all are utterly, irredeemably vile ; and if 
 Morris had his way they would probably all be burned to 
 the ground. The system does not even promote universal 
 or general material comfort. The great mass of laborers 
 are miserably poor, and many of them as degraded as 
 barbarians. Work and drink, drink and work — such is, 
 as personal observation has taught me only too well, the 
 daily life of millions among them. And to add to the 
 irony of the situation, the local capitalist who has made 
 his pile by blasting every object of natural beauty in his 
 neighborhood sets up as a patron of art, frequents Mr. 
 Agnew's gallery, hangs English landscapes in his drawing- 
 room, and orders a two-thousand-guinea portrait of his own 
 dull face from Millais or Ouless, which is duly exhibited 
 in the Academy ! 
 
 Ruskin and his disciples saw the lovely world of nature 
 and art gradually being swamped by the incursions of this 
 sea of ugliness ; and to make it worse they heard it all 
 justified by what they conceived to be a false and shallow 
 political economy. This political economy, self-styled a 
 science, which is already happily being fast discarded and 
 despised in the very land of its birth,* ignored alike ethics 
 and beauty, and taught or implied that the one end of man 
 was the acquisition of riches, and that everything in society 
 
 * Compare, e. ^., the new treatise by Professor Marshall of 
 Cambridge with the dismal sophisms "of Ricardo, Senior and 
 Fawcett. 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 or State which stood in the way of that supreme object was 
 to be thrust aside or aboHshed. To a Shakspeare a man 
 was a wonderful piece of work, noble in reason, infinite in 
 faculty, in form and moving express and admirable, in action 
 like an angel, in apprehension like a god. But to the 
 economist, with his shallow and degraded eighteenth cen- 
 tury philosophy (?) (save the mark), a man was a riches- 
 producing animal, and his form, movement, reason, action 
 and apprehension so much useful labor force to be expended 
 in turning out pots and pans, steam pumps and iron boilers, 
 not for his own use, but that another man might make a 
 big fortune, have a town and country house, a moor in 
 Scotland, a yacht in the Mediterranean, and a seat in that 
 paradise of wealthy snobs, the House of Lords. 
 
 I do not think the above is any caricature or exagger- 
 ation of the state of things which the apostles of art found 
 themselves compelled to face. Ruskin himself produced 
 what he called a "political economy of art," and has fol- 
 lowed it by some of the noblest ethical works of our time, 
 culminating in Unto This Last. No doubt there are many 
 elements of Ruskin' s teaching which tend to positive reaction 
 and which cannot be accepted. It is impossible to conceive 
 of small individual handicraft completely replacing the vast 
 system of collective production through machine industry. 
 Just in so far as Ruskin has been reactionary and imprac- 
 ticable, his influence wall die out ; but. there is a vivifying 
 residual essence which is immortal, and it is this which 
 seized and pervaded Morris's mind. The younger artist 
 fastened on the idea that ordinary commercialism, with its 
 theory that labor is a mere commodity, and its political 
 economy, with its philosophy of accumulation as the prime 
 end of man's being, was for ever absolutely hostile to art- 
 and that either it or art must perish from the world. 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 This idea which hati made of Ruskin a reactionist, 
 longing' in vain for the renewal of a past which is gone 
 forever, germinated in Morris's mind and led him ultimately 
 to the revolutionary socialism which has been his creed for 
 the last seven or eight years. Morris sees that there is no 
 going back, that medieval life based on certain conceptions 
 of the world and of man that are no longer entertained 
 cannot be revived. Yet, in certain elements of that medi- 
 eval life, adapted and modified, he sees the only conditions 
 under which art can flourish. The worker must be his 
 own master, must have free access to the instruments of 
 labor, must have leisure, education, above all freedom. 
 These conditions Morris finds best fulfilled in the medieval 
 communes, which were, in effect, industrial republics, little 
 islands of freedom in an ocean of despotism and barbarism 
 which finally overwhelmed them.") 
 
 The reader may ask whetlier great art has not been 
 produced under all manner of social conditions. He may 
 recall the great works of art produced in Rome under the 
 unspeakable corruption of the Borgias, or in Florence under 
 the Medici, or even the less worthy art of corrupt and 
 enslaved periods in France and England. He may remem- 
 ber that Venetian art rose to greatness only after the life 
 of the republic of Venice had begun to decline, and he may 
 remind us that Millet and Corot painted French landscape 
 under the contemptible regime of Napoleon le Petit. All 
 this is true; but when Morris speaks of art, he ks^ not think- 
 ing of great individual painters or sculptors, of Raphaels, 
 Titians, Turners and Millets. For Morris, art is built up 
 from handicraft ; and the decay of art means to him the 
 decay of the power of the average man to make something 
 beautiRil with his own hands, not as an isolated e\'ent to 
 be talked about for years, but as an everyday occurrence, 
 
 I 
 
lO WILLI Aim MOA'RrS. 
 
 part of the normal expression of his daily life. When 
 Morris, therefore, sings the dirge of art, it is popular art 
 that he thinks dead or dying. He admits as fully as any 
 one the excellence in technique displayed by many English 
 painters, the admirable drawing, the coloring and so forth. 
 He laments rather the passing away of the artist workman, 
 of the man so trained, so environed, that he could both 
 design and produce objects of beauty. 
 
 It was such men as these who built and beautified many 
 of the great cathedrals and churches of Europe ; who 
 sculptured the portals of Chartres and the glorious fa9ade 
 of Amiens, and who have left in a thousand European cities 
 and towns moldings and traceries and foliated capitals, 
 portraits and quaint fancies, quips and jests, as well as 
 dreams of beauty in wood, metal, stone and marble, to be 
 the wonder and admiration of our time. According to 
 Morris this beautiful work was the result of really free 
 associated human labor, where the worker was his own 
 master, had received a careful training in apprenticeship 
 to his guild, and worked in fraternal equality with others. 
 To-day the average worker is a machine-minder, the all but 
 soulless agent of an anonymous joint-stock company or 
 syndicate ; performing day after day, and year after year, 
 the same piece of monotonous mechanical drudgery ; liable 
 any day to be elbowed out of the field by new inventions ; 
 unable to work unless a body of capitalists can make for 
 themselves a profit out of his work ; and living amid 
 noisome, sordid and hideous surroundings, as a general 
 rule. 
 
 People accustomed to the old superficial talk about the 
 great medieval period, when Gothic art manifested its 
 glory, as "the dark ages," will wonder when they hear 
 from Morris that the nineteenth century workman is less 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 "free" than the artist-workman of the medieval city. 
 "What," they will say, "with a free press, popular suf- 
 frage, railways and telegraphs, decadence of kingly rule, 
 liberty to walk and travel to and fro, and to live how and 
 where you like ; with all these advantages, are we to be told 
 that the working classes are less free than their ancestors 
 in those old, dark, fortified cities of eight centuries ago? 
 The idea is absurd!" And yet this "absurd" idea is 
 seriously entertained by many of the best thinkers in 
 Europe, and is corroborated by the researches made into 
 the conditions of medieval life.* The halcyon period of 
 English labor was at the end of the fourteenth and begin- 
 ning of the fifteenth centuries ; and those who have most 
 earnestly studied the subject believe that the European 
 working classes were never so really "free," in the sense 
 of commanding opportunity for expansion and free scope 
 for energy, as they were in the later medieval period, and 
 in the communal organization of the free European cities. 
 Just in so far as the working classes of our time have 
 improved their lot, it has been by adopting the spirit and 
 method of the medieval craft-guilds through the modern 
 trade-union. 
 
 The above will perhaps help to elucidate the position 
 taken up by Morris, and I can now recur to his individu- 
 ality and opinions, which will be more intelligible in the 
 light of his social creed. In considering Morris's opinions, 
 we must always remember that he is essentially and always 
 an artist, and that he approaches all questions from the 
 artist's point of view. These opinions he always gives 
 
 *Thorold Ro,Q.ers's great ///^/'^ry ^ Pr/r^^ naturally suggests 
 itself as containing a mass of evidence on this point. See too, a 
 recent account in the Fortnightly Review of the 13th century 
 Parisian workman, by Madame Darmesteter. 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 quite freely, generally striding up and down the room, his 
 words rushing forth in a torrent, every muscle of his body 
 in active agitation, his face animated, his bright blue eyes 
 dancing merriment or flashing scorn. I have heard him 
 deal pretty freely with many of our celebrities whom he 
 has known personally, but I shall not of course repeat what 
 I have heard him say about noted people still living. He 
 never minces his words, but speaks straight out. Living 
 himself in the most open daylight, free as the wind and 
 frank as a young child, Morris knows nothing about con- 
 cealment or double cntendrcs or convenient evasions. He 
 will attack the most renowned giants of fame, will cover 
 with ridicule the most fashionable contemporary opinions, 
 will lash and sting right and left without the slightest hesi- 
 tation ; and yet in all will be thoroughly good-natured and 
 human. 
 
 Morris's literary judgments k^^ sometimes narrow, 
 being controlled by prejudice. It is amusing to hear him 
 hold forth on two great English poets \\hom he dislikes, 
 Milton and Browning. He cannot abide either Milton's 
 puritanism or what he regards as his false classicism ; and 
 he stamps his critical foot down unmercifully on Paradise 
 Regained and II Penseroso. In truth, Morris, spite of his 
 large acquaintance with Greek poetry, is not classic in the 
 least : he is Norse and Gothic and romantic. And just as 
 he places Gothic architecture far above any of the Greek 
 achievements in stone or marble, so does he value Northern 
 poetry with its rushing tide of life, its adventure, its passion, 
 even its grotesque and terrible elements, more than the 
 placidity and calm dignity of the Greeks. Even in Greek 
 literature he prefers the very earliest, the youthful, to the 
 more mature. He has translated and he loves the Odyssey, 
 whereas the great puritan poet admired most the drama 
 
WILLIAM iM ORRIS. 13 
 
 of Euripides, produced in the social decadence of Athens. 
 Browning's poetry he dislikes /V^ toto, and he abuses it in 
 no measured language. Its abruptness, obscurity, theology, 
 introspection, its constant dwelling on sin and probing of 
 the secrets of hearts are all utterly distasteful to the author 
 of The Earthly Paradise. 
 
 In truth, there is much of the passionate, unrestrained, 
 beauty-loving child about Morris. He instinctively dislikes" 
 over-intellectuality, subtle metaphysical distinctions, pro- 
 ducts of a highly-wrought or excessively superficial society. 
 He is eternally young, and he loves the youthful in literature 
 and art. A Norse rune or saga, an Italian peasant-song, 
 an early English ballad, is more to him than a highly 
 finished poem or drama ; and he w ould give more for the 
 wild sculpture of a Romanesque porch than for all the sibyls 
 and prophets of Michael Angelo. He loves an almost 
 unconscious spontaneity ; and when this has given place to 
 severe intellectual effort in a work of art, its charm for 
 Morris has passed away. I was once in Morris's company 
 when a French anarchist sang the Carmagnole, and I 
 plainly said that it appeared to me poor stuff. But Morris 
 liked it because it was adapted from some old French 
 peasant song and seemed to him to retain a certain flavor 
 of rural wildness, memory of fields or vineyards where 
 peasants danced their own dances and sang their own 
 songs. It is a question how far this child-element which 
 so fascinates Morris can be retained in modern life. I 
 incline to think that in our exceedingly complex society, 
 with its vaster conceptions of the world and its ever-inceas- 
 ing command of knowledge, it will be all but impossible to 
 retain this element. Literature and art will inevitably 
 express more and more a mature and intellectual life, and 
 it is even possible that the taste for certain old forms of art 
 
14 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 may die out altogether. If this view be true, it must be 
 inferred that Morris's influence is pardy reactionary, as 
 indeed some among his socialist friends think it is. 
 
 Like his friend Ruskin, William Morris does not love 
 America, though his reasons are not altogether, perhaps, 
 the same as those of Ruskin, who once declared that he 
 could not live in a land where there were no castles. To 
 Morris, America is the apotheosis of commercialism and 
 the ' ' cash nexus ' ' between man and man. It is the awful 
 example among nations, and he predicts for its present 
 political and social system a violent overthrow. Morris has 
 never been in America, and says he has no wish to go, 
 though his business connections with America are exten- 
 sive. Mere republicanism is to him an empty form, apart 
 from real social equality ; and he thinks the United States, 
 with its conservative constitution, its huge monopolies, its 
 millionaire senators, no more "free" than Germany or 
 Spain. Ill short, he regards America as exhibiting on a 
 great scale all the evil traits of modern Europe, while 
 destitute of those great historical monuments and traditions 
 which do something to redeem the Europe of to-day from 
 the charge of vulgarity and commonplace. Europe how- 
 ever is, for him, moving along the same plane toward the 
 same abyss. He was talking to me recently of a visit he 
 had paid last year to Rouen, where he had not been for 
 many years, and which he found vulgarized and made as 
 gaudy and Parisian as possible, and he compared commer- 
 cial Rouen with the lovely Gothic dream which he knew 
 forty years ago when he visited the city, before the era of 
 modern ' * improvement ' ' had set in. Morris dislikes exceed- 
 ingly two of the ideas on which the American Republic, so 
 to speak, is based : the puritan idea of the seventeenth 
 century, and the individualism and "common sense" of 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS. 15 
 
 the eighteenth. H,is disHke of puritanism he shares with 
 all artists, but it is a feeling running deeper than a mere 
 aesthetic prejudice against men who smashed beautiful 
 monuments and ravaged cathedral aisles and windows. 
 Morris shares the naturalism of so many contemporary- 
 European thinkers, and he has the child's hatred of gloom, 
 austerity and introspection. He regards puritanism as 
 false and unhealthy in sentiment, and, like Matthew Arnold, 
 considers it to have been deeply prejudicial to the growth 
 of intelligence in England and America. Based on a con- 
 ception of the world which of course Morris regards as 
 absolutely false, it developed strength without beauty, and 
 in its decadence has become a fruitful source of hypocrisy 
 and cant, — an aspect of its decline in which it received the 
 merciless lash of satire from Thackeray and Dickens. I 
 am now, be it understood, merely giving Morris's view, 
 without criticising it ; but it is unquestionably a view shared 
 by a majority of the chief English writers of our time. 
 
 As Morris dislikes puritanism, so does he dislike its 
 eighteenth century offspring, the theory of "individual 
 rights." To him, as to Carlyle and the modern scientific 
 school, a man has no natural rights at all. They are mere 
 figments, a priori conceptions, born of that unreal and 
 sentimental century which gave birth to so many strange 
 things. The individual could not indeed be an individual 
 but for the social environment which has helped to make 
 him what he is ; and to suppose that he can isolate himself 
 from that and make claims for himself as having an "inalien- 
 able right" to this, that or the other is absurd. Thus the 
 old theory of early liberalism with its free trade, Protestant- 
 ism and laissez faire goes by the board, and the new 
 collectivlst theory takes its place. Morris shares these views 
 with all the socialist school, which entirely repudiates 
 
l6 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 natural rights and tends always to subordinate the individual 
 too much to the social whole. 
 
 In holding this view, Morris's conduct squares with his 
 creed. He is, as is well known, a member of a socialist 
 body called the Socialist League. Although by far the 
 most distinguished member of this little organization, and 
 although it is kept going largely by his generosity, he takes 
 his place in the ranks with the poorest or humblest' mem- 
 ber on a footing of democratic fraternity, and allows himself 
 to be ordered about just as the majority chooses. The 
 secretary of Morris's branch of the League has told me that 
 it has sometimes pained him somewhat to see ignorant men 
 at the committee meetings assign to Morris his particular 
 task, a judgment with which the poet instantly complied. 
 He is, perhaps, ordered by the committee to speak on 
 Waltham Green opposite the District Railway Station ; 
 and in that open space, on the following Sunday morning, 
 you may see the author of the Earthly Pai'adise harangu- 
 ing a crowd of poor men on their grievances and on the 
 revolution which one day is to set them right. 
 
 Morris will never be an orator, but as a public speaker 
 he is greatly improved since I first heard him. He is more 
 fluent, less embarrassed, and better informed. When he 
 was a member of Mr. Hyndman's body, the Social Demo- 
 cratic Federation, he used to leave the economic part of 
 his subject to Mr. Hyndman. When asked at the close 
 of a lecture some puzzling economic question, he would 
 reply that he did not understand economics, and that his 
 questioner must ask Hyndman about that next Sunday. 
 Morris's revolt was an artistic revolt, and he had all the 
 artist's dislike for those whom Burke calls sophisters, 
 economists and calculators. But Morris, to his credit be 
 it said, bent himself to the disagreeable task of studying 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 17 
 
 dry books on economics and sociology, specially influenced 
 thereto by his friend, Mr. Ernest Belfort Bax, author of The 
 Ethics of Socialism and several other books calculated to 
 startle the simple-minded reader who opens them for the 
 first time. Those therefore, who, knowing Morris's revolu- 
 tionary creed, expect to hear nothing from him but wild, 
 picturesque abuse of everything that exists, would be con- 
 siderably surprised by his clear, well-informed argument^ 
 though every now and then he would give them a gentle 
 shock by some piece of satire or humor or invective. 
 
 When Morris and his friends seceded from the Social 
 Democratic Federation, many were the surmises as to the 
 reason for this course being taken, and many were the jokes 
 about the tendency in Socialist bodies to quarrel and split 
 into sections. The secession was due partly to personal, 
 partly to what may be called political causes. On the first 
 it is not necessary to dwell. As to the second, if I were to 
 define in a word the differences between the two bodies, I 
 should say that the older body was influenced by the 
 extreme authoritarian ideas of Marx, while the League was 
 always verging on anarchism. Under Morris's guidance, 
 the League has steadily refused to work on parliamentary 
 lines by legal and constitutional means, but has contented 
 itself with instilling generally revolutionary sentiments into 
 the minds of its members. Not to trouble oneself about 
 external forms and public institutions, but to prepare the 
 mind for wholly new ideas — that seems to be Morris's 
 method of going to work. Mr. Hyndman's organization, 
 on the other hand, while always talking vaguely about a 
 violent revolution, has a distinct political programme of 
 reforms intended to alleviate the existing conditions of 
 society, and to prepare the way for the socialist state of the 
 future. The Federation also puts forth candidates for 
 
1 8 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 Parliament and for the London School Board and County 
 Council. This "stepping-stone" policy, as it is called, is 
 satirized and denounced by Morris, who suspects that it 
 may fasten the old slavery under the new forms. 
 
 It is not easy to understand how Morris proposes to 
 bring about the condition of things he looks forward to. 
 No parliamentary or municipal methods, no reliance upon 
 law-making machinery, an abhorrence of everything that 
 smacks of "politics" : it all seems very impracticable to the 
 average man, and certainly suggests the poet rather than 
 the man of affairs. What Morris thinks will really happen 
 \^ \ should say, judging from numerous conversations I 
 have had with him, something like this : Existing society 
 is, he thinks, gradually, but with increasing momentum, 
 disintegrating through its own rottenness. The capitalist 
 system of production is breaking down fast and is compelled 
 to exploit new regions in Africa and other parts where, he 
 thinks, its term will be short. Economically, socially, 
 morally, politically, religiously, civilization is becoming 
 bankrupt. Meanwhile it is for the socialist to take advan- 
 tage of this disintegration by spreading discontent, by preach- 
 ing economic truths, and by any kind of demonstration 
 which may harass the authorities and de\'elop among the 
 people an esprit de corps. By these means the people will, 
 in some way or other, be ready to take up the industry of 
 the world when the capitalist class is no longer able to 
 direct or control it. Morris believes less in a violent 
 revolution than he did, and thinks that workmen's associ- 
 ations and labor unions form a kind of means between 
 brute force on the one hand and a parliamentary policy on 
 the other. He does not, however, share the sanguine views 
 of John Burns as to the wonders to be accomplished by the 
 ' ' new ' ' trades unionism. 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 f^ 
 
 It must not be supposed that Morris is a mere vague 
 dreamer and nothing more ; on the contrary, he is in many 
 ways a man of great practical energy and experience. At 
 the head of a large business, with factory in Surrey, store 
 in London and a branch in New York, Morris has customers 
 all over the globe and knows all about these capitalist 
 methods which he believes will shortly be destroyed. He 
 is minutely acquainted with every process in his business, 
 and has for years worked with his own hands. He is 
 especially skilled in designing and in dyes. While Morris 
 is listening to the questions and criticisms passed on his 
 lectures, he generally has a pencil in his hand and a little 
 piece of paper before him, on which he traces out most 
 charming designs, rapidly done, but sometimes exquisite 
 in symmetry and grace. He is greatly esteemed by those 
 in his employ. The eight-hour working day is in practice 
 in the Merton factory, and the wages paid are the highest 
 known in the trade. Morris has to some extent carried 
 out (as far as the existing commercial system permits) the 
 method of the medieval guilds in educating apprentices. 
 At the last Arts and Crafts Exhibition I saw a beautiful 
 piece of work from the Merton factory, which Mr. Morris's 
 daughter assured me was done by an average boy taken 
 from the village and properly trained in the works. Morris 
 holds that no artistic work is really worth anything, in 
 which the design is not executed by intelligent workmen 
 who recognize the idea of the designer. Some friends were 
 talking to him a while ago, in my hearing, in praise of the 
 domestic architecture of America, and in particular about 
 the works of Boston's lamented architect, Richardson. He 
 fully admitted Richardson's genius, but said that he did 
 not believe any really beautiful design could be properly 
 executed in America by men who were working for wages 
 
20 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 in the employ of a capitalist. The workmen themsehes 
 must be artists or their product will fall far short of the 
 design. 
 
 Will Morris produce any more poetry of the old type? 
 One cannot say, for Morris is an inexplicable genius, whose 
 erratic movements in the firmament of literature it is exceed- 
 ingly difficult to calculate ; but I do not think it is likely. 
 His few socialist poems will not, with the exception of the 
 chant, The Day is Coming, add greatly to his fame; and 
 he now seems to have given himself entirely to prose work. 
 He may possibly one day retire from active agitation, and 
 then startle and inspire the world with a new kind of poetry, 
 breathing the spirit and hope of the great socialist move- 
 ment. But at present he expresses his ideas in archaic prose 
 or, as Mr. Andrew Lang, I think, termed it, "Wardour- 
 Street English." It is perhaps unfortunate that Mr. Morris 
 seems unable to clothe his ideas respecting the strength and 
 beauty of communal life (as in The Roots of the Moiintahis^ 
 in modern, contemporary^ style, for it seriously deters 
 readers from attending to what he has to say, and it gives 
 occasion for the profane to ridicule and make merry. By 
 a curious coincidence it happened that on one and the 
 same day amusing skits on this book, written in mock 
 archaic style, appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette, and the 
 Daily News, the latter from the pen of Mr. Andrew Lang, — 
 who, spite of his extraordinary versatility, must now, after 
 his junction with Mr. Rider Haggard, be numbered among 
 the Philistines. * ' The idea of a clever whipper-snapper 
 like Lang attacking a great man like Morris ! ' ' said a 
 friend of the latter to me. Morris read the attack, but as 
 he cares nothing for critical articles in the papers, he was 
 not in the least affected thereby. His latest serial, The 
 Glittering Plain, I candidly confess I can make nothing 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS. 2i 
 
 of. I thought at first that this was due to some defect in 
 myself, and I was therefore much reUeved when a distin- 
 guished man, himself a friend and admirer of Morris, told 
 me he could make nothing of it either. Beyond all ques- 
 tion, Morris's finest prose work is his Dremn of John Ball, 
 an imaginative attempt to realize the condition of the 
 English peasant in the time of the great Peasant Revolt 
 (in Morris's opinion by far the most important fact in 
 English History) and to body forth the aspirations of those 
 who tried to win a great victory at that time for the cause 
 of labor. Other writers can picture the outer forms of life 
 in the past, but who can seize on the essential spirit of a 
 past order of civilization as Morris can ! 
 
 Morris's influence on his friends and on many of the 
 younger artists is great. He has led Mr. Burne-Jones to 
 a deep sympathy with socialism, and has inspired Mr. 
 Walter Crane and many of the other designers and workers 
 in wood and metal, who have organized the annual Arts 
 and Crafts Exhibition. I do not know any young man of 
 ability and promise in the literary or Socialist circles of 
 London who has not been influenced, more or less, by 
 William Morris. There is no doubt that Morris has 
 devoted too much energy to work that might safely be left 
 to inferior men. Goldsmith's criticism of Burke, that he 
 had spent much of his time in ''cutting blocks with a 
 razor," may be applied to Morris. One can admire 
 strongly his courage and his scorn of the conventional, and 
 yet at the same time one can doubt whether an exquisite 
 artist-poet should give up whole mornings and evenings in 
 addressing meetings and in distributing Socialist literature 
 in Hyde Park. This judgment does not apply to Morris's 
 lectures at the little hall which he has fitted up adjacent to 
 his house at Hammersmith ; for these lectures are really 
 
22 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 admirable, and arc usually listened to l^y a highly appre- 
 ciative, if sparse, audience. But one hesitates to criticise 
 Morris. He is a law to himself, and the remarks which 
 mio^ht apply to less original men do not apply to him. 
 Whether one agrees or not with his specific opinions, 
 England may well be thankful tlmt iiv these day& of routine 
 aud-Hiammon-rule she hcW such a healthy, virile, manly 
 idealist in her midst, to inspire her people with the hope 
 of a better day, as the poet, artist, prophet, and agitator, 
 William Morris. 
 
 Whiles in the early winter eve 
 We pass amid the gathering night 
 Some homestead that we had to leave 
 Years past ; and see its candles bright 
 Shine in the room beside the door 
 Where we were merry years agone 
 But now must never enter more. 
 As still the dark road drives us on : 
 E'en so the world of men may turn 
 At even of some hurried day 
 And see the ancient glimmer burn 
 Across the waste that hath no way ; 
 Then with that faint light in its eyes 
 A while I bid it linger near 
 And nurse in wavering memories 
 The bitter-sweet of the days that were. 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE MEN OF KENT. 
 
 SOMETIMES I am rewarded for fretting myself so 
 much about present matters by a quite unasked-for 
 pleasant dream. I mean when I am asleep. This 
 dream is as it were a present of an architectural peep-show. 
 I see some beautiful and noble building new made, as it 
 were for the occasion, as clearly as if I were awake ; not 
 vaguely or absurdly, as often happens in dreams, but wdth 
 all the detail clear and reasonable. Some Elizabethan 
 house with its scrap of earlier fourteenth-century building, 
 and its later degradations of Queen Anne and Silly Billy 
 and Victoria, marring but not destroying it, in an old 
 village once a clearing amid the sandy woodlands of 
 Sussex. Or an old and unusually curious church, much 
 church-wardened, and beside it a fragment of fifteenth 
 century domestic architecture amongst the not unpictur- 
 esque lath and plaster of an Essex farm, and looking 
 natural enough among the sleepy elms and the meditative 
 hens scratching about in the litter of the farmyard, whose 
 trodden yellow straw comes up to the very jambs of the 
 richly carved Norman doorway of the church. Or some- 
 
26 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 times 'tis a splendid collegiate church, untouched by 
 restoring parson and architect, standing amid an island 
 of shapely trees and flower- beset cottages of thatched gray 
 stone and cob, amidst the narrow stretch of bright green 
 water-meadows that wind between the sweeping Wiltshire 
 downs, so well beloved of William Cobbett. Or some 
 new-seen and yet familiar cluster of houses in a grey 
 village of the ui)per Thames overtopped by the delicate 
 tracery of a fourteenth-century church; or even sometimes 
 the very buildings of the past untouched by the degra- 
 dation of the sordid utilitarianism that cares not and knows 
 not of beauty and history : as once, when I was journey- 
 ing (in a dream of the night) down the well-remembered 
 reaches of the Thames betwixt Streatley and Wallingford, 
 where the foot hills of the White Horse fall back from the 
 broad stream, I came upon a clear- seen medieval town 
 standing up with roof and tower and spire within its walls, 
 grey and ancient, but untouched from the days of its 
 builders of old. All this I have seen in the dreams of the 
 night clearer than I can force myself to see them in dreams 
 of the day. So that it would have been nothing new to 
 me the other night to fall into an architectural dream 
 if that were all, and yet I have to tell of things strange 
 and new that befell me after I had fallen asleep. I had 
 begun my sojourn in the Land of Nod by a very confused 
 attempt to conclude that it was all right for me to have an 
 engagement to lecture at Manchester and Mitcham Fair 
 Green at half-past eleven at night on one and the same 
 Sunday, and that I could manage pretty well. And then 
 I had gone on to try to make the best of addressing a 
 large open-air audience in the costume I was really then 
 wearing — to wit, my night-shirt, reinforced for the dream 
 occasion by a pair of braceless trousers. The conscious- 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 27 
 
 ness of this fact so bothered me, that the earnest faces 
 of my audience — who would not notice it, but were clearly 
 preparing terrible anti-Socialist posers for me — began to 
 fade away and my dream grew thin, and I awoke (as I 
 thought) to find myself lying on a strip of wayside waste 
 by an oak copse just outside a country village. 
 
 I got up and rubbed my eyes and looked about me, 
 and the landscape seemed unfamiliar to me, though it was, 
 as to the lie of the land, an ordinary English low-country, 
 sweUing into rising ground here and there. The road was 
 narrow, and I was convinced that it was a piece of Roman 
 road from its straightness. Copses were scattered over the 
 country, and there were signs of two or three villages and 
 hamlets in sight besides the one near me, between which 
 and me there was some orchard-land, where the early 
 apples were beginning to redden on the trees. Also, just 
 on the other side of the road and the ditch which ran 
 along it, was a small close of about a quarter of an acre, 
 neatly hedged with quick, which was nearly full of white 
 poppies, ajid, as far as I could see for the hedge, had also 
 a good few rose-bushes of the bright-red nearly single 
 kind, which I had heard are the ones from which rose- 
 water used to be distilled. Otherwise the land was quite 
 unhedged, but all under tillage of various kinds, mostly in 
 small strips. From the other side of a copse not far ofif 
 rose a tall spire white and brand-new, but at once bold in 
 outline and unaffectedly graceful, and also distinctly 
 English in character. This, together with the unhedged 
 tillage and a certain unwonted trimness and handiness 
 about the enclosures of the garden and orchards, puzzled 
 me for a minute or two, as I did not understand, new as 
 the spire was, how it could have been designed by a 
 modern architect ; and I was of course used to the hedged 
 
28 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 tillage and tumble-down bankrupt-looking surroundings 
 of our modern agriculture. So that the garden-like neat- 
 ness and trimness of everything surprised me. But after a 
 minute or two that surprise left me entirely ; and if what 
 I saw and heard afterward seems strange to you, remem- 
 ber that it did not seem strange to me at the time, except 
 w^here now and again I shall tell you of it. Also, once 
 for all, if I were to give you the very words of those 
 who spoke to me you would scarcely understand them, 
 although their language was English too, and at the time I 
 could understand them at once. 
 
 Well, as I stretched myself and turned my face toward 
 the village, I heard horse-hoofs on the road, and presently 
 a man and horse showed on the other end of the stretch 
 of road and drew^ near at a swinging trot with plenty 
 of clash of metal. The man soon came up to me, but paid 
 me no more heed than throwing me a nod. He was clad in 
 armour of mingled steel and leather, a sword girt to his 
 side, and over his shoulder a long-handled bill-hook. His 
 armour was fantastic in form and well wrought ; but by 
 this time I was quite used to the strangeness of him, and 
 merely muttered to myself, ' He is coming to summon 
 the squire to the leet ' ; so I turned toward the village 
 in good earnest. Nor, again, was I surprised at my ow^n 
 garments, although I might well ha\e been from their 
 unwontedness. I was dressed in a black cloth gown reach- 
 ing to my ankles, neatly embroidered about the collar and 
 cuffs, with wide sleeves gathered in at the wrists ; a hood 
 with a sort of bag hanging down from it was on my head, a 
 broad red leather girdle round my waist, on one side 
 of which hung a pouch embroidered very prettily and a 
 case made of hard leather chased with a hunting scene, 
 which I knew to be a pen and ink case ; on the other 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 29 
 
 side a small sheath-knife, only an arm in case of dire 
 necessity. 
 
 Well, I came into the village, where I did not see 
 (nor by this time expected to see) a single modern build- 
 ing, although many of them were nearly new, notably 
 the church, which was large, and quite ravished my heart 
 with its extreme beauty, elegance, and fitness. The chancel 
 of this was so new that the dust of the stone still lay white 
 on the midsummer grass beneath the carvings of the 
 windows. The houses were almost all built of oak frame- 
 work filled with cob or plaster well whitewashed ; though 
 some had their lower stories of rubble-stone, with their 
 windows and doors of well-molded freestone. There was 
 much curious and inventive carving about most of them ; 
 and though some were old and much worn, there was 
 the same look of deftness and trimness, and even beauty, 
 about every detail in them which I noticed before in the 
 field-work. They were all roofed with oak shingles, mostly 
 grown as grey as stone ; but one was so newly built that 
 its roof was yet pale and yellow. This was a corner house, 
 and the corner post of it had a carved niche wherein stood 
 a gaily painted figure holding an anchor — St. Clement 
 to wit, as the dweller in the house was a blacksmith. Half 
 a stone's throw from the east end of the churchyard wall 
 was a tall cross of stone, new like the church, the head 
 beautifully carved with a crucifix amidst leafage. It stood 
 on a set of wide stone steps, octagonal in shape, where 
 three roads from other villages met and formed a wide 
 open space on which a thousand people or more could 
 stand together with no great crowding. 
 
 All this I saw, and also that there was a goodish 
 many people about, women and children, and a few old 
 men at the doors, many of them somewhat gaily clad. 
 
30 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 and that men were coming into the village street by the 
 other end to that by which I had entered, by twos and 
 threes, most of them carrying what I could see were 
 bows in cases of linen yellow with wax or oil ; they had 
 quivers at their backs, and most of them a short sword 
 by their left side, and a pouch and knife on the right ; they 
 were mostly dressed in red or brightish green or blue cloth 
 jerkins, with a hood on the head generally of another 
 color. As they came nearer I saw that the cloth of their 
 garments was somewhat coarse, but stout and serviceable. 
 I knew, somehow, that they had been shooting at the 
 butts, and, indeed, I could still hear a noise of men there- 
 about, and even now and again when the wind set from 
 that quarter the twang of- the bowstring and the plump 
 of the shaft in the target. 
 
 I leaned against the churchyard wall and watched these 
 men, some of whom went straight into their houses and 
 some loitered about still ; they were rough-looking fellows, 
 tall and stout, very black some of them, and some red- 
 haired, but most had hair burnt by the sun into the color 
 of tow ; and, indeed, they were all burned and tanned 
 and freckled variously. Their arms and buckles and belts 
 and the finishings and hems of their garments were all what 
 we should now call beautiful, rough as the men were ; nor 
 in their speech was any of that drawling snarl or thick 
 vulgarity which one is used to hear from laborers in 
 civilization ; not that they talked like gentlemen either, 
 but full and round and bold, and they were merry and 
 good-tempered enough ; I could see that, though I felt 
 shy and timid amongst them. 
 
 One of them strode up to me across the road, a man 
 some six feet high, with a short black beard and black eyes 
 and berry-brown skin, with a huge bow in his hand bare 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 31 
 
 of the case, a knife, a pouch, and a short hatchet, all 
 clattering together at his girdle. 
 
 'Well, friend,' said he, 'thou lookest partly mazed, 
 what tongue hast thou in thine head ? ' 
 
 'A tongue that can tell rhymes,' said I. 
 
 'So I thought,' said he. 'Thirstest thou any?' 
 
 'Yea, and hunger,' said I. 
 
 And therewith my hand went into my purse, and came 
 out again with but a few small and thin silver coins with a 
 cross stamped on each, and three pellets in each corner of 
 the cross. The man grinned. 
 
 'Aha!' said he, 'is it so? Never heed it, mate. It 
 shall be a song for a supper this fair Sunday evening. But 
 first, whose man art thou ? ' 
 
 'No one's man,' said I, reddening angrily; 'I am my 
 own master.' 
 
 He grinned again. 
 
 'Nay, that's not the custom of England, as one time 
 belike it will be. Methinks thou comest from heaven down, 
 and hast had a high place there too.' 
 
 He seemed to hesitate a moment, and then leant for- 
 ward and whispered in my ear : 'John the Miller, that 
 ground small, small, small, ' and stopped and winked at me, 
 and from between my lips without my mind forming any 
 meaning came the words, 'The king's son of heaven shall 
 pay for all' 
 
 He let his bow fall on to his shoulder, caught my right 
 hand in his and gave it a great grip, while his left hand fell 
 among the gear at his belt, and I could see that he half 
 drew his knife. 
 
 'Well, brother,' said he, 'stand not here hungry in the 
 highway when there is flesh and bread in the "Rose" 
 yonder. Come on.' 
 
32 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 And with that he drew me along toward what was 
 clearly a ta\ern door, outside which men were sitting on a 
 couple of benches and drinking meditatively from curiously 
 shaped earthen pots glazed green and yellow, some with 
 quaint devices on them. 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 33 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE MAN FROM ESSEX. 
 
 1 ENTERED the door and started at first with my old 
 astonishment, with which I had woke up, so strange 
 and beautiful did this interior seem to me, though it 
 was but a pothouse parlor. A quaintly carved side-board 
 held an array of bright pewter pots and dishes and wooden 
 and earthen bowls ; a stout oak table went up and down 
 the room, and a carved oak chair stood by the chimney- 
 corner, now filled by a very old man dim -eyed and white- 
 bearded. That, except the rough stools and benches on 
 which the company sat, was all the furniture. The walls 
 were paneled roughly enough with oak boards to about six 
 feet from the floor, and about three feet of plaster above 
 that was wrought in a pattern of a rose stem running all 
 round the room, freely and roughly done, but with (as it 
 seemed to my unused eyes) wonderful skill and spirit. On 
 the hood of the great chimney a huge rose was wrought in 
 the plaster and brightly painted in its proper colors. There 
 were a dozen or more of the men I had seen coming along 
 the street sitting- there, some eating and all drinking ; their 
 cased bows leaned against the wall, their quivers hung on 
 pegs in the paneling, and in a corner of the room I saw 
 half-a-dozed bill-hooks that looked made more for war than 
 for hedge-shearing, with ashen handles some seven foot 
 long. Three or four children were running about among 
 the legs of the men, heeding them mighty little in their 
 bold play, and the men seemed little troubled by it, 
 
34 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 although they were talking earnestly and seriously too. A 
 well-made comely girl leaned up against the chimney close 
 to the gaffer's chair, and seemed to be in waiting on the 
 company : she was clad in a close-fitting gown of bright 
 blue cloth, with a broad silver girdle, daintily wrought, 
 round her loins, a rose wreath was on her head and her 
 hair hung down unbound ; the gaffer grumbled a few words 
 to her from time to time, so that I judged he was her 
 grandfather. 
 
 The men all looked up as we came into the room, my 
 mate leading me by the hand, and he called out in his 
 rough, good-tempered voice, ' Here, my masters, I bring 
 you tidings and a tale ; give it meat and drink that it may 
 be strong and sweet.' 
 
 'Whence are thy tidings. Will Green?' said one. 
 
 My mate grinned again with the pleasure of making his 
 joke once more in a bigger company : ' It seemeth from 
 heaven, since this good old lad hath no master,' said he. 
 
 'The more fool he to come here,' said a thin man with 
 a grizzled beard, amidst the laughter that followed, ' unless 
 he had the choice given him between hell and England. 
 
 'Nay,' said I, 'I come not from heaven, but from 
 Essex.' 
 
 As I said the word a great shout sprang from all mouths 
 at once, as clear and sudden as a shot from a gun. For I 
 must tell you that I knew somehow, but I know not how, 
 that the men of Essex were gathering to rise against the 
 poll-groat bailiffs and the lords that would turn them all 
 into villeins again, as their grandfathers had been. And 
 the people was weak and the lords were poor ; for many a 
 mother's son had fallen in the war in France in the old 
 king's time, and the Black Death had slain a many ; so 
 that the lords had bethought them : ' We are growing 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 35 
 
 poorer, and these upland-bred villeins are growing richer 
 and the guilds of craft are waxing in the towns, and soon 
 what will there be left for us who cannot weave and 
 will not dig? Good it were if we fell on all who are not 
 guildsmen or men of free land, if we fell on soccage tenants 
 and others, and brought both the law and the strong hand 
 on them, and made them all villeins in deed as they are 
 now in name ; for now these rascals make more than their 
 bellies need of bread, and their backs of homespun, and 
 the overplus they keep to themselves ; and we are more 
 worthy of it than they. So let us get the collar on their 
 necks again, and make their day's work longer and their 
 bever-time shorter, as the good statute of the old king bade. 
 And good it were if the Holy Church were to look to it 
 (and the Lollards might help herein) that all these naughty 
 and wearisome holidays were done away with ; or that it 
 should be unlawful for any man below the degree of a 
 squire to keep the holy days of the church, except in the 
 heart and the spirit only, and let the body labor meanwhile ; 
 for does not the Apostle say * If a man work not, neither 
 should he eat'? And if such things were done, and such 
 an estate of noble rich men and worthy poor men upholden 
 for ever, then would it be good times in England, and life 
 were worth the living.' 
 
 All this were the lords at work on, and such talk I 
 knew was common not only among the lords themselves, 
 but also among their sergeants and very serving-men. 
 But the people would not abide it ; therefore, as I said, in 
 Essex they were on the point of rising, and word had gone 
 how that at St. Albans they were w^ellnlgh at blows with 
 the Lord Abbot's soldiers ; that north away at Norwich 
 John Litster was wiping the woad from his arms, as who 
 would have to stain them red again, but not with grain or 
 
36 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 madder ; and that the vahant tiler of Dartford had smitten 
 a poll-groat bailiff to death with his lath-rending axe for 
 mishandling a young maid, his daughter ; and that the men 
 of Kent were on the move. 
 
 Now, knowing all this I was not astonished that they 
 shouted at the thought of their fellows the men of Essex, 
 but rather that they said little more about it ; only Will 
 Green saying quietly, ' Well, the tidings shall be told when 
 our fellowship is greater ; fall-to now on the meat, brother, 
 that we may the sooner have thy tale.' As he spoke the 
 blue-clad damsel bestirred herself and brought me a clean 
 trencher — that is, a square piece of thin oak board scraped 
 clean — and a pewter pot of liquor. So without more ado, 
 and as one used to it, I drew my knife out of my girdle 
 and cut myself what I would of the flesh and bread on the 
 table. But Will Green mocked at me as I cut, and said, 
 'Certes, brother, thou hast not been a lord's carver, though 
 but for thy word thou mightest have been his reader. 
 Hast thou seen Oxford, scholar?' 
 
 A vision of gray-roofed houses and a long winding street 
 and the sound of many bells came over me at that word as 
 I nodded 'Yes' to him, my mouth full of salt pork and 
 rye-bread ; and then I lifted my pot and we made the 
 clattering mugs kiss and I drank, and the fire of the good 
 Kentish mead ran through my veins and deepened my 
 dream of things past, present, and to come, as I said : 
 'Now hearken a tale, since ye will have it so. For last 
 autumn I was in Suffolk at the good town of Dunwich, and 
 thither came the keels from Iceland, and on them were 
 some men of Iceland, and many a tale they had on their 
 tongues ; and with these men I forgathered, for I am in 
 sooth a gatherer of tales, and this that is now at my tongue's 
 end is one of them.' 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 37 
 
 So such a tale I told them, long familiar to me ; but as 
 I told it the words seemed to quicken and grow, so that I 
 knew not the sound of my own voice, and they ran almost 
 into rhyme and measure as I told it ; and when I had done 
 there was silence awhile, till one man spake, but not loudly : 
 
 ' Yea, in that land was the summer short and the winter 
 long ; but men lived both summer and winter ; and if the 
 trees grew ill and the corn throve not, yet did the plant 
 called man thrive and do well. God send us such men 
 even here.' 
 
 'Nay,' said another, 'such men have been and will be, 
 and belike are not far from this same door even now.' 
 
 'Yea,' said a third, 'hearken a stave of Robin Hood; 
 maybe that shall hasten the coming of one I wot of ' And 
 he fell to singing in a clear voice, for he was a young man, 
 and to a sweet wild melody, one of those ballads which in 
 an incomplete and degraded form you have read perhaps. 
 My heart rose high as I heard him, for it was concerning 
 the struggle against tyranny for the freedom of life, how 
 that the wild wood and the heath, despite of wind and 
 weather, were better for a free man than the court and the 
 cheaping-town ; of the taking from the rich to give to the 
 poor ; of the life of a man doing his own will and not the 
 will of another man commanding him for the command- 
 ment's sake. The men all listened eagerly, and at whiles 
 took up as a refrain a couplet at the end of a stanza with 
 their strong and rough, but not unmusical voices. As they 
 sang, a picture of the wild-woods passed by me, as they 
 were indeed, no park-like dainty glades and lawns, but 
 rough and tangled thicket and bare waste and heath, 
 solemn under the morning sun, and dreary with the rising 
 of the evening wind and the drift of the night-long rain. 
 
 When he had done, another began in something of the 
 
38 WILLIAM MORRI:!!^. 
 
 same strain, but singint^- more of a song than a story ballad 
 and thus much I remember of it : 
 
 The Sheriff is viade a mighty lord, 
 
 Of goodly gold he hath enow, 
 And many a sergeant girt ivith szvord ; 
 But forth ivill we and bend the bow. 
 We shall bend the bozu on the lily lea 
 Betwixt the thorn and the oaken tree. 
 
 With stone and lime is the bnrg wall built, 
 And pit and prison are stark and strong, 
 And many a true vian there is spilt, 
 
 And many a right man doomed by wrong. 
 So forth shall ive and bend the bow 
 And the King' s zvrit never the road shall know. 
 
 Noiv yeomen lualk ye warily 
 
 And heed ye the houses whej-e ye go. 
 For as fair and as fiJie as they may be, 
 Lest behind your heels the door elap to. 
 Fare forth ivith the bow to the lily lea 
 Betwixt the ^liorn and the oaken tree. 
 
 Now bills and boivs / and out a-gate / 
 
 A7id turn about on the lily lea ! 
 And though their company be great 
 The gray-goose wing shall set us free. 
 Now bent is the bow in the green abode 
 And the king' s zv)it knoweth not the road. 
 
 So over the mead and over the hithe. 
 
 And away to the zcild-zvood wend zve forth ; 
 There divell we yeomen bold and blithe 
 
 Where the Sheriff ' s zvord is nought of worth. 
 Bent is the bozv on the lily lea 
 Betwixt the thorn and the oaken tree. 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 39 
 
 But here the song dropped suddenly, and one of the 
 men held up his hand as who would say, Hist ! Then 
 through the open window came the sound of another song, 
 gradually swelling as though sung by men on the march. 
 This time the melody was a piece of the plain-song of the 
 church, fcimiliar enough to me to bring back to my mind 
 the great arches of some cathedral in France and the 
 canons singing in the choir. 
 
 All leapt up and hurried to take their bows from wall 
 and corner ; and some had bucklers withal, circles of 
 leather, boiled and then molded into shape and hardened : 
 these were some two hand- breadths across, with iron or 
 brass bosses in the center. Will Green went to the corner 
 where the bills leaned against the wall and handed them 
 round to the first comers as far as they would go, and out 
 we all went gravely and quietly into the village street and 
 the fair sunlight of the calm afternoon, now beginning to 
 turn toward evening. None had said anything since we 
 first heard the new-come singing, save that as we went out 
 of the door the ballad-singer clapped me on the shoulder 
 and said : 
 
 ' Was it not sooth that I said, brother, that Robin Hood 
 should bring us John Ball?' 
 
40 WILLIAM MOI^RIS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THEY MEET AT THE CROSS. 
 
 THE street was pretty full of men by then we were out 
 in it, and all faces turned towards the cross. The song- 
 still grew nearer and louder, and even as we looked 
 we saw turning the corner through the hedges of the 
 orchards and closes, a good clump of men, more armed, as 
 it would seem, than our villagers, as the low sun flashed 
 back from many points of bright iron and steel. The 
 words of the song could now be heard, and amidst them 
 I could pick out Will Green's late challenge to me and my 
 answer ; but as I was bending all my mind to disentangle 
 more words from the music, suddenly from the new white 
 tower behind us clashed out the church bells, harsh and 
 hurried at first, but presently falling into measured chime ; 
 and at the first sound of them a great shout went up from 
 us and was echoed by the new-comers, 'John Ball hath 
 rung our bell ! ' Then we pressed on, and presently we 
 were all mingled together at the cross. 
 
 Will Green had good-naturedly thrust and pulled me 
 forward, so that I found myself standing on the lowest step 
 of the cross, his seventy-two inches of man on one side of 
 me. He chuckled while I panted, and said : 
 
 'There's for thee a good hearing and seeing stead, old 
 lad. Thou art tall across thy belly and not otherwise, and 
 thy wind, belike, is none of the best, and but for me thou 
 wouldst have been amidst the thickest of the throng, and 
 have heard words muffled by Kentish bellies and seen litde 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 41 
 
 but swinky woollen elbows and greasy plates and jacks. 
 Look no more on the ground, as though thou sawest a 
 hare, but let thine eyes and thine ears be busy to gather 
 tidings to bear back to Essex — or heaven ! ' 
 
 I grinned good-fellowship at him but said nothing, for 
 in truth my eyes and ears were as busy as he would have 
 them to be. A buzz of general talk went up from the 
 throng amidst the regular cadence of the bells, which now 
 seemed far away and as it were that they were not swayed by 
 hands, but were living creatures making that noise of their 
 own wills. 
 
 I looked around and saw that the new-comers mingled 
 with us must have been a regular armed band ; all had 
 bucklers slung at their backs, few lacked a sword at the 
 side. Some had bows, some 'staves' — that is, bills, pole- 
 axes, or pikes. Moreover, unlike our villagers, they had 
 defensive arms. Most had steel-caps on their heads, and 
 some had body armor, generally a 'jack,' or coat into 
 which pieces of iron or horn were quilted ; some had also 
 steel or steel-and-leather arm or thigh pieces. There were 
 a few mounted men among them, their horses being big- 
 boned hammer-headed beasts, that looked as if they had 
 been taken from plow or wagon, but their riders were 
 well armed with steel armor on their heads, legs, and 
 arms. Amongst the horsemen I noted the man that had 
 ridden past me when I first awoke ; but he seemed to be a 
 prisoner, as he had a woollen hood on his head instead of 
 his helmet, and carried neither bill, sword, nor dagger. 
 He seemed by no means ill-at-ease, however, but was 
 laughing and talking with the men who stood near him. 
 
 Above the heads of the crowd, and now slowly working 
 toward the cross, was a banner on a high-raised cross-pole, 
 a picture of a man and woman half-clad in skins of beasts 
 
42 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 seen against a back-ground of green trees, the man holding 
 a spade and the woman a distaff and spindle, rudely done 
 enough, but yet with a certain spirit and much meaning ; 
 and underneath this symbol of the early world and man's 
 first contest with nature were the written words : 
 
 * U^ieti Adain delved and Eve spa7i, 
 Who was then the goitlcniaii f ' 
 
 The banner came on and through the crowd, which at 
 last opened where we stood for its passage, and the banner- 
 bearer turned and faced the throng and stood on the first 
 step of the cross beside me. 
 
 A man followed him, clad in a long dark-brown gown 
 of coarse woollen, girt with a cord, to which hung a 'pair 
 of beads' (or rosary, as we should call it to-day) and a 
 book in a bag. The man was tall and big-boned, a ring 
 of dark hair surrounded his priest's tonsure ; his nose was 
 big but clear cut and with wide nostrils : his shaven face 
 showed a longish upper lip and a big but blunt chin ; his 
 mouth was big and the lips closed firmly ; a face not yery 
 noteworthy but for his grey eyes well opened and wide 
 apart, at whiles lighting up his whole face with a kindly 
 smile, at whiles set and stern, at whiles resting in that look 
 as if they were gazing at something a long way off, which 
 is the wont of the eyes of the poet or enthusiast. 
 
 He went slowly up the steps of the cross and stood at 
 the top with one hand laid on the shaft, and shout upon 
 shout broke forth from the throng. When the shouting 
 died away into a silence of the human voices, the bells were 
 still quietly chiming with that far-away voice of theirs, and 
 the long-winged dusky swifts, by no means scared by the 
 concourse, swung round about the cross with their wild 
 squeals ; and the man stood still for a little, eyeing the 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 43 
 
 throng, or rather looking first at one and then another man 
 in it, as though he were trying to think what such a one 
 was thinking of, or what he were fit for. Sometimes he 
 caught the eye of one or other, and then that kindly smile 
 spread over his face, but faded ofT it into the sternness and 
 sadness of a man who has heavy and great thoughts 
 hanging about him. 
 
 But when John Ball first mounted the steps of the cross 
 a lad at some one's bidding had run off to stop the ringers, 
 and so presently the voice of the bells fell dead, leaving on 
 men's minds that sense of blankness or even disappoint- 
 ment which is always caused by the sudden stopping of a 
 sound one has got used to and found pleasant. But a 
 great expectation had fallen by now on all that throng, and 
 no word was spoken even in a whisper, and all men's hearts 
 and eyes were fixed upon the dark figure standing straight 
 up now by the tall white shaft of the cross, his hands 
 stretched out before him, one palm laid upon the other. 
 And for me, as I made ready to hearken, I felt a joy in my 
 soul that I had never yet felt. 
 
44 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE VOICE OF JOHN BALL. 
 
 SO now I heard John Ball; how he lifted up his voice 
 and said : 
 
 ' Ho, all ye good people ! I am a priest of God, 
 and in my day's work it cometh that I should tell you 
 what ye should do, and what ye should forbear doing, and 
 to that end I am come hither : yet first, if I myself have 
 wronged any man here, let him say wherein my wrong- 
 doing lieth, that I may ask his pardon and his pity. ' 
 
 A great hum of good-will ran through the crowd as he 
 spoke ; then he smiled as in a kind of pride, and again he 
 spoke : 
 
 'Wherefore did ye take me out of the archbishop's 
 prison but three days agone, when ye lighted the arch- 
 bishop's house for the candle of Canterbury, but that I 
 might speak to you and pray you : therefore I will not 
 keep silence, whether I ha\'e done ill, or whether I have 
 done well. And herein, good fellows and my very breth- 
 ren, I would have you to follow me ; and if there be such 
 here, as I know full well there be some, and may be a good 
 many, who have been robbers of their neighbors ("And 
 who is my neighbor?" quoth the rich man), or lechers, 
 or despiteful haters, or talebearers, or fawners on rich men 
 for the hurt of the poor (and that is the worst of all) — Ah, 
 my poor brethren who have gone astray, I say not to you, 
 go home and repent lest you mar our great deeds, but 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 45 
 
 rather come atield and there repent. Many a day have ye 
 been fools, but hearken unto me and I shall make you wise 
 above the wisdom of the earth ; and if ye die in your wis- 
 dom, as God wot ye well may, since the fields ye wend to 
 bear swords for daisies, and spears for bents, then shall ye 
 be, though men call you dead, a part and parcel of the 
 living wisdom of all things, very stones of the pillars that 
 uphold the joyful earth. 
 
 ' Forsooth, ye have heard it said that ye shall do well 
 in this world that in the world to come ye may live happily 
 for ever ; do ye well then, and have your reward both on 
 earth and in heaven ; for I say to you that earth and heaven 
 are not two but one ; and this one is that which ye know, 
 and are each one of you a part of, to wit, the Holy Church, 
 and in each one of you dwelleth the life of the church, 
 unless ye slay it. Forsooth, brethren, will ye murder the 
 church any one of you, and go forth a wandering man and 
 lonely, even as Cain did who slew his brother? Ah, my 
 brothers, what an evil doom is this, to be an outcast from 
 the church, to have none to love you and to speak with 
 you, to be without fellowship ! Forsooth, brothers, fellow- 
 ship is heaven, and lack of fellowship is hell : fellowship is 
 life, and lack of fellowship is death : and the deeds that ye 
 do upon the earth, it is for fellowship's sake that ye do 
 them, and the life that is in it, that shall live on and on for 
 ever, and each one of you part of it, while many a man's 
 life upon the earth from the earth shall wane. 
 
 * Therefore, I bid you not dwell in hell but in heaven, 
 or while ye must, upon earth, which is a part of heaven, 
 and forsooth no foul part. 
 
 * Forsooth, he that waketh in hell and feeleth his heart 
 fail him, shall have memory of the merry days of earth, and 
 how that when his heart failed him there, he cried on his 
 
46 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 fellow, were it his wife or his son or his brother or his gossip 
 or his brother sworn in arms, and how that his fellow heard 
 him and came and they mourned together under the sun, 
 till again they laughed together and were but half sorry 
 between them. This shall he think on in hell, and cry on 
 his fellow to help him, and shall find that therein is no help 
 because there is no fellowship, but every man for himself 
 Therefore, I tell you that the proud, despiteous rich man, 
 though he knoweth it not, is in hell already, because he 
 hath no fellow ; and he that hath so hardy a heart that in 
 sorrow he thinketh of fellowship, his sorrow is soon but 
 a story of sorrow — a little change in the life that knows 
 not ill.' 
 
 He left off for a little ; and indeed for some time his 
 voice had fallen, but it was so clear and the summer even- 
 ing so soft and still, and the silence of the folk so complete, 
 that every word told. His eyes fell down to the crowd as 
 he stopped speaking, since for some little while they had 
 been looking far away into the blue distance of summer ; 
 and the kind eyes of the man had a curious sight before 
 him in that crowd, for among them were many who by this 
 time were not dry-eyed, and some wept outright in spite 
 of their black beards, while all had that look as if they were 
 ashamed of themselves, and did not want others to see how 
 deeply they were moved, after the fashion of their race 
 when they are strongly stirred. I looked at Will Green 
 beside me ; his right hand clutched his bow so tight, that 
 the knuckles whitened ; he was staring straight before him, 
 and the tears were running out of his eyes and down his big 
 nose as though without his will, for his face was stolid and 
 unmoved all the time, till he caught my eye, and then he 
 screwed up the strangest face, of scowling brow, weeping 
 eyes, and smiling mouth, while he dealt me a sounding 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 47 
 
 thump in the ribs with his left elbow, which, thougli it 
 would have knocked me down but for the crowd, I took 
 as an esquire does the accolade which makes a knight 
 of him. 
 
 But while I pondered all these things, and how men 
 fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for 
 comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes 
 turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have 
 to fight for what they meant under another name — while I 
 pondered all this, John Ball began to speak again in the 
 same soft and clear voice with which he had left off. 
 
 ' Good fellows, it was your fellowship and your kindness 
 that took me out of the archbishop's prison three days 
 agone, though God w^ot ye had nought to gain by it save 
 outlawry and the gallows ; yet lacked I not your fellowship 
 before ye drew near me in the body, and when between 
 me and Canterbury street was yet a stone wall, and the 
 turnkeys and sergeants and bailiffs. 
 
 'For hearken, my friends and helpers ; many days ago, 
 when April was yet young, I lay there, and the heart that 
 I had strung up to bear all things because of the fellowship 
 of men and the blessed saints and the angels and those that 
 are, and those that are to be, this heart, that I had strung 
 up like a strong bow, fell into feebleness, so that I lay there 
 a-longing for the green fields and the white-thorn bushes 
 and the lark singing over the corn, and the talk of good 
 fellows round the ale-house bench, and the babble of the 
 little children, and the team on the road and the beasts 
 afield, and all the life of earth ; and I alone all the while, 
 near my foes and afar from my friends, mocked and flouted 
 and starved with cold and hunger ; and so weak was my 
 heart that though I longed for all these things yet I saw 
 them not, nor knew them but as names ; and I longed so 
 
48 WILLIAM ISIORRIS. 
 
 sore to be gone that I chided myself that I had once done 
 well ; and I said to myself: 
 
 ' "Forsooth hadst thou kept thy tongue between thy 
 teeth thou mightest have been something, if it had been 
 but a parson of a town, and comfortable to many a poor 
 man ; and then mightest thou have clad here and there the 
 naked back, and filled the empty belly, and holpen many, 
 and men would have spoken well of thee, and of thyself 
 thou hadst thought well ; and all this hast thou lost for 
 lack of a word here and there to some great man, and a 
 little winking of the eyes amidst murder and wrong and 
 unruth ; and now thou art nought and helpless, and the 
 hemp for thee is sown and grown and heckled and spun, 
 and lo there, the rope for thy gallows-tree ! — all for nought, 
 for nought." 
 
 'Forsooth, my friends, thus I thought and sorrowed 
 in my feebleness that I had not been a traitor to the 
 Fellowship of the church, for e'en so evil was my foolish 
 imagination. 
 
 ' Yet, forsooth, as I fell a pondering over all the comfort 
 and help that I might have been and that I might ha\^e 
 had, if I been but a little of a trembling cur to creep and 
 crawl before abbot and bishop and baron and baliff, came 
 the thought o\'er me of the e\'il of the world wherewith I, 
 John Ball, the rascal hedge-priest, had fought and striven 
 in the Fellowship of the saints 'in heaven and poor men 
 upon earth. 
 
 'Yea, forsooth, once again I saw as of old, the great 
 treading down the little, and the strong beating down the 
 weak, and cruel men fearing not, and kind men daring not, 
 and wise men caring not ; and the saints in heaven forbear- 
 ing and yet bidding me not to forbear ; forsooth, I knew 
 once more that he who doeth well in fellowship, and because 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 49 
 
 of fellowship, shall not fail though he seem to fail to-day, 
 but in days hereafter shall he and his work yet be alive, 
 and men be holpen by them to strive again and yet again ; 
 and yet indeed even that was little, since, forsooth, to strive 
 was my pleasure and my life. 
 
 * So I became a man once more, and I rose up to my 
 feet and went up and down my prison what I could for my 
 hopples, and into my mouth came words of good cheer, 
 even such as we to-day have sung, and stoutly I sang them, 
 even as we now have sung them ; and then did I rest me, 
 and once more thought of those pleasant fields where I 
 would be, and all the life of man and beast about them, and 
 I said to myself that I should see them once more before I 
 died, if but once it were. 
 
 ' Forsooth, this was strange, that whereas before I 
 longed for them and yet saw them not, now that my long- 
 ing was slaked my vision was cleared, and I saw them as 
 though the prison walls opened to me and I was out of 
 Canterbury street and amidst the green meadows of April ; 
 and therewithal along with me folk that I have known and 
 who are dead, and folk that are living ; yea, and all those 
 of the Fellowship on earth and in heaven ; yea, and all that 
 are here this day. Overlong were the tale to tell of them, 
 and of the time that is gone. 
 
 'So thenceforward I wore through the days with no 
 such faint heart, until one day the j^rison opened verily and 
 in the daylight, and there were ye, my fellows, in the 
 door — your faces glad, your hearts light with hope, and 
 your hands heavy with wrath ; and then I saw and under- 
 stood what was to do. Now^ therefore, do ye understand 
 it?' 
 
 His voice was changed, and grew louder than loud now, 
 as he cast his hands abroad toward that company with those 
 
30 WILLIAM JfORRIS. 
 
 last words of his ; and I could feel that all shame and fear 
 was falling from those men, and that mere fiery manhood 
 was shining through their wonted English shamefast stub- 
 bornness, and that they were moved indeed and saw the 
 road before them. Yet no man spoke, rather the silence 
 of the menfolk deepened, as the sun's rays grew more level 
 and more golden, and the swifts wheeled about shriller and 
 louder than before. 
 
 Then again John Ball spoke and said, ' In good sooth, 
 I deem ye wot no worse than I do what is to do — and first 
 that somewhat we shall do — since it is for him that is lonely 
 or in prison to dream of fellowship, but for him that is of a 
 fellowship to do and not to dream. 
 
 'And next, ye know who is the foeman, and that is the 
 proud man, the oppressor, who scorneth fellowship, and 
 himself is a world to himself and needeth no helper nor 
 helpeth any, but, heeding no law, layeth law on other men 
 because he is rich ; and surely every one that is rich is such 
 a one, nor may be other. 
 
 ' Forsooth, in the belly of every rich man dwelleth a 
 devil of hell, and when the man would give his goods to 
 the poor, the devil within him gainsayeth it, and saith, 
 "Wilt thou then be of the poor, and suffer cold and 
 hunger and mocking as they suffer, then give thou thy 
 goods to them, and keep them not." And when he would 
 be compassionate, again saith the devil to him, "If thou 
 heed these losels and turn on them a face like to their faces, 
 and deem of them as men, then shall they scorn thee, and 
 evil shall come of it, and even one day they shall fall on 
 thee to slay thee when they have learned that thou art but 
 as they be." 
 
 'Ah, woe wortli the while ! too oft he sayeth sooth, as 
 the wont of the devil is, that lies may be born of the barren 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 51 
 
 truth ; and sooth it is that the poor deemeth the rich to be 
 other than he, and meet to be his master, as though, for- 
 sooth, the poor were come of Adam, and the rich of him 
 that made Adam, that is God ; and thus the poor man 
 oppresseth the poor man, because he feareth the oppressor. 
 Nought such are ye, my brethren ; or else why are ye 
 gathered here in harness to bid all bear witness of you 
 that ye are the sons of one man and one mother, begotten 
 of the earth ? ' 
 
 As he said the words there came a stir among the 
 weapons of the throng, and they pressed closer round the 
 cross, yet withheld the shout as yet which seemed gathering 
 in their bosoms. 
 
 And again he said : 
 
 ' Forsooth, too many rich men there are in this realm ; 
 and yet if there were but one, there would be one too 
 many, for all should be his thralls. Hearken, then, ye men 
 of Kent. For overlong belike have I held you with words ; 
 but the love of you constrained me, and the joy that a man 
 hath to babble to his friends and his fellows whom he hath 
 not seen for a long season. 
 
 ' Now, hearken, I bid you : To the rich men that eat up 
 a realm there cometh a time when they whom they eat up, 
 that is the poor, seem poorer than of wont, and their com- 
 plaint goeth up louder to the heavens ; yet it is no riddle to 
 say that oft at such times the fellowship of the poor is 
 waxing stronger, else would no man have heard his cry. 
 Also at such times is the rich man become fearful, and so 
 waxeth in cruelty, and of that cruelty do people misdeem 
 that it is power and might waxing. Forsooth, ye are 
 stronger than your fathers, because ye are more grieved 
 than they, and ye should have been less grieved than they 
 had ye been horses and swine ; and then, forsooth, would 
 
52 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 ye have been stronger to bear ; but ye, ye are not strong 
 to bear, but to do. 
 
 'And wot ye why we are come to you this fair eve of 
 hoHday? and wot ye why I have been telhng of fellov^ship 
 to you ? Yea, forsooth, I deem ye wot well, that it is for 
 this cause, that ye might bethink you of your fellowship 
 with the men of Essex.' 
 
 His last word let loose the shout that had been long on 
 all men's lips, and great and fierce it was as it rang shatter- 
 ing through the quiet upland village. But John Ball held 
 up his hand, and the shout was one and no more. 
 
 Then he spoke again : 
 
 ' Men of Kent, I wot well that ye are not so liard bested 
 as those of other shires, by the token of the day when 
 behind the screen of leafy boughs ye met Duke William 
 with bill and bow as he wended Londonward from that 
 woeful field of Senlac ; but I have told of fellowship, and ye 
 have hearkened and understood what the Holy Church is, 
 whereby ye know that ye are fellows of the saints in heaven 
 and the poor men of Essex ; and as one day the saints shall 
 call you to the heavenly feast, so now do the poor men call 
 you to the battle. 
 
 'Men of Kent, ye dwell fairly here, and your houses 
 are framed of stout oak beams, and your own lands ye till ; 
 unless some accursed lawyer with his false lying sheep-skin 
 and forged custom of the Devil's Manor hath stolen it from 
 you ; but in Essex slaves they be and villeins, and worse 
 they shall be, and the lords swear that ere a year be over 
 ox and horse shall go free in Essex, and man and woman 
 shall draw the team and the plow ; and north away in the 
 cast countries dwell men in poor halls of wattled reeds and 
 mud, and the nortli-cast wind from ofi" the fen whistles 
 through them ; and jjoor they be to the letter ; and there 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 53 
 
 him whom the lord spareth, the baiUft' squeezeth, and him 
 whom the bailiff forgetteth, the Easterling Chapman shear- 
 eth ; yet be these stout men and valiant, and your very 
 brethren. 
 
 'And yet if there be any man here so base as to think 
 that a small matter, let him look to it that if these necks 
 abide under the yoke, Kent shall sweat for it ere it be long ; 
 and ye shall lose acre and close and woodland, and be 
 servants in your own houses, and your sons shall be the 
 lord's lads, and your daughters their lemans, and ye shall 
 buy a bold word with many stripes, and an honest deed 
 with a leap from the gallows-tree. 
 
 ' Bethink ye, too, that ye have no longer to deal with 
 Duke William, who, if he were a thief and a cruel lord, was 
 yet a prudent man and a wise warrior ; but cruel are these, 
 and headstrong, yea, thieves and fools in one — and ye shall 
 lay their heads in the dust.' 
 
 A shout would have arisen again, but his eager voice 
 rising higher yet, restrained it as he said : 
 
 ' And how shall it be then when these are gone ? What 
 else shall ye lack when ye lack masters ? Ye shall not lack 
 for the fields ye have tilled, nor the houses ye have built, 
 nor the cloth ye have woven ; all these shall be yours, and 
 whatso ye will of all that the earth beareth ; then shall no 
 man mow the deep grass for another, while his own kine 
 lack cow-meat ; and he that soweth shall reap, and the 
 reaper shall eat in fellowship the harvest that in fellowship 
 he hath won ; and he that buildeth a house shall dwell in it 
 with those that he biddeth of his free will ; and the tithe 
 barn shall garner the wheat for all men to eat of when the 
 seasons are untoward, and the rain-drift hideth the shea\'es 
 in August ; and all shall be without money and without 
 price. Faithfully and merrily then shall all men keep the 
 
54 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 holidays (di the Church in peace of body and joy of heart. 
 And man shall help man, and the saints in heaven shall be 
 glad, because men no more fear each other ; and the churl 
 shall be ashamed, and shall hide his churlishness till it be 
 gone, and he be no more a churl ; and fellowship shall be 
 established in heaven and on the earth.' 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 55 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THEY HEAR TIDINGS OF BATTLE AND MAKE THEM 
 
 READY. 
 
 HE left off as one who had yet something else to say ; 
 and, indeed, I thought he would give us some word 
 as to the trysting-place, and whither the army was to 
 go from it ; because it was now clear to me that this 
 gathering was but a band of an army. But much happened 
 before John Ball spoke again from the cross, and it was on 
 this wise. 
 
 When there was silence after the last shout that the 
 crowd had raised a while ago, I thought I heard a thin 
 sharp noise far away, somewhat to the north of the cross, 
 which I took rather for the sound of a trumpet or horn, 
 than for the voice of a man or any beast. Will Green also 
 seemed to have heard it, for he turned his head sharply 
 and then back again, and looked keenly into the crowd as 
 though seeking to catch some one's eye. There was a 
 very tall man standing by the prisoner on the horse near 
 the outskirts of the crowd, and holding his bridle. This 
 man, who was well-armed, I saw look up and say some- 
 thing to the prisoner, who stooped down and seemed to 
 whisper him in turn. The tall man nodded his head and 
 the prisoner got off his horse, which was a cleaner-limbed, 
 better-built beast than the others belonging to the band, 
 and the tall man quietly led him a little way from the 
 crowd, mounted liim, and rode off northward at a smart 
 pace. 
 
56 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 Will Green looked on sharply at all this, and when the 
 man rode off, smiled as one who is content, and deems that 
 all is going well, and settled himself down again to listen 
 to the priest. 
 
 But now when John Ball had ceased speaking, and after 
 another shout, and a hum of excited pleasure and hope 
 that followed it, there was silence again, and as the priest 
 addressed himself to speaking once more, he paused and 
 turned his head toward the wind, as if he heard something, 
 which certainly I heard, and belike every one in the throng, 
 though it was not over-loud, far as sounds carry in such 
 clear quiet evenings. It was the thump-a-thump of a horse 
 drawing near at a hand-gallop along the grassy upland 
 road ; and I knew well it was the tall man coming back 
 with tidings, the purport of which I could well guess. 
 
 I looked up at Will Green's face. He was smiling as 
 one pleased, and said softly as he nodded to me, "Yea, 
 shall we see the gray-goose fly this eve?" 
 
 But John Ball said in a great voice from the cross, 
 * Hear ye the tidings on the way, fellows ! Hold ye together 
 and look to your gear ; yet hurry not, for no great matter 
 shall this be. I wot well there is little force between Can- 
 terbury and Kingston, for the lords are looking north of 
 Thames toward Wat Tyler and his men. Yet well it is, 
 well it is ! ' 
 
 The crowd opened and spread out a little, and the men 
 moved about in it, some tightening a girdle, some getting 
 their side arms more within reach of their right hands, and 
 those who had bows stringing them. 
 
 Will Green set hand and foot to the great shapely piece 
 of polished red yew, with its shining horn tips, which he 
 carried, and bent it with no seeming effort ; then he reached 
 out his hand over his shoulder and drew out a long arrow. 
 
A DREABI OF JOHN BALL. 57 
 
 smooth, white, beautifully balanced, with a barbed iron 
 head at one end, a horn nock and three strong goose 
 feathers at the other. He held it loosely between the 
 finger and thumb of his right hand, and there he stood with 
 a thoughtful look on his face, and in his hands one of the 
 most terrible weapons which a strong man has ever carried, 
 the English long-bow and cloth-yard shaft. 
 
 But all this while the sound of the horse's hoofs was 
 growing nearer, and presently from the corner of the road 
 amidst the orchards broke out our long friend, his face red 
 in the sun near sinking now. He waved his right hand as 
 he came in sight of us, and sang out, ' Bills and bows ! bills 
 and bows ! ' and the w^hole throng turned tow^ard him and 
 raised a great shout. 
 
 He reined up at the edge of the throng, and spoke in a 
 loud voice, so that all might hear him : 
 
 ' Fellows, these are the tidings ; even while our priest 
 w^as speaking we heard a horn blow far off; so I bade the 
 sergeant we have taken, and who is now our fellow^-in-arms, 
 to tell me where away it w^as that there would be folk 
 agathering, and what they were ; and he did me to wit that 
 mayhappen Sir John Newton was stirring from Rochester 
 Castle ; or, maybe it was the sheriff and Rafe Hopton with 
 him ; so I rode off w^hat I might toward Hartlip, and I rode 
 warily, and that was w^ell, for as I came through a little 
 wood between Hartlip and Guildstead, I saw beyond it a 
 gleam of steel, and lo in the field there a company, and a 
 pennon of Rafe Hopton' s arms, and that is blue and thereon 
 three silver fish : and a pennon of the sheriff's arms, and 
 that is a green tree ; and withal another pennon of three 
 red kine, and whose they be I know not.* 
 
 * Probably one of the Calverlys, a Cheshire family, one of whom 
 was a noted captain in the French wars. 
 
58 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 'There tied I my horse in the middle of the wood, and 
 myself I crept along the dyke to see more and to hear 
 somewhat ; and no talk I heard to tell of save at whiles a 
 big knight talking to five or six others, and saying some- 
 what, wherein came the words London and Nicholas 
 Bramber, and King Richard ; but I saw that of men-at-arms 
 and sergeants there might be a hundred, and of bows not 
 many, but of those outland arbalests maybe a fifty ; and so, 
 what with one and another of ser\'ants and tip-staves and 
 lads, some three hundred, well armed, and the men-at-arms 
 of the best. Forsooth, my masters, there had I been but a 
 minute, ere the big knight broke off his talk, and cried out 
 to the music to blow up, "And let us go look on these 
 villeins," said he; and withal the men began to gather in 
 a due and ordered company, and their faces turned hither- 
 w^ard ; forsooth, I got to my horse, and led him out of the 
 wood on the other side, and so to saddle and away along 
 the green roads ; neither was I seen or chased. So look 
 ye to it, my masters, for these men will be coming to speak 
 with us ; nor is there need for haste, but rather for good 
 speed ; for in some twenty or thirty minutes will be more 
 tidings to hand. ' 
 
 By this time one of our best-armed men had got through 
 the throng and was standing on the cross beside John Ball. 
 When the long man had done, there was confused noise of 
 talk for a while, and the throng spread itself out more and 
 more, but not in a disorderly manner ; the bow-men draw- 
 ing together toward the outside, and the billmen forming 
 behind them. Will Green w^as still standing beside me and 
 had hold of my arm, as though he knew both where he and 
 I were to go. 
 
 'Fellows,' quoth the captain from the cross, 'belike this 
 stour shall not live to be older than the day, if ye get not 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 59 
 
 into a plump together for their arbalestiers to shoot bolts 
 into, and their men-at-arms to thrust spears into. Get you 
 to the edge of the crofts and spread out there six feet 
 between man and man, and shoot, ye bow-men, from the 
 hedges, and ye with the staves keep your heads below the 
 level of the hedges, or else for all they be thick a bolt may 
 win its way in.' 
 
 He grinned as he said this, and there was laughter 
 enough in the throng to have done honor to a better joke. 
 
 Then he sung out, ' Hob Wright, Rafe Wood, John 
 Pargetter, and thou Will Green, bestir ye and marshal the 
 bow-shot ; and thou Nicholas Woodyer shall be under me 
 Jack Straw in ordering of the staves, Gregory Tailor and 
 John Clerk, fair and fine are ye clad in the arms of the 
 Canterbury bailiff; ye shall shine from afar ; go ye with the 
 banner into the highway, and the bows on either side shall 
 ward you ; yet jump, lads, and o\'er the hedge with you 
 when the bolts begin to fly your way ! Take heed, good 
 fellows all, that our business is to bestride the highway, and 
 not let them get in on our flank the while ; so half to the 
 right, half to the left of the highway. Shoot straight and 
 strong, and waste no breath with noise ; let the loose of the 
 bow-string cry for you ! and look you ! think it no loss of 
 manhood to cover your bodies with tree and bush ; for one 
 of us who know is worth a hundred of those proud fools. 
 To it, lads, and let them see what the gray goose bears 
 between his wings ! Abide us here, brother John Ball, and 
 pray for us if thou wilt ; but for me, if God will not do for 
 Jack Straw what Jack Straw would do for God were he in 
 like case, I can see no help for it.' 
 
 'Yea, forsooth,' said the priest, 'here will I abide you 
 my fellows if ye come back ; or if ye come not back, here 
 will I abide the foe. Depart, and the blessing of the 
 Fellowship be with you.' 
 
6o WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 Down then leaped Jaek Straw from the cross, and the 
 whole throng set off without noise or hurry, soberly and 
 steadily in outward seeming. Will Green led me by the 
 hand as if I were a boy, yet nothing he said, being forsooth 
 intent on his charge. We were some four hundred men 
 in all ; but I said to myself that without some advantage 
 of the ground we were lost men before the men-at-arms 
 that long Gregory Tailor had told us of; for I had not 
 seen as yet the yard-long shaft at its work. 
 
 We and somewhat more than half of our band turned 
 into the orchards on the left of the road, through which the 
 level rays of the low sun shone brightly. The others took 
 up their position on the right side of it. We kept pretty 
 near to the road till we had got through all the closes save 
 the last, where we were brought up by a hedge and a dyke, 
 beyond which lay a wide-open nearly treeless space, not of 
 tillage, as at the other side of the place, but of pasture, the 
 common grazing ground of the township. A little stream 
 wound about through the ground, with a few willows here 
 and there ; there was only a thread of water in it in this 
 hot summer tide, but its course could easily be traced by 
 the deap blue-green of the rushes that gre\v plenteously in 
 the bed. Geese were lazily wandering about and near this 
 brook, and a herd of cows, accompanied by the town bull, 
 were feeding on quietly, their heads all turned one way ; 
 while half a dozen calves marched close together side by 
 side like a plump of soldiers, their tails swinging in a kind 
 of measure to keep off the flies, of w-hich there was great 
 plenty. Three or four lads and girls \vere sauntering about, 
 heeding or not heeding the catde. They looked up toward 
 us as we crowded into the last close, and slowly loitered off 
 toward the village. Nothing looked like batde ; yet batde 
 sounded in the air ; for now we heard the beat of the horse- 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 6 1 
 
 hoofs of the men-at-arms coming on toward us Hke the 
 roUing of distant thunder, and growing louder and louder 
 every minute ; we were none too soon in turning to face 
 them. Jack Straw was on our side of the road, and with 
 a few gestures and a word or two he got his men into their 
 places. Six archers lined the hedge along the road where 
 the banner of Adam and Eve, rising above the gray leaves 
 of the apple-trees, challenged the new-comers ; and of the 
 billmen also he kept a good few ready to guard the road 
 in case the enemy should try to rush it with the horsemen. 
 The road, not being a Roman one, was, you must remem- 
 ber, little like the firm smooth country roads that you are 
 used to ; it was a mere track between the hedges and fields, 
 partly grass-grown, and cut up by the deep-sunk ruts 
 hardened by the drought of summer. There was a stack 
 of fagot and small wood on the other side, and our men 
 threw themselves upon it and set to work to stake the road 
 across for a rough defence against the horsemen. 
 
 What befell more on the road itself I had not much 
 time to note, for our bowmen spread themselves out along 
 the hedge that looked into the pasture-field, leaving some 
 six feet between man and man ; the rest of the billmen went 
 along with the bowmen, and halted in clumps of some half- 
 dozen along their line, holding themselves ready to help 
 the bowmen if the enemy should run up under their shafts, 
 or to run on to lengthen the line in case they should try to 
 break in on our flank. The hedge in front of us was of 
 quick. It had been strongly plashed in the past February, 
 and was stiff and stout. It stood on a low bank ; more- 
 over, the level of the orchard w^as some thirty inches higher 
 than that of the field, and the ditch some two foot deeper 
 than the face of the field. The field went winding round 
 to beyond the church, making a quarter of a circle about 
 
62 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 the village, and at the western end of it were the butts 
 whence the folk were coming from shooting when I first 
 came into the village street. 
 
 Altogether, to me who knew nothing of war the place 
 seemed defensible enough. I have said that the road down 
 which Long Gregory came with his tidings went north ; 
 and that was its general direction ; but its first reach was 
 nearly east, so that the low sun was not in the eyes of any 
 of us, and where Will Green took his stand, and I with 
 him, it was nearly at our backs. 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 63 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE BATTLE AT THE TOWNSHIP'S END. 
 
 OUR men had got into their places leisurely and coolly 
 enough, and with no lack of jesting and laughter 
 As we went along the hedge by the road, the leaders 
 tore ofif leafy twigs from the low oak bushes therein, and 
 set them for a rallying sign in their hats and head-pieces, 
 and two or three of them had horns for blowing. 
 
 Will Green, when he got into his place, which was some 
 thirty yards from where Jack Straw and the billmen stood 
 in the corner of the two hedges, the road hedge and the 
 hedge between the close and field, looked to right and left 
 of him a moment, then turned to the man on the left and 
 said : 
 
 ' Look you, mate, when you hear our horns blow ask 
 no more questions, but shoot straight and strong at whatso 
 cometh toward us, till ye hear more tidings from Jack Straw 
 or from me. Pass that word onward.' 
 
 Then he looked at me and said : 
 
 * Now, lad from Essex, thou hadst best sit down out of 
 the way at once : forsooth I wot not why I brought thee 
 hither. Wilt thou not back to the cross, for thou art litde 
 of a fighting-man ? ' 
 
 ' Nay,' said I, 'I would see the play. What shall come 
 of it?' 
 
 ' Little, ' said he ; * we shall slay a horse or twain maybe. 
 I will tell thee, since thou hast not seen a fight belike, as I 
 
64 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 have seen some, that these men-at-arms cannot run fast 
 either to the play or from it, if they be a-foot ; and if they 
 come on a horseback, what shall hinder me to put a shaft 
 into the poor beast? But down with thee on the daisies, 
 for some shot there will be first. ' 
 
 As he spoke he was pulling off his belts and other gear, 
 and his coat, which done, he laid his quiver on the ground, 
 girt him again, did his axe and buckler on to his girdle, 
 and hung up his other attire on the nearest tree behind us. 
 Then he opened his quiver and took out of it some two 
 dozen of arrows, which he stuck in the ground beside him 
 ready to his hand. Most of the bowmen within sight were 
 doing the like. 
 
 As I glanced toward the houses I saw three or four 
 bright figures moving through the orchards, and presently 
 noted that they were women, all clad more or less like the 
 girl in the Rose, except that two of them wore white coifs 
 on their heads. Their errand there was clear, for each 
 carried a bundle of arrows under her arm. 
 
 One of them came straight up to Will Green, and I 
 could see at once that she was his daughter. She was tall 
 and strongly made, with black hair like her father, some- 
 what comely, though no great beauty ; but as they met, 
 her eyes smiled even more than her mouth, and made her 
 face look very sweet and kind, and the smile was answered 
 back in a way so quaintly like to her father's face, that I 
 too smiled for goodwill and pleasure. 
 
 'Well, well, lass,' said he, 'dost thou think that here is 
 Crecy field toward, that ye bring all this artillery? Turn 
 back, my girl, and set the pot on the fire ; for that shall 
 we need when we come home, I and this ballad- maker 
 here. ' 
 
 'Nay,' she said, nodding kindly at me, 'if this is to be 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 65 
 
 no Crecy, then may I stop to see, as well as the ballad- 
 maker, since he hath neither sword nor staff? ' 
 
 'Sweetling,' he said, 'get thee home in haste. This 
 play is but little, yet mightest thou be hurt in it ; and trust 
 me the time may come, sweetheart, when even thou and 
 such as thou shalt hold a sword or a staff. Ere the moon 
 throws a shadow we shall be back.' 
 
 She turned away lingering, not without tears on her 
 face, laid the sheaf of arrows at the foot of the tree, and 
 hastened off through the orchard. I was going to say 
 something, when Will Green held up his hand as who 
 would bid us hearken. The noise of the horse hoofs, after 
 growing nearer and nearer, had ceased suddenly, and a 
 confused murmur of voices had taken the place of it. 
 
 'Get thee down, and take cover, old lad,' said Will 
 Green ; ' the dance will soon begin, and ye shall hear the 
 music presently.' 
 
 Sure enough as I slipped down by the hedge close to 
 which I had been standing, I heard the harsh twang of the 
 bowstrings, one, two, three, almost together, from the road, 
 and even the whew of the shafts, though that was drowned 
 in a moment by a conflised but loud and threatening shout 
 from the other side, and again the bowstrings twanged, and 
 this time a far-off clash of arms followed, and therewithal 
 that cry of a strong man that comes without his will, and is 
 so different from his wonted voice, that one has a guess 
 thereby of the change that death is. Then for a while was 
 almost silence ; nor did our horns blow up, though some 
 half-dozen of the billmen had leaped into the road when 
 the bows first shot. But presently came a great blare of 
 trumpets and horns from the other side, and therewith as 
 it were a river of steel and bright coats poured into the field 
 before us, and still their horns blew as they spread out 
 
66 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 toward the left of our line ; the cattle in the pasture-field, 
 heretofore feeding quietly, seemed frightened silly by the 
 sudden noise, and ran about tail in air and lowing loudly ; 
 the old bull with his head a little lowered, and his stubborn 
 legs planted firmly, growling threateningly ; while the geese 
 about the brook waddled away gobbling and squeaking ! 
 all which seemed so strange to us along with the threat of 
 sudden death that rang out from the bright array over 
 against us, that we laughed outright, the most of us, and 
 Will Green put down his head in mockery of the bull and 
 grunted like him, whereat we laughed yet more. He 
 turned round to me as he nocked his arrow, and said : 
 
 ' I would they were just fifty paces nigher, and they 
 move not. Ho ! Jack Straw, shall we shoot?' 
 
 For the latter-named was nigh us now ; he shook his 
 head and said nothing as he stood looking at the enemy's 
 line. 
 
 'Fear not but they are the right folk, Jack,' quoth Will 
 Green. 
 
 ' Yea, yea,' said he, 'but abide awhile ; they could make 
 nought of the highway, and two of their sergeants had a 
 message from the gray-goose feather. Abide, for they 
 have not crossed the road to our right hand, and belike 
 have not seen our fellows on the other side, who are now 
 for a bushment to them.' 
 
 I looked hard at the man. He was a tall, wiry, and 
 broad-shouldered fellow, clad in a handsome armor of 
 bright steel that certainly had not been made for a yeoman, 
 but over it he had a common linen smock-frock or gabar- 
 dine, like our field workmen wear now or used to wear, 
 and in his helmet he carried instead of a feather a wisp of 
 wheaten straw. He bore a heavy axe in his hand besides 
 the sword he was girt with, and round his neck hung a 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. (,7 
 
 great horn for blowing. I should say that I knew that 
 there were at least three 'Jack Straws' among the fellowship 
 of the discontented, one of whom was over in Essex. 
 
 As we waited there, every bowman with his shaft nocked 
 on the string, there was a movement in the line opposite, 
 and presently came from it a little knot of three men, the 
 middle one on horseback, the other two armed with long- 
 handled glaives ; all three well muffled up in armor. As 
 they came nearer I could see that the horseman had a 
 tabard over his armor, gaily embroidered with a green tree 
 on a gold ground, and in his hand a trumpet. 
 
 'They are come to summon us. Wilt thou that he 
 speak. Jack ? ' said Will Green. 
 
 'Nay,' said the other ; 'yet shall he have warning first. 
 Shoot when my horn blows ! ' 
 
 And therewith he came up to the hedge, climbed over, 
 slowly because of his armor, and stood some dozen yards 
 out in the field. The man on horseback put his trumpet 
 to his mouth and blew a long blast, and then took a scroll 
 into his hand and made as if he were going to read ; but 
 Jack Straw lifted up his voice and cried out : 
 
 ' Do it not, or thou art but dead ! We will have no 
 accursed lawyers and their sheepskins here ! Go back to 
 those that sent thee ' 
 
 But the man broke in in a loud harsh voice : 
 
 'Ho ! YE People ! what will ye gathering in arms?' 
 
 Then cried Jack Straw : 
 
 'Sir Fool, hold your peace till ye have heard me, or 
 else we shoot at once. Go back to those that sent thee, 
 and tell them that we free men of Kent are on the way to 
 London to speak with King Richard, and to tell him that 
 which he wots not ; to wit, that there is a certain sort of 
 fools and traitors to the realm who would put collars on our 
 
68 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 necks and make beasts of us, and that it is his right and 
 his devoir to do as he swore when he was crowned and 
 anointed at Westminster on the Stone of Doom, and gain- 
 say these thieves and traitors ; and if he be too weak then 
 shall we help him ; and if he will not be king, then shall we 
 have one who will be, and that is the King's Son of Heaven. 
 Now, therefore, if any withstand us on our lawful errand as 
 we go to speak with our own king and lord, let him look 
 to it. Bear back this word to them that sent thee. But 
 for thee, hearken, thou bastard of an inky sheepskin ! get 
 thee gone and tarry not ; three times shall I lift up my 
 hand, and the third time look to thyself, for then shalt thou 
 hear the loose of our bowstrings, and after that nought else 
 till thou hearest the devil bidding thee welcome to hell ! ' 
 
 Our fellows shouted, but the summoner began again, 
 yet in a quavering voice : 
 
 'Ho! YE People! What will ye gathering in arms? 
 Wot ye not that ye are doing or shall do great harm, loss 
 and hurt to the king's lieges ' 
 
 He stopped ; Jack Straw's hand was lowered for the 
 second time. He looked to his men right and left, and 
 then turned rein and turned tail, and scuttled back to the 
 main body at his swiftest. Huge laughter rattled out all 
 along our line as Jack Straw climbed back into the orchard 
 grinning also. 
 
 Then we noted more movement in the enemy's line. 
 They were spreading the archers and arbalestiers to our 
 left, and the men-at-arms and others also spread somewhat 
 under the three pennons of which Long Gregory had told 
 us, and which were plain enough to us in the clear evening. 
 Presently the moving line faced us, and the archers set off 
 at a smart pace toward us, the men-at-arms holding back a 
 little behind them. I knew now that thev had been within 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 69 
 
 bow-shot all along, but our men were loth to shoot before 
 their first shots would tell, like those half-dozen in the road 
 when, as they told me afterwards, a plump of their men-at- 
 arms had made a show of falling on. 
 
 But now as soon as those men began to move on us 
 directly in face. Jack Straw put his horn to his lips and 
 blew a loud rough blast that was echoed by five or six 
 others along the orchard hedge. Every man had his shaft 
 nocked on the string ; I watched them, and Will Green 
 specially ; he and his bow and its string seemed all of a 
 piece, so easily by seeming did he draw the nock of the 
 arrow to his ear. A moment, as he took his aim, and then — 
 O then I understand the meaning of the awe with which 
 the ancient poet speaks of loose of the god Apollo's bow; 
 for terrible indeed was the mingled sound of the twanging 
 bowstring and the whirring shaft so close to me. 
 
 I was now on my knees right in front of Will and saw 
 all clearly ; the arbalestiers (for no long-bow men were over 
 against our stead) had all of them bright head-pieces, and 
 stout body-armor of boiled leather with metal studs, and as 
 they came toward us, I could see over their shoulders great 
 wooden shields hanging at their backs. Further to our left 
 their long-bow men had shot almost as soon as ours, and I 
 heard or seemed to hear the rush of the arrows through the 
 apple-boughs and a man's cry therewith; but with us the 
 long-bow had been before the cross-bow ; one of the arbales- 
 tiers fell outright, his great shield clattering down on him, 
 and moved no more ; while three others were hit and were 
 crawling to the rear. The rest had shouldered their bows 
 and were aiming, but I thought unsteadily ; and before the 
 triggers were drawn again Will Green had nocked and 
 loosed, and not a few others of our folk ; then cam.e the 
 wooden hail of the bolts rattling through the boughs, but 
 all overhead and no one hit. 
 
70 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 The next time Will Green nocked his arrow he drew 
 with a great shout, which all our fellows took up ; for the 
 arbalestiers instead of turning about in their places covered 
 by their great shields and winding up their cross-bows for 
 a second shot, as is the custom of such soldiers, ran 
 huddling together toward their men-at-arms, our arrows 
 driving thump-thump into their shields as they ran : I saw 
 four lying on the field dead or sore wounded. 
 
 But our archers shouted again, and kept on each 
 plucking the arrows from the ground, and nocking and 
 loosing swiftly but deliberately at the line before them ; 
 indeed now was the time for these terrible bowmen, for as 
 Will Green told me afterward they always reckoned to kill 
 through cloth or leather at five hundred yards, and they 
 had let the cross-bow men come nearly within three hundred, 
 and these were now all mingled and muddled up with the 
 men-at-arms at scant five hundred yards' distance ; and 
 belike, too, the latter were not treating them too well, but 
 seemed to be belaboring them with their spear-staves in 
 their anger at the poorness of the play ; so that as Will 
 Green said it was like shooting at hay-ricks. 
 
 All this you must understand lasted but a few minutes, 
 and when our men had been shooting quite coolly, like 
 good workmen at peaceful work, for a few minutes more, 
 the enemy's line seemed to clear somewhat; the pennon 
 with the three red kine showed in front and three men 
 armed from head to foot in gleaming steel, except for their 
 short coats bright with heraldry, were with it. One of 
 them (and he bore the three kine on his coat) turned round 
 and gave some word of command, and an angry shout 
 went up from them, and they came on steadily toward us, 
 the man with the red kine on his coat leading them, a great 
 naked sword in his hand : you must note that they were all 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 71 
 
 on foot ; but as they drew nearer I saw their horses 4ed by- 
 grooms and pages coming on slowly behind them. 
 
 Sooth said Will Green that the men-at-arms run not 
 fast either to or fro the fray ; they came on no faster than a 
 hasty walk, their arms clashing about them and the twang 
 of the bows and whistle of the arrows never failing all the 
 while, but going on like the push of the westerly gale, as 
 from time to time the men-at-arms shouted, ' Ha ! ha ! out ! 
 out ! Kentish thieves ! ' 
 
 But when they began to fall on. Jack Straw shouted 
 out, * Bills to the field ! bills to the field ! ' 
 
 Then all our billmen ran up and leapt over the hedge 
 into the meadow and stood stoutly along the ditch under 
 our bows, Jack Straw in the forefront handling his great 
 axe. Then he cast it into his left hand, caught up his 
 horn and winded it loudly. The men-at-arms drew near 
 steadily, some fell under the arrow-storm, but not a many ; 
 for though the target was big, it was hard, since not even 
 the cloth-yard shaft could pierce well-wrought armor of 
 plate, and there was much armor among them. Withal 
 the arbalestiers were shooting again, but high and at a 
 venture, so they did us no hurt. 
 
 But as these soldiers made wise by the French war 
 were now drawing near, and our bowmen were casting 
 down their bows and drawing their short swords, or 
 handling their axes, as did Will Green, muttering, * Now 
 must Hob Wright's gear end this play' — while this was 
 a-doing, lo, on a sudden a flight of arrows from our right 
 on the flank of the sergeants' array, which stayed them 
 somewhat ; not because it slew many men, but because 
 they began to bethink them that their foes were many 
 and all around them ; then the road-hedge on the right 
 seemed alive with armed men, for whatever could hold 
 
72 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 sword or staff amongst us was there ; every bowman also 
 leapt our orchard hedge sword or axe in hand, and with 
 a great shout, billmen, archers, and all, ran in on them ; 
 half-armed, yea, and half-naked some of them ; strong and 
 stout and lithe and light withal, the wrath of battle and 
 the hope of better times lifting up their hearts till nothing 
 could withstand them. So was all mingled together, and 
 for a minute or two was a confused clamor over which 
 rose a clatter like the riveting of iron plates, or the noise 
 of the street of the coppersmiths at Florence ; then the 
 throng burst open and the steel-clad sergeants and squires 
 and knights ran huddling and shuffling towards their 
 horses ; but some cast down their weapons and threw up 
 their hands and cried for peace and ransom ; and some 
 stood and fought desperately, and slew some till they were 
 hammered down by many strokes, and of these were the 
 bailiffs and tipstaves, and the lawyers and their men, who 
 could not run and hoped for no mercy. 
 
 I looked as on a picture and wondered, and my mind 
 was at strain to remember something forgotten, which yet 
 had left its mark on it. I heard the noise of the horse-hoofs 
 of the fleeing men-at-arms (the archers and arbalestiers had 
 scattered before the last minutes of the play), I heard the 
 confused sound of laughter and rejoicing down in the 
 meadow, and close by me the evening wind lifting the 
 lighter twigs of the trees, and far away the man}^ noises 
 of the quiet country, till light and sound both began to 
 fade from me and I saw and heard nothing. 
 
 I leapt up to my feet presently and there was Will 
 Green before me as I had first seen him in the street with 
 coat and hood and the gear at his girdle and his unstrung 
 bow in his hand ; his face smiling and kind again, but 
 maybe a thought sad. 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 73 
 
 •Well,' quoth I, 'What is the tale for the ballad- 
 maker ? ' 
 
 'As Jack Straw said it would be,' said he, ' "the end 
 of the day and the end of the fray;" ' and he pointed 
 to the brave show of the sky over the sunken sun ; ' the 
 knights fled and the sheriff dead : two of the lawyer kind 
 slain afield, and one hanged : and cruel was he to make 
 them cruel : and three bailiffs knocked on the head — stout 
 men, and so witless, that none found their brains in their 
 skulls ; and five arbalestiers and one archer slain, and a 
 score and a half of others, mostly men come back from 
 the French wars, men of the Companions there, knowing 
 no other craft than fighting for gold ; and this is the end 
 they are paid for. Well, brother, saving the lawyers who 
 belike had no souls, but only parchment deeds and libels 
 of the same, God rest their souls ! ' 
 
 He fell a-musing; but I said, 'And of our Fellowship 
 were any slain ? ' 
 
 'Two good men of the township,' he said, 'Hob 
 Horner and Antony Webber, were slain outright, Hob 
 with a shaft and Antony in the hand-play, and John 
 Pargetter hurt very sore on the shoulder with a glaive ; and 
 five more men of the Fellowship slain in the hand-play, and 
 some few hurt, but not sorely. And as to those slain, if God 
 give their souls rest it is well ; for little rest they had on 
 the earth belike; but for me I desire rest no more.' 
 
 I looked at him and our eyes met with no little love ; 
 and I wondered to see how wrath and grief within him 
 were contending with the kindness of the man, and how 
 clear the tokens of it were in his face. 
 
 'Come now, old lad,' said he, 'for I deem that John 
 Ball and Jack Straw have a word to say to us at the cross 
 yet, since these men broke off the telling of the tale ; there 
 
74 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 shall we know what we are to take in hand to-morrow. 
 And afterward thou shalt eat and drink in my house this 
 once, if never again.' 
 
 So we went through the orchard closes again ; and 
 others were about and anigh us, all turned toward the cross 
 as we went over the dewy grass, whereon the moon was 
 just beginning to throw shadows. 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 
 
 75 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 MORE WORDS AT THE CROSS. 
 
 I GOT into my old place again on the steps of the 
 cross, Will Green beside me, and above me John Ball 
 
 and Jack Straw again. The moon was half-way up the 
 heavens now, and the short summer night had begun, calm 
 and fragrant, with just so much noise outside our quiet 
 circle as made one feel the world alive and happy. 
 
 We waited silently until we had heard John Ball and 
 the story of what was to do ; and presently he began to 
 speak : 
 
 ' Good people, it is begun, but not ended. Which of 
 you is hardy enough to wend the road to London to- 
 morrow ? ' 
 
 • All ! All ! ' they shouted. 
 
 ' Yea, ' said he, ' even so I deemed of you. Yet forsooth 
 hearken ! London is a great and grievous city ; and may- 
 happen when ye come thither it shall seem to you over- 
 great to deal with, when ye remember the little townships 
 and the cots ye came from. 
 
 ' Moreover, when ye dwell here in Kent ye think 
 forsooth of your brethren in Essex or Suffolk, and there 
 belike an end. But from London ye may have an inkling 
 of all the world, and over-burdensome maybe shall that 
 seem to you, a few and a feeble people. 
 
 ' Nevertheless I say to you, remember the Fellowship, 
 in the hope of which ye have this day conquered ; and 
 when ye come to London be wise and wary ; and that is as 
 
76 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 much as to say, be bold and hardy ; for in these days are 
 ye building a house which shall not be overthrown, and the 
 world shall not be too great or too little to hold it : for 
 indeed it shall be the world itself, set free from evil-doers 
 for friends to dwell in.' 
 
 He ceased awhile, but they hearkened still, as if some- 
 thing more was coming. Then he said : 
 
 ' To-morrow we shall take the road for Rochester ; and 
 most like it were well to see what Sir John Newton in the 
 castle may say to us : for the man is no ill man, and hath a 
 tongue well-shapen for words ; and it were well that we had 
 him out of the castle and away with us, and that we put a 
 word in his mouth to say to the King. And wot ye well, 
 good fellows, that by then we come to Rochester we shall 
 be a goodly company, and ere we come to Blackheath 
 a very great company ; and at London Bridge who shall 
 stay our host? 
 
 ' Therefore there is nought that can undo us except our 
 own selves and our hearkening to soft words from those 
 who would slay us. They shall bid us go home and abide 
 peacefully with our wives and children while they, the lords 
 and councilors and lawyers, imagine counsel and remedy 
 for us ; and even so shall our own folly bid us ; and if we 
 hearken thereto we are undone indeed ; for they shall fall 
 upon our peace with war, and our wives and children they 
 shall take from us, and some of us they shall hang, and 
 some they shall scourge, and the others shall be their yoke- 
 beasts — yea, and worse, for they shall lack meat more. 
 
 ' To fools hearken not, w hether they be yourselves 
 or your foemen, for either shall lead you astray. 
 
 ' With the lords parley not, for ye know already what 
 they w^ould say to you, and that is, "Churl, let me bridle 
 thee and saddle thee, and eat thy livelihood that thou 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 77 
 
 winiiest, and call thee hard names because I eat thee 
 up ; and for thee, speak not and do not, save as I bid 
 thee." 
 
 ' All that is the end of their parleying. 
 
 ' Therefore be ye bold, and again bold, and thrice 
 bold ! Grip the bow, handle the staif, draw the sword, 
 and set on in the name of the Fellowship ! ' 
 
 He ended amid loud shouts ; but straightway answering 
 shouts were heard, and a great noise of the winding of 
 horns, and I misdoubted a new onslaught ; and some of 
 those in the throng began to string their bows and handle 
 their bills ; but Will Green pulled me by the sleeve and 
 said : 
 
 ' Friends are these by the winding of their horns ; thou 
 art quit for this night, old lad.' And then Jack Straw cried 
 out from the cross : ' Fair and softly, my masters ! These 
 be men of our Fellowship, and are for your guests this 
 night ; they are from the bents this side of Medway, and 
 are with us here because of the pilgrimage road, and that is 
 the best in these parts, and so the shortest to Rochester. 
 And doubt ye nothing of our being taken unawares this 
 night ; for I have bidden and sent out watchers of the 
 ways, and neither a man's son nor a mare's son may come 
 in on us without espial. Now make we our friends 
 welcome. Forsooth, I looked for them an hour later ; and 
 had they come an hour earlier yet, some heads would now 
 lie on the cold grass which shall He on the feather bed 
 to-night. But let be, since all is well ! 
 
 ' Now get we home to our houses, and eat and drink 
 and slumber this night, if never once again, amid the multi- 
 tude of friends and fellows ; and yet soberly and without 
 riot, since so much work is to hand. Moreover the priest 
 saith, bear ye the dead men, both friends and foes, into the 
 
78 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 chancel of the church, and there this night he will wake 
 them : but after to-morrow let the dead abide to bury their 
 dead ! ' 
 
 Therewith he leapt down from the cross, and Will and 
 I bestirred ourselves and mingled with the new-comers. 
 They were some three hundred strong, clad and armed in 
 all ways like the people of our township, except some half- 
 dozen whose armor shone cold like ice under the moon- 
 beams. Will Green soon had a dozen of them by the 
 sleeve to come home with him to board and bed, and then 
 I lost him for some minutes, and turning about saw John 
 Ball standing behind me, looking pensively on all the stir 
 and merry humors of the joyous uplanders. 
 
 'Brother from Essex,' said he, 'shall I see thee again 
 to-night? I were fain of speech with thee ; for thou seemest 
 like one that has seen more than most.' 
 
 *Yea,' said I, *if ye come to Will Green's house, for 
 thither am I bidden.' 
 
 ' Thither shall I come, ' said he, smiling kindly, ' or no 
 man I know in field. Lo you. Will Green looking for 
 something, and that is me. But in his house will be song 
 and the talk of many friends ; and forsooth I have words 
 in me that crave to come out in a quiet place where they 
 may have each one his own answer. If thou art not afraid 
 of dead men who were alive and wicked this morning, come 
 thou to the church when supper is done, and there we may 
 talk all we will. ' 
 
 Will Green was standing beside us before he had done, 
 with his hand laid on the priest's shoulder, waiting till he 
 had spoken out ; and as I nodded Yea to John Ball he 
 said : 
 
 ' Now, master priest, thou hast spoken enough this two 
 or three hours, and this my new brother must tell and talk 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 79 
 
 in my house ; and there my maid will hear his wisdom 
 which lay still under the hedge e'en now when the bolts 
 were abroad. So come ye, and ye good fellows, come ! ' 
 
 So we turned away together into the little street. But 
 while John Ball had been speaking to me I felt strangely, 
 as though I had more things to say than the words I knew 
 could make clear : as if I wanted to get from other people 
 a new set of words. Moreover, as we passed up the street 
 again I was once again smitten with the great beauty of the 
 scene ; the houses, the church with its new chancel and 
 tower, snow-white in the moonbeams now ; the dresses and 
 arms of the people, men and women (for the latter were 
 now mixed up with the men) ; their grave sonorous 
 language, and the quaint and measured forms of speech, 
 were again become a wonder to me and affected me almost 
 to tears. 
 
8o WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 SUPPER AT WILL GREEN'S. 
 
 I WALKED along with the others musing as if I did not 
 belong to them, till we came to Will Green's house. 
 
 He was one of the wealthier of the yeomen, and his 
 house was one of those I told you of, the lower story of 
 which was built of stone. It had not been built long, and 
 was very trim and neat. The fit of wonder had worn off 
 me again by then I reached it, or perhaps I should give 
 you a closer description of it, for it was a handsome yeo- 
 man's dwelling of that day, which is as much as saying it 
 was very beautiful. The house on the other side of it, the 
 last house in the village, was old or even ancient ; all built 
 of stone, and except for a newer piece built on to it — a hall, 
 it seemed — had round arches, some of them handsomely 
 carved. I knew that this was the parson's house ; but he 
 was another sort of priest than John Ball, and what for fear, 
 what for hatred, had gone back to his monastery with the 
 two other chantrey priests who dwelt in that house : so 
 that the men of the township, and more especially the 
 women, were thinking gladly how John Ball should say 
 mass in their new chancel on the morrow. 
 
 Will Green's daughter was waiting for him at the door 
 and gave him a close and eager hug, and had a kiss to 
 spare for each of us withal : a strong girl she was, as* I have 
 said, and sweet and wholesome also. She made merry 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 8 1 
 
 with her father ; yet it was easy to see that her heart was 
 in her mouth all along. There was a younger girl some 
 twelve summers old, and a lad of ten, who were easily to 
 be known for his children ; an old woman also, who had 
 her livelihood there, and helped the household ; and more- 
 over three long young men, who came into the house after 
 we had sat down, to whom Will nodded kindly. They 
 were brisk lads and smart, but had been afield after the 
 beasts that evening, and had not seen the fray. 
 
 The room we came into was indeed the house, for there 
 was nothing but it on the ground floor, but a stair in the 
 corner went up to the chamber or loft above. It was much 
 like the room at the Rose, but bigger ; the cupboard better 
 wrought, and with more vessels on it, and handsomer. 
 Also the walls, instead of being paneled, were hung with a 
 coarse loosely-woven stuff of green worsted with birds and 
 trees woven into it. There were flowers in plenty stuck 
 about the room, mostly of the yellow blossoming flag or 
 flower-de-luce, of which I had seen plenty in all the ditches, 
 but in the window near the door was a pot full of those 
 same white poppies I had seen when I first woke up ; and 
 the table was all set forth with meat and drink, a big salt- 
 cellar of pewter in the middle, covered with a white cloth. 
 
 We sat down, the priest blessed the meat in the name 
 of the Trinity, and we crossed ourselves and fell to. The 
 victual was plentiful of broth and flesh-meat, and bread and 
 cherries, so we ate and drank, and talked lightly together 
 when we were full. 
 
 Yet was not the feast so gay as might have been. Will 
 Green had me to sit next to him, and on the other side sat 
 John Ball ; but the priest had grown somewhat distraught, 
 and sat as one thinking of somewhat that was like to escape 
 his thought. Will Green looked at his daughter from time 
 
82 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 to time, and whiles his eyes glanced round the fair chamber 
 as one who loved it, and his kind- face grew sad, yet never 
 sullen. When the herdsmen came into the hall they fell 
 straightway to asking questions concerning those of the 
 Fellowship who had been slain in the fray, and of their 
 wives and children ; so that for a while thereafter no man 
 cared to jest, for they were a neighborly and kind folk, and 
 were sorry both for the dead, and also for the living that 
 should suffer from that day's work. 
 
 So then we sat silent awhile. The unseen moon was 
 bright over the roof of the house, so that outside all was 
 gleaming bright save the black shadows, though the moon 
 came not into the room, and the white wall of the tower 
 was the whitest and the brightest thing we could see. 
 
 Wide open were the windows, and the scents of the 
 fragrant night floated in upon us, and the sounds of the 
 men at their meat or making merry about the township ; 
 and whiles we heard the gibber of an owl from the trees 
 westward of the church, and the sharp cry of a blackbird 
 made fearful by the prowling stoat, or the far-off lowing of 
 a cow from the upland pastures ; or the hoofs of a horse 
 trotting on the pilgrimage road (and one of our watchers 
 would that be). 
 
 Thus we sat awhile, and once again came that feeling 
 over me of wonder and pleasure at the strange and beauti- 
 ful sights, mingled with the sights and sounds and scents 
 beautiful indeed, yet not strange, but rather long familiar 
 to me. 
 
 But now Will Green started in his seat where he sat 
 with his daughter hanging over his chair, her hand amidst 
 his thick black curls, and she weeping softly I thought ; 
 and his rough strong voice broke the silence. 
 
 ' Why, lads and neighbors, what ails us? If the knights 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 83 
 
 who fled from us this eve were to creep back hither and 
 look in at the window, they would deem that they had slain 
 us after all, and that we were but the ghosts of the men who 
 fought them. Yet, forsooth, fair it is at whiles to sit with 
 friends and let the summer night speak for us and tell us its 
 tales. But now, sweetling, fetch the mazer and the wine.' 
 
 'Forsooth,' said John Ball, 'if ye laugh not over-much 
 now, ye shall laugh the more on the morrow of to-morrow, 
 as ye draw nearer to the play of point and edge.' 
 
 'That is sooth,' said one of the upland guests. 'So it 
 was seen in France when we fought there ; and the eve of 
 fight was sober and the morn was merry.' 
 
 'Yea,' said another, 'but there, forsooth, it was for 
 nothing ye fought ; and to-morrow it shall be for a fair 
 reward. ' 
 
 ' It was for life we fought,' said the first. 
 
 'Yea,' said the second, 'for fife ; and leave to go home 
 and find the lawyers at their fell game. Ho, Will Green, 
 call a health over the cup ! ' 
 
 For now Will Green had a bowl of wine in his hand. 
 He stood up and said : ' Here, now, I call a health to the 
 Wrights of Kent who be turning our plow-shares into 
 swords and our pruning-hooks into spears ! Drink around, 
 my masters ! ' 
 
 Then he drank, and his daughter filled the bowl brim- 
 ming again and he passed it to me. As I took it I saw 
 that it was of light polished wood curiously speckled, with 
 a band of silver round it, on which was cut the legend, ' I71 
 the name of the Trinity fill the cup and drink to me' And 
 before I drank, it came upon me to say, ' To-morrow, and 
 the fair days afterward ! ' 
 
 Then I drank a great draught of the strong red wine, 
 and passed it on ; and every man said something over it, 
 
84 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 as 'The road to London Bridge!' 'Hob Carter and his 
 mate ! ' and so on, till last of all John Ball drank, saying : 
 
 ' Ten years hence, and the freedom of the Fellowship ! ' 
 Then he said to Will Green : ' Now, Will, must I needs 
 depart to go and wake the dead, both friend and foe in the 
 church yonder ; and whoso of you will be shriven let him 
 come to me thither in the morn, nor spare for as little after 
 sunrise as it may be. And this our friend and brother from 
 over the water of Thames, he hath will to talk with me 
 and I with him ; so now will I take him by the hand : and 
 so God keep you, fellows !' 
 
 I rose to meet him as he came round the head of the 
 table, and took his hand. Will Green turned round to me 
 and said : 
 
 ' Thou wilt come back again timely, old lad ; for betimes 
 on the morrow must we rise if we shall dine at Rochester.' 
 
 I stammered as I yea-said him ; for John Ball was look- 
 ing strangely at me with a half-smile, and my heart beat 
 anxiously and fearfully : but we went quietly to the door 
 and so out into the bright moonlight. 
 
 I Hngered a little when we had passed the threshold, 
 and looked back at the yellow-lighted window and the 
 shapes of the men that I saw therein wath a grief and long- 
 ing that I could not give myself a reason for, since I was 
 to come back so soon. John Ball did not press me to 
 move forward, but held up his hand as if to bid me hearken. 
 The folk and guests there had already shaken themselves 
 down since our departure, and were gotten to be reasonably 
 merry it seemed ; for one of the guests, he who had spoken 
 of France before, had fallen to singing a ballad of the war 
 to a wild and melancholy tune. I remember the first 
 rhymes of it, which I heard as I turned away my head and 
 we moved on toward the church : 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 85 
 
 ' Oti a fair field of France 
 We fought on a morning 
 So lovely as it lieth 
 Alojig by the water. 
 There was many a lord there 
 Mowed men in the medley, 
 ' Midst the banners of the barons 
 And bold men of the knighthood, 
 And spearme7i and sergeants 
 And shooters of the shaft. ' 
 
86 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 BETWIXT THE LIVING AND THE DEAD. 
 
 WE entered the church through the south porch 
 under a round-arched door carved very richly, 
 and with a sculpture over the doorway and under 
 the arch, which, as far as I could see by the moonlight, 
 figured St. Michael and the Dragon. As I came into the 
 rich gloom of the nave I noticed for the first time that I 
 had one of those white poppies in my hand ; I must have 
 taken it out of the pot by the window as I passed out of 
 Will Green's house. 
 
 The nave was not very large, but it looked spacious 
 too ; it was somewhat old, but well-built and handsome ; 
 the roof of curved wooden rafters with great tie-beams 
 going from wall to wall. There was no light in it but that 
 of the moon streaming through the windows, which were by 
 no means large, and were glazed with white fretwork, with 
 here and there a little figure in very deep rich colors. Two 
 larger windows near the east end of each aisle had just 
 been made so that the church grew lighter toward the 
 east, and I could see all the work on the great screen 
 between the nave and chancel which glittered bright in 
 new paint and gilding: a candle glimmered in the loft 
 above it, before the huge rood that filled up the whole 
 space between the loft and the chancel-arch. There was 
 an altar at the east end of each aisle, the one on the south 
 side standing against the outside wall, the one on the north 
 against a traceried gaily-painted screen, for that aisle ran 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 87 
 
 on along the chancel. There were a few oak benches near 
 this second altar, seemingly just made, and well carved and 
 molded ; otherwise the floor of the nave, which was paved 
 with a quaint pavement of glazed tiles like the crocks I had 
 seen outside as to ware, was quite clear, and the shafts of 
 the arches rose out of it white and beautiful under the 
 moon as though out of a sea, dark but with gleams struck 
 over it. 
 
 The priest let me Hnger and look round, when he had 
 crossed himself and given me the holy water ; and then I 
 saw that the walls were figured all over with stories, a huge 
 St. Christopher with his black beard looking like Will 
 Green, being close to the porch by which we entered, and 
 above the chancel arch the Doom of the Last Day, in which 
 the painter had not spared either kings or bishops, and in 
 which a lawyer with his blue coif was one of the chief figures 
 in the group which the Devil was hauling off to hell. 
 
 'Yea,' said John Ball, "tis a goodly church and fair as 
 you may see 'twixt Canterbury and London as for its kind ; 
 and yet do I misdoubt me where those who are dead are 
 housed, and where those shall house them after they are 
 dead, who built this house for God to dwell in. God grant 
 they be cleansed at last. Forsooth one of them who is now 
 alive is a foul swine and a cruel wolf Art thou all so sure, 
 scholar, that all such have souls? and if it be so, was it 
 well done of God to make them ? I speak to thee thus, 
 for I think thou art no delator ; and if thou be, why should 
 I heed it, since I think not to come back from this 
 journey.' 
 
 I looked at him and, as it were, had some ado to answer 
 him ; but I said at last, ' Friend, I never saw a soul, save 
 in the body; I cannot tell.' 
 
 He crossed himself and said, ' Yet do I intend that ere 
 
88 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 many days are gone by my soul shall be in bliss among the 
 fellowship of the saints, and merry shall it be, even before 
 my body rises from the dead ; for wisely I have wrought 
 in the world, and I wot well of friends that are long ago 
 gone from the world, as St Martin, and St. Francis, and 
 St. Thomas of Canterbury, who shall speak well of me to 
 the heavenly Fellowship, and I shall in no wise lose my 
 reward. ' 
 
 I looked shyly at him as he spoke ; his face looked 
 sweet and calm and happy, and I would have said no word 
 to grieve him ; and yet belike my eyes looked wonder on 
 him : he seemed to note it and his face grew puzzled. 
 'How deemest thou of these things?' said he; 'why do 
 men die else, if it be otherwise than this?' 
 
 I smiled : 'Why then do they live? ' said I. 
 
 Even in the white moonlight I saw his face flush, and 
 he cried out in a great voice, ' To do great deeds or to 
 repent them that they ever were born.' 
 
 ' Yea,' said I, ' they live to live because the world liveth.' 
 He stretched out his hand to me and grasped mine, but 
 said no more ; and went on till we came to the door in the 
 rood-screen ; then he turned to me with his hand on the 
 ring-latch, and said, 'Hast thou seen many dead men?' 
 
 'Nay, but few,' said I. 
 'And I a many,' said he; 'but come now and look on 
 these, our friends first and then our foes, so that ye may 
 not look to see them while we sit and talk of the days that 
 are to be on the earth before the Day of Doom cometh.' 
 
 So he opened the door, and we went into the chancel ; 
 a light burned on the high altar before the host, and looked 
 red and strange in the moonlight that came through the 
 wide traceried windows unstained by the pictures and 
 beflowerings of the glazing ; there were new stalls for the 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 89 
 
 priests and vicars where we entered, carved more abun- 
 dandy and beautifully than any of the woodwork I had yet 
 seen, and everywhere was rich and fair color and delicate 
 and dainty form. Our dead lay just before the high altar 
 on low biers, their faces all covered with linen cloths, for 
 some of them had been sore smitten and hacked in the 
 fray. We went up to them and John Ball took the cloth 
 from the face of one ; he had been shot to the heart with 
 a shaft and his face was calm and smooth. He had been 
 a young man fair and comely, with hair flaxen almost to 
 whiteness ; he lay there in his clothes as he had fallen, the 
 hands crossed over his breast and holding a rush cross. 
 His bow lay on one side of him, his quiver of shafts and 
 his sword on the other. 
 
 John Ball spake to me while he held the corner of the 
 sheet: 'What sayest thou, scholar? feelest thou sorrow of 
 heart when thou lookest on this, either for the man himself, 
 or for thyself and the time when thou shalt be as he is ? ' 
 
 I said, ' Nay, I feel no sorrow for this ; for the man is 
 not here : this is an empty house, and the master has gone 
 from it. Forsooth, this to me is but as a waxen image of 
 a man ; nay, not even that, for if it were an image, it would 
 be an image of the man as he was when he was alive. But 
 here is no life nor semblance of life and I am not moved 
 by it; nay, I am more moved by the man's clothes and 
 war-gear — there is more life in them than in him.' 
 
 'Thou sayest sooth,' said he; 'but sorrowest thou not 
 for thine own death when thou lookest on him ? ' 
 
 I said, 'And how can I sorrow for that which I cannot 
 so much as think of? Bethink thee that while I am alive I 
 cannot think that I shall die, or believe in death at all, 
 although I know well that I shall die — I can but think of 
 my elf as living in some new way,' 
 
90 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 Again he looked on me as if puzzled ; then his face 
 cleared as he said, 'Yea, forsooth, and that is what the 
 Church meaneth by death, and even that I look for ; and 
 that hereafter I shall see all the deeds that I have done in 
 the body, and what they really were, and what shall come 
 of them ; and ever shall I be a member of the Church, and 
 that is the Fellowship; then, even as now.' 
 
 I sighed as he spoke ; then I said, ' Yea, somewhat in 
 this fashion have most of men thought, since no man that 
 is can conceive of not being ; and I mind me that in those 
 stories of the old Danes, their common word for a man 
 dying is to say, " He changed his Hfe." ' 
 
 'And so deemest thou ? ' 
 
 I shook my head and said nothing. 
 
 'What hast thou to say hereon?' said he, 'for there 
 seemeth something betwixt us twain as it were a wall that 
 parteth us.' 
 
 'This,' said I, 'that though I die and end, yet mankind 
 yet liveth, therefore I end not, since I am a man ; and even 
 so thou deemest, good friend ; or at the least even so thou 
 doest, since now thou art ready to die in grief and torment 
 rather than be unfaithful to the Fellowship, yea rather than 
 fail to work thine utmost for it ; whereas, as thou thyself 
 saidst at the cross, with a few words spoken and a little 
 huddling-up of the truth, with a few pennies paid, and a 
 few masses sung, thou mightest have had a good place on 
 this earth and in that heaven. And as thou doest, so now 
 doth many a poor man unnamed and unknown, and shall 
 do while the world lasteth : and they that do less than this, 
 fail because of fear, and are ashamed of their cowardice, 
 and make many tales to themselves to deceive themselves, 
 lest they should grow too much ashamed to live. And 
 trust me if this were not so, the world would not live, but 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 91 
 
 would die, smothered by its own stink. Is the wall betwixt 
 us gone, friend?' 
 
 He smiled as he looked at me, kindly, but sadly and 
 shamefast, and shook his head. 
 
 Then in a while he said, ' Now ye have seen the images 
 of those who were our friends, come and see the images of 
 those who were once our foes,' 
 
 So he led the way through the side screen into the 
 chancel aisle, and there on the pavement lay the bodies of 
 the foemen, their weapons taken from them and they 
 stripped of their armor, but not otherwise of their clothes, 
 and their faces mostly, but not all, covered. At the east 
 end of the aisle was another altar, covered with a rich cloth 
 beautifully figured, and on the wall over it was a deal of 
 tabernacle work, in the midmost niche of it an image 
 painted and gilt of a gay knight on horseback, cutting his 
 own cloak in two with his sword to give a cantle of it to a 
 half-naked beggar. 
 
 'Knowest thou any of these men?' said I. 
 
 He said, ' Some I should know, could I see their faces ; 
 but let them be.' 
 
 * Were they evil men ? ' said I. 
 
 'Yea,' he said, 'some two or three. But I will rrot tell 
 thee of them ; let St. Martin, whose house this is, tell their 
 story if he will. As for the rest they were hapless fools, or 
 else men who must earn their bread somehow, and were 
 driven to this bad way of earning it ; God rest their souls ! 
 I will be no tale-bearer, not even to God.' 
 
 So we stood musing a little while, I gazing not on the 
 dead men, but on the strange pictures on the wall, which 
 were richer and deeper colored than those in the nave ; till 
 at last John Ball turned to me and laid his hand on my 
 shoulder. I started and said, ' Yea, brother ; now must I 
 
92 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 get me back to Will Green's house, as I promised to do so 
 timely. ' 
 
 'Not yet, brother,' said he ; ' I have still much to say to 
 thee, and the night is yet young. Go we and sit in the 
 stalls of the vicars, and let us ask and answer on matters 
 concerning the fashion of this world of menfolk, and of this 
 land wherein we dwell ; for once more I deem of thee that 
 thou hast seen things which I have not seen, and could not 
 have seen.' With that word he led me back into the 
 chancel, and we sat down side by side in the stalls at the 
 west end of it, facing the high altar and the great east 
 window. By this time the chancel was getting dimmer as 
 the moon wound round the heavens ; but yet was there a 
 twilight of the moon, so that I could still see the things 
 about me for all the brightness of the window that faced us ; 
 and this moon twilight would last, I knew, until the short 
 summer night should wane, and the twilight of the dawn 
 begin to show us the colors of all things about us. 
 
 So we sat, and I gathered my thoughts to hear what he 
 would say, and I myself was trying to think what I should 
 ask of him ; for I thought of him as he of me, that he had 
 seen things which I could not have seen. 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 95 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THOSE TWO TALK OF THE DAYS TO COME. 
 
 BROTHER,' said John Ball, 'how deemest thou of 
 our adventure? I do not ask thee if thou thinkest 
 we are right to play the play like men, but whether 
 playing like men we shall fail like men.' 
 
 ' Why dost thou ask me ? ' said I ; ' how much further 
 than beyond this church can I see ? ' 
 
 'Far further,' quoth he, 'for I wot that thou art a 
 scholar and hast read books ; and withal, in some way that 
 I cannot name, thou knowest more than we ; as though 
 with thee the world had lived longer than with us. Hide 
 not, therefore, what thou hast in thine heart, for I think 
 after this night I shall see thee no more, until we meet in 
 the heavenly Fellowship.' 
 
 ' Friend,' I said, 'ask me what thou wilt ; or rather ask 
 thou the years to come to tell thee some little of their tale ; 
 and yet methinks thou thyself mayst have some deeming 
 thereof 
 
 He raised himself on the elbow of the stall and looked 
 me full in the face, and said to me : ' Is it so after all that 
 thou art no man in the flesh, but art sent to me by the 
 Master of the Fellowship, and the King's Son of Heaven 
 to tell me what shall be? If that be so tell nie straight out, 
 since I had some deeming hereof before ; whereas thy 
 speech is like ours and yet unlike, and thy face hath some- 
 thing in it which is not after the fashion of our day. And 
 
94 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 yet take heed, if thou art such an one, I fear thee not, nay, 
 nor him that sent thee ; nor for thy bidding, nor for his, 
 will I turn back from London Bridge but will press on, for 
 I do w^hat is meet and right.' 
 
 'Nay,' said I, 'did I not tell thee e'en now that I knew 
 life but not death ? I am not dead ; and as to who hath 
 sent me, I say not that I am come by my own will ; for I 
 know not ; yet also I know not the will that hath sent me 
 hither. And this I say to thee, moreover, that if I know 
 more than thou, I do far less ; therefore thou art my captain 
 and I thy minstrel.' 
 
 He sighed as one from whom a weight had been lifted, 
 and said : ' Well, then, since thou art alive on the earth and 
 a man like myself, tell me how deemest thou of our 
 adventure : shall we come to London, and how shall we 
 fare there ? ' 
 
 Said I, 'What shall hinder you to come to London, and 
 to fare there as ye will ? For be sure that the Fellowship 
 in Essex shall not fail you ; nor shall the Londoners who 
 hate the king's uncles withstand you ; nor hath the Court 
 any great force to meet you in the field ; ye shall cast fear 
 and trembling into their hearts.' 
 
 ' Even so, I thought, ' said he ; ' but afterward what 
 shall betide ? ' 
 
 'Said I, 'It grieves my heart to say that which I think. 
 Yet hearken ; many a man's son shall die who is now alixe 
 and happy, and if the soldiers be slain, and of them most 
 not on the field, but by the lawyers, how shall the captains 
 escape? Surely thou goest to thy death.' 
 
 He smiled very sweetly, yet proudly, as he said : ' Yea, 
 the road is long, but the end cometh at last. Friend, 
 many a day have I been dying ; for my sister, with whom 
 I have played and been merry in the autumn tide about the 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 95 
 
 edges of the stubble-fields ; and we gathered the nuts and 
 bramble-berries there, and started thence the missel-thrush, 
 and wondered at his voice and thought him big ; and the 
 sparrow-hawk wheeled and turned over the hedges and the 
 weasel ran across the path, and the sound of the sheep-bells 
 came to us from the downs as we sat happy on the grass ; 
 and she is dead and gone from the earth, for she pined 
 from famine after the years of the great sickness ; and my 
 brother was slain in the French wars, and none thanked 
 him for dying save he that stripped him of his gear ; and 
 my unwedded wife with whom I dwelt in love after I had 
 taken the tonsure, and all men said she was good and fair, 
 and true she was and lovely ; she also is dead and gone 
 from the earth ; and why should I abide save for the deeds 
 of the flesh which must be done? Truly, friend, this is but 
 an old tale that men must die ; and I will tell thee another, 
 to wit, that they live : and I live now and shall live. Tell 
 me then what shall befall.' 
 
 Somehow I could not heed him as a living man as much 
 as I had done, and the voice that came from me seemed 
 less of me as I answered : 
 
 'These men are strong and valiant as any that have 
 been or shall be, and good fellows also and kindly ; but 
 they are simple, and see no great way before their own 
 noses. The victory shall they have and shall not know 
 what to do with it ; they shall fight and overcome, because 
 of their lack of knowledge, and because of their lack of 
 knowledge shall they be cozened and betrayed when their 
 captains are slain, and all shall come to nought by seeming ; 
 and the king's uncles shall prevail, that both they and the 
 king may come to the shame that is appointed for them. 
 And yet when the lords have vanquished, and all England 
 lieth under them again, yet shall their victory be fruitless ; 
 
96 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 for the free men that hold unfree lands shall they not bring 
 under the collar again, and villeinage shall slip from their 
 hands, till there be, and not long after ye are dead, but few 
 unfree men in England ; so that your lives and your deaths 
 both shall bear fruit.' 
 
 'Said I not,' quoth John Ball, 'that thou wert a sending 
 from other times? Good is thy message, for the land shall 
 be free. Tell on now.' 
 
 He spoke eagerly, and I went on somewhat sadly : 
 ' The times shall better, though the king and lords shall 
 worsen, the Guilds of Craft shall wax and become mightier ; 
 more recourse shall there be of foreign merchants. There 
 shall be plenty in the land and not famine. Where a man 
 now earneth two pennies he shall earn three.' 
 
 'Yea,' said he, 'then shall those that labor become strong 
 and stronger, and so soon shall it come about that all men 
 shall work and none make to work, and so shall none be 
 robbed, and at last shall all men labor and live and be 
 happy, and have the goods of the earth without money and 
 without price.' 
 
 'Yea,' said I, 'that shall indeed come to pass, but not 
 yet for a while, and belike a long while. ' 
 
 And I sat for long without speaking, and the church 
 grew darker as the moon waned yet more. 
 
 Then I said : 'Bethink thee that these men shall yet 
 hive masters over them, who have at hand many a law and 
 custom for the behoof of masters, and being masters can 
 make yet more laws in the same behoof; and they shall 
 suffer poor people to thrive just so long as their thriving 
 shall profit the mastership and no longer ; and so shall it 
 be in those days I tell of; for there shall be king and lords 
 and knights and squires still, with servants to do their 
 bidding, and make honest men afraid ; and all these will 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 97 
 
 make nothing and eat much as aforetime, and the more that 
 is made in the land the more shall they crave.' 
 
 'Yea,' said he, 'that wot I well, that these are of the kin 
 of the daughters of the horse-leech ; but how shall they 
 slake their greed, seeing that as thou sayest villeinage shall 
 be gone? Behke their men shall pay them quit-rents and 
 do them service, as free men may, but all this according to 
 law and not beyond it ; so that though the workers shall 
 be richer than they now be, the lords shall be no richer, 
 and so all shall be on the road to being free and equal.' 
 
 Said I, ' Look you, friend ; aforetime the lords, for the 
 most part, held the land and all that was on it, and the 
 men that were on it worked for them as their horses 
 worked, and after they were fed and housed all was the 
 lords ' ; but in the time to come the lords shall see their men 
 thriving on the land, and shall say once more, ' These men 
 have more than they need, why have we not the surplus 
 since we are their lords?' Moreover, in those days shall 
 betide much chaffering for wares between man and man, 
 and country and country ; and the lords shall note that if 
 there were less corn and less men on their lands there 
 would be more sheep, that is to say more wool for chaffer, 
 and that thereof they should have abundantly more than 
 aforetime ; since all the land they own, and it pays them 
 quit-rent or service, save here and there a croft or a close 
 of a yeoman ; and all this might grow wool for them to sell 
 to the Easterlings. Then shall England see a new thing, 
 for whereas hitherto men have lived on the land and by it, 
 the land shall no longer need them, but many sheep and a 
 few shepherds shall make wool grow to be sold for money 
 to the Easterlings, and that money shall the lords pouch : 
 for, look you, they shall set the lawyers a-work and the 
 strong hand moreover, and the land they shall take to 
 
98 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 themselves and their sheep ; and except for these lords of 
 land few shall be the free men that shall hold a rood 
 of land whom the word of their lord may not turn adrift 
 straightway. ' 
 
 ' How mean you ? ' said John Ball : ' shall all men be 
 villeins again ? ' 
 
 'Nay,' said I, 'there shall be no villeins in England.' 
 
 ' Surely then, ' said he, ' it shall be worse, and all men 
 save a few shall be thralls to be bought and sold at the 
 cross. ' 
 
 'Good friend,' said I, 'it shall not be so; all men shall 
 be free even as ye would have it ; yet, as I say, few indeed 
 shall ha\'e so much land as they can stand upon save by 
 buying such a grace of their masters. ' 
 
 'And now,' said he, 'I wot not what thou sayest. I 
 know a thrall, and he is his master's every hour, and never 
 his own ; and a villein I know, and whiles he is his own 
 and whiles his lord's ; and I know a free man, and he is his 
 own always ; but how shall he be his own if he have nought 
 whereby to make his livelihood? Or shall he be a thief 
 and take from others? Then is he an outlaw. Wonderful 
 is this thou tellest of a free man with nought whereby to 
 live ! ' 
 
 'Yet so shall it be,' said I, 'and by such free men shall 
 all wares be made.' 
 
 'Nay, that cannot be; thou art talking riddles,' said 
 hej; ' for how shall a wood-wright make a chest without 
 the wood and the tools?' 
 
 Said I, ' He must needs buy leave to labor of them that 
 own all things except himself and such as himself ' 
 
 'Yea, but wherewith shall he buy it?' said John Ball. 
 'What hath he except himself?' 
 
 'With himself then shall he buy it,' quoth I ; 'with his 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 
 
 99 
 
 body and the power of labor that Heth therein ; with the 
 price of his labor shall he buy leave to labor. ' 
 
 ' Riddles again ! ' said he ; ' how can he sell his labor for 
 aught else but his daily bread? He must win by his labor 
 meat and drink and clothing and housing ! Can he sell his 
 labor twice over?' 
 
 'Not so,' said I, 'but this shall he do belike; he shall 
 sell himself, that is the labor that is in him, to the master 
 that suffers him to work, and that master shall give to him 
 from out of the wares he maketh enough to keep him alive, 
 and to beget children and nourish them till they be old 
 enough to be sold like himself, and the residue shall the 
 rich man keep to himself ' 
 
 John Ball laughed aloud, and said : ' Well, I perceive 
 we are not yet out of the land of riddles. The man may 
 well do what thou sayest and live, but he may not do it 
 and live a free man.' 
 
 'Thou sayest sooth,' said I. 
 
lOO WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 HARD IT IS FOR THE OLD WORLD TO SEE THE NEW. 
 
 HE held his peace awhile, and then he said : ' But no 
 man selleth himself and his children into thraldom 
 uncompelled ; nor is any fool so great a fool as will- 
 ingly to take the name of freeman and the life of a thrall 
 as payment for the very life of a freeman. Now would I 
 ask thee somewhat else ; and I am the readier to do so 
 since I perceive that thou art a wondrous seer ; for surely 
 no man could of his own wit have imagined a tale of such 
 follies as thou hast told me. Now well I wot that men 
 having once shaken themselves clear of the burden of 
 villeinage, as thou sayest we shall do (and I bless thee for 
 the word), shall never bow down to this worser tyranny 
 without sore strife in the world ; and surely so sore shall 
 it be, before our valiant sons give way, that maids and little 
 lads shall take the sword and the spear, and in many a field 
 men's blood and not water shall turn the grist-mills of 
 England. But when all this is over, and the tyranny is 
 established, because there are but few men in the land after 
 the great war, how shall it be with you then ? Will there 
 not be many soldiers and sergeants and few workers? 
 Surely in every parish ye shall have the constables to see 
 that the men work ; and they shall be saying every day, 
 "Such an one, hast thou yet sold thyself for this day or 
 this week or this year? Go to now, and get thy bargain 
 done, or it shall be the worse for thee." And wheresoever 
 work is going on there shall be constables again, and those 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. loi 
 
 that labor shall labor under the whip like the Hebrews in 
 the land of Egypt. And every man that may, will steal 
 as a dog snatches at a bone ; and there again shall ye need 
 more soldiers and more constables till the land is eaten up 
 by them ; nor shall the lords and the masters even be able 
 to bear the burden of it ; nor will their gains be so great, 
 since that which each man may do in a day is not right 
 great when all is said.' 
 
 'Friend,' said I, 'from thine own valiancy and high 
 heart thou speakest, when thou sayest that they who fall 
 under this tyranny shall fight to the death against it. Wars 
 indeed there shall be in the world, great and grievous, and 
 yet few on this score ; rather shall men fight as they have 
 been fighting in France at the bidding of some lord of the 
 manor, or some king, or at last at the bidding of some 
 usurer and forestaller of the market. Valiant men, for- 
 sooth, shall arise in the beginning of these evil times, but 
 though they shall die as ye shall, yet shall not their deaths 
 be fruitful as yours shall be ; because ye, forsooth, are 
 fighting against villeinage which is waning, but they shall 
 fight against usury which is waxing. And, moreover, I 
 have been telling thee how it shall be when the measure 
 of the time is full ; and we, looking at these things from 
 afar, can see them as they are indeed ; but they who live 
 at the beginning of those times and amidst them, shall not 
 know what is doing around them ; they shall indeed feel 
 the plague and yet not know the remedy ; by litde and by 
 litde they shall fall from their better livelihood, and weak 
 and helpless shall they grow, and have no might to with- 
 stand the evil of this tyranny ; and then again when the 
 times mend somewhat and they have but a little more ease, 
 then shall it be to them like the kingdom of heaven, and 
 they shall have no will to withstand any tyranny, but shall 
 
I02 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 think themselves happy that they be pinched somewhat 
 less. Also whereas thou sayest that there shall be for ever 
 constables and sergeants going to and fro to drive men to 
 work, and that they will not work save under the lash, thou 
 art wrong and it shall not be so ; for there shall ever be 
 more workers than the masters may set to w^ork, so that 
 men shall strive eagerly for leave to w^ork ; and when one 
 says, I will sell my hours at such and such a price, then 
 another will say, and I for so much less ; so that never 
 shall the lords lack slaves willing to work, but often the 
 slaves shall lack lords to buy them.' 
 
 'Thou tellest marvels indeed,' said he ; 'but how then? 
 if all the churls work not, shall there not be famine and 
 lack of wares?' 
 
 'Famine enough,' said I, 'yet not from lack of wares ; 
 it shall be clean contrary. What wilt thou say when I tell 
 thee that in the latter days there shall be such traffic and 
 such speedy travel across the seas that most wares shall be 
 good cheap, and bread of all things the cheapest ? ' 
 
 Quoth he : ' I should say that then there would be 
 better livelihood for men, for in times of plenty it is well ; 
 for then men eat that which their own hands have harvested, 
 and need not to spend of their substance in buying of others. 
 Truly, it is well for honest men, but not so well for fore- 
 stallers and regraters ; * but who heeds what befalls such 
 foul swine, who filch the money from people's purses, and 
 do not one hair's turn of work to help them?' 
 
 ■^ Forestaller, one who buys up goods when they are cheap, and 
 so raises the price for his own benefit ; forestalls the due and real 
 demand. Re.orater, one who both buys and sells in the same 
 market, or within five miles thereof; buys, say a ton of cheese, at 
 TO a.m. and sells it at 5 p.m. a penny a pound clearer, without mov- 
 ino- fi-oni his chair. The word 'monopolist' will cover both species 
 of thief. 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 103 
 
 'Yea, friend,' I said, 'but in those latter days all power 
 shall be in the hands of these foul swine, and they shall be 
 the rulers of all ; therefore, hearken, for I tell thee that 
 times of plenty shall in those days be the times of famine, 
 and all shall pray for the prices of wares to rise, so that the 
 forestallers and regraters may thrive, and that some of their 
 well-doing may overflow on to those on whom they live.' 
 
 * I am weary of thy riddles, ' he said. ' Yet at least I 
 hope that there may be fewer and fewer folk in the land ; 
 as may well be, if life is then so foul and wretched. ' 
 
 'Alas, poor man!' I said; 'nor mayst thou imagine 
 how foul and wretched it may be for many of the folk : 
 and yet I tell thee that men shall increase and multiply, 
 till where there is one man in the land now, there shall 
 be twenty in those days — yea, in some places ten times 
 twenty.' 
 
 'I have but little heart to ask thee more questions,' 
 said he ; ' and when thou answerest thy words are plain, 
 but the things they tell of I may scarce understand. But 
 tell me this : in those days ,will men deem that so it must 
 be for ever, as great men even now tell us of our ills, or will 
 they think of some remedy?' 
 
 I looked about me. There was but a glimmer of light 
 in the church now, but what there was, was no longer the 
 strange light of the moon, but the first coming of the 
 kindly day. 
 
 'Yea,' said John Ball, "tis the twilight of the dawn. 
 God and St. Christopher send us a good day ! ' 
 
 'John Ball,' said I, 'I have told thee that thy death 
 will bring about that which thy life has striven for : thinkest 
 thou that the thing which thou strivest for is worth the 
 labor ? or dost thou believe in the tale I have told thee of 
 the days to come?' 
 
I04 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 He said : ' I tell thee once again that I trust thee for a 
 seer ; because no man could make up such a tale as thou ; 
 the things which thou tellest are too wonderful for a min- 
 strel, the tale too grievous. And whereas thou askest as 
 to whether I count my labor lost, I say nay ; if so be that 
 in those latter times (and worser than ours they will be) 
 men shall yet seek a remedy : therefore again I ask thee, 
 is it so that they shall ? ' 
 
 'Yea,' said I, 'and their remedy shall be the same as 
 thine, although the days be different : for if the folk be 
 enthralled, what remedy save that they be set free? and 
 if they have tried many roads toward freedom, and found 
 that they led nowhither, then shall they try yet another. 
 Yet in the days to come they shall be slothful to try it, 
 because their masters shall be so much mightier than thine, 
 that they shall not need to show the high hand, and until 
 the days get to their evilest, men shall be cozened into 
 thinking that it is of their own free will that they must 
 needs buy leave to labor by pawning their labor that is to 
 be. Moreover, your lords and masters seem very mighty 
 to you, each one of them, and so they are, but they are 
 few ; and the masters of the days to come shall not each 
 one of them seem very mighty to the men of those days, 
 but they shall be very many, and they shall be of one intent 
 in these matters without knowing it ; like as one sees the 
 oars of a galley when the rowers are hidden, that rise and 
 fall as it were with one will.' 
 
 'And yet,' he said, 'shall it not be the same with those 
 that these men devour? shall not they also have one will?' 
 
 ' Friend, ' I said, ' they shall have the will to live, as the 
 wretchedest thing li\'ing has : therefore shall they sell them- 
 selves that they may live, as I told thee ; and their hard 
 need shall be their lord's easy livelihood, and because of it 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 105 
 
 he shall sleep without fear, since their need compelleth 
 them not to loiter by the way to lament with friend or 
 brother that they are pinched in their servitude, or to devise 
 means for ending it. And yet indeed thou sayest it : they 
 also shall have one will if they but knew it ; but for a long 
 while they shall have but a glimmer of knowledge of it : 
 yet doubt it not that in the end they shall come to know it 
 clearly, and then shall they bring about the remedy ; and 
 in those days shall it be seen that thou hast not wrought 
 for nothing, because thou hast seen beforehand what the 
 remedy should be, even as those of later days have seen it. ' 
 
 We both sat silent a little while. The twilight was 
 gaining on the night, though slowly. I looked at the 
 poppy which I still held in my hand, and bethought me of 
 Will Green, and said : 
 
 ' Lo, how the light is spreading : now must I get me 
 back to Will Green's house as I promised.' 
 
 'Go, then,' said he, 'if thou wilt. Yet meseems before 
 long he shall come to us ; and then mayst thou sleep among 
 the trees on the green grass till the sun is high, for the host 
 shall not be on foot very early ; and sweet it is to sleep in 
 shadow by the sun in the full morning when one has been 
 awake and troubled through the night-tide.' 
 
 'Yet I will go now,' said I ; 'I bid thee good-night, or 
 rather good-morrow.' 
 
 Therewith I half rose up ; but as I did so the will to 
 depart left me as though I had never had it, and I sat down 
 again, and heard the voice of John Ball, at first as one 
 speaking from far away, but little by little growing nearer 
 and more familiar to me, and as if once more it were 
 coming from the man himself whom I had got to know. 
 
lo6 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ILL WOULD CHANGE BE AT WHILES WERE IT NOT 
 FOR THE CHANGE BEYOND THE CHANGE. 
 
 HE said : ' Many strange things hast thou told me that 
 I could not understand ; yea, some my wit so failed 
 to compass, that I cannot so much as ask thee 
 questions concerning them ; but of some matters would I 
 ask thee, and I must hasten, for in very sooth the night is 
 worn old and gray. Whereas thou sayest that in the days 
 to come, when there shall be no laboring men who are 
 not thralls after their new fashion, that their lords shall be 
 many and very many, it seemeth to me that these same 
 lords, if they be many, shall hardly be rich, or but very 
 few of them, since they must verily feed and clothe and 
 house their thralls, so that that which they take from them, 
 since it will have to be dealt out amongst many, will not 
 be enough to make many rich ; since out of one man ye 
 may get but one man's work; and pinch him never so 
 sorely, still as aforesaid ye may not pinch him so sorely as 
 not to feed him. Therefore, though the eyes of my mind 
 may see a few lords and many slaves, yet can they not see 
 many lords as well as many slaves ; and if the slaves be 
 many, and the lords few, then some day shall the slaves 
 make an end of that mastery by the force of their bodies. 
 How then shall thy mastership of the latter days endure?' 
 * John Ball,' said I, ' mastership hath many shifts whereby 
 it striveth to keep itself alive in the world. And now hear 
 a marvel : whereas thou sa-s'est these two times that out of 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 107 
 
 one man ye may get but one man's work, in days to come 
 one man shall do the work of a hundred men — yea, of a 
 thousand or more : and this is the shift of mastership that 
 shall make many masters and many rich men.' 
 
 John Ball laughed. ' Great is my harvest of riddles 
 to-night,' said he ; ' for even if a man sleep not, and eat and 
 drink while he is a-working, ye shall but make two men, or 
 three at the most, out of him.' 
 
 Said I : ' Sawest thou ever a weaver at his loom ? ' 
 
 'Yea,' said he, 'many a time.' 
 
 He was silent a little, and then said : * Yet I marvelled 
 not at it ; but now I marvel, because I know what thou 
 wouldst say. Time was when the shuttle was thrust in 
 and out of all the thousand threads of the warp and it was 
 long to do ; but now the spring-staves go up and down as 
 the man's feet move, and this and that leaf of the warp 
 Cometh forward and the shuttle goeth in one shot through 
 all the thousand warps. Yea, so it is that this multiplieth 
 a man many times. But look you, he is so multiplied 
 already ; and so hath he been, meseemeth, for many 
 hundred years.' 
 
 'Yea,' said I, 'but what hitherto needed the masters to 
 multiply him more? For many hundred years the work- 
 man was a thrall bought and sold at the cross ; and for 
 other hundreds of years he hath been a villein — that is, a 
 working-beast and a part of the .stock of the manor on 
 which he liveth ; but then thou and the like of thee shall 
 free him, and then is mastership put to its shifts ; for what 
 should avail the mastery then, when the master no longer 
 owneth the man by law as his chattel, nor any longer by 
 law owneth him as stock of his land, if the master hath not 
 that which he on whom he liveth may not lack and live 
 withal, and cannot have without selling himself? ' 
 
io8 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 He said nothing, but I saw his brow knitted and his 
 Hps pressed together as though in anger ; and again I 
 said : 
 
 ' Thou hast seen the weaver at his loom : think how it 
 should be if he sit no longer before the web and cast the 
 shuttle and draw home the sley, but if the shed open of 
 itself and the shuttle of itself speed through it as swift as the 
 eye can follow, and the sley come home of itself; and the 
 weaver standing by and whistling The Hunt's up/ the 
 while, or looking to half-a-dozen looms and bidding them 
 what to do. And as with the weaver so with the potter, 
 and the smith, and every worker in metals, and all other 
 crafts, that it shall be for them looking on and tending, as 
 with the man that sitteth in the cart while the liDrse draws. 
 Yea, at last so shall it be even with those who are mere hus- 
 bandmen ; and no longer shall the reaper fare afield in the 
 morning with his hook over his shoulder, and smite and 
 bind and smite again till the sun is down and the moon is 
 up ; but he shall draw a thing made by men into the field 
 with one or two horses, and shall say the word and the 
 horses shall go up and down, and the thing shall reap and 
 gather and bind, and do the work of many men. Imagine 
 all this in thy mind if thou canst, at least as ye may imagine 
 a tale of enchantment told by a minstrel, and then tell me 
 what shouldst thou deem that the life of men would be 
 amidst all this, men such as these men of the township 
 here, or the men of the Canterbury guilds.' 
 
 *Yea,' said he; 'but before I tell thee my thoughts of 
 thy tale of wonder, I would ask thee this : In those days 
 when men work so easily, surely they shall make more 
 wares than they can use in one country-side, or one good 
 town, whereas in another, where things have not gone as 
 well, they shall have less than they need ; and even so it 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. iq^ 
 
 is with us now, and thereof cometh scarcity and famine ; 
 and if people may not come at each other's goods, it 
 availeth the whole land little that one country-side hath 
 more than enough while another hath less ; for the goods 
 shall abide there in the storehouses of the rich place till 
 they perish. So if that be so in the days of wonder ye tell 
 of (and I see not how it can be otherwise), then shall men 
 be but little holpen by making all their wares so easily and 
 with so little labor.' 
 
 I smiled again and said: 'Yea, , but it shall not be so ; 
 not only shall men be multiplied a hundred and a thousand 
 fold, but the distance of one place from another shall be as 
 nothing ; so that the wares which lie ready for market in 
 Durham in the evening may be in London on the morrow 
 morning ; and the men of Wales may eat corn of Essex 
 and the men of Essex wear wool of Wales ; so that, so far 
 as the flitting of goods to market goes, all the land shall be 
 as one parish. Nay, what say I ? Not as to this land only 
 shall it be so, but even the Indies, and far countries of 
 which thou knowest not, shall be, so to say, at every man's 
 door, and wares which now ye account precious and dear- 
 bought, shall then be common things bought and sold for 
 little price at every huckster's stall. Say then, John, 
 shall not those days be merry, and plentiful of ease and 
 contentment for all men?' 
 
 ' Brother, ' said he, ' meseemeth some doleful mockery 
 lieth under these joyful tidings of thine ; since thou hast 
 already partly told me to my sad bewilderment what the 
 life of a man shall be in those days. Yet will I now for 
 a little set all that aside to consider thy strange talc as of a 
 minstrel from over sea, even as thou biddest me. Therefore 
 I say, that if men still abide men as I have known them, 
 and unless these folk of England change as the land 
 
no WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 changeth — and forsooth of the men, for good and for evil, I 
 can think no other than I think now, or behold them other 
 than I have known them and loved them — I say if the men 
 be still men, what will happen except that there should be 
 all plenty in the land, and not one poor man therein, unless 
 of his own free will he chose to lack and be poor, as a man 
 in religion or such like ; for there would then be such 
 abundance of all good things, that, as greedy as the lords 
 might be, there would be enough to satisfy their greed and 
 yet leave good living for all who labored with their 
 hands; so that these should labor far less than now, and 
 they would have time to learn knowledge, so that there 
 should soon be no learned and unlearned, for all should 
 be learned ; and they would have time also to learn how to 
 order the matters of the parish and the hundred, and of the 
 parliament of the realm, so that the king should take no 
 more than his own ; and to order the rule of the realm, 
 so that all men, rich and unrich, should have part therein ; 
 and so by undoing of evil laws and making of good ones, 
 that fashion would come to an end whereof thou speakest, 
 that rich men make laws for their own behoof; for they 
 should no longer be able to do thus when all had part in 
 making the laws ; whereby it would soon come about that 
 there would be no men rich and tyrannous, but all should 
 have enough and to spare of the increase of the earth and 
 the work of their own hands. Yea surely, brother, if ever 
 it cometh about that men shall be able to make things, and 
 not men, work for their superfluities, and that the length 
 of travel from one place to another be made of no account, 
 and all the world be a market for all the world, then all 
 shall live in health and wealth ; and envy and grudging 
 shall perish. For then shall we have conquered the earth 
 and it shall be enough ; and then shall the kingdom of 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 1 1 1 
 
 heaven be come down to the earth in very deed. Why 
 lookest thou so sad and sorry? what sayest thou?' 
 
 I said : 'Hast thou forgotten already what I told thee, 
 that in those latter days a man who hath nought save his 
 own body (and such men shall be far the most of men) 
 must needs pawn his labor for leave to labor? Can 
 such a man be wealthy? Hast thou not called him a 
 thrall?' 
 
 'Yea,' he said; 'but how could I deem that such 
 things could be when those days should be come wherein 
 men could make things work for them ? ' 
 
 • Poor man ! ' said I, ' Learn that in those very days, 
 when it shall be with the making of things as with the 
 carter in the cart, that there he sitteth and shaketh the 
 reins and the horse draweth and the cart goeth ; in those 
 days, I tell thee, many men shall be as poor and wretched 
 always, year by year, as they are with thee when there 
 is famine in the land ; nor shall any have plenty and surety 
 of livelihood save those that shall sit by and look on while 
 others labor; and these, I tell thee, shall be a many, so 
 that they shall see to the making of all laws, and in their 
 hands shall be all power, and the laborers shall think that 
 they cannot do without these men that live by robbing 
 them, and shall praise them and wellnigh pray to them 
 as ye pray to the saints, and the best worshiped man 
 in the land shall be he who by forestalling and regrating 
 hath gotten to him the most money.' 
 
 'Yea,' said he, 'and shall they who see themselves 
 robbed worship the robber? Then indeed shall men be 
 changed from what they are now, and they shall be 
 sluggards, dolts, and cowards beyond all the earth hath 
 yet borne. Such are not the men I have known in my 
 life-days, and that now I love in my death.' 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 ' Nay,' I said, ' but the robbery shall they not see ; for 
 have I not told thee that they shall hold themselves to be 
 free men ? And for why ? I will tell thee : but first tell me 
 how it fares with men now ; may the laboring man 
 become a lord? 
 
 He said : ' The thing hath been seen that churls have 
 risen from the dortoir of the monastery to the abbot's chair 
 and the bishop's throne; yet not often; and whiles hath 
 a bold sergeant become a wise captain, and they have 
 made him squire and knight ; and yet but very seldom. 
 And now I suppose thou wilt tell me that the Church will 
 open her arms wider to this poor people, and that many 
 through her shall rise into lordship. But what a\aileth 
 that? Nought were it to me if the Abbot of St. Alban's 
 with his golden miter sitting guarded by his knights and 
 sergeants, or the Prior of Merton with his hawks and his 
 hounds, had once been poor men, if they were now tyrants 
 of poor men ; nor would it better the matter if there were 
 ten times as many Houses of Religion in the land than 
 now are, and each with a churl's son for abbot or prior 
 over it' 
 
 I smiled and said: 'Comfort thyself; for in those days 
 shall there be neither abbey nor priory in the land, nor 
 monks nor friars, nor any religious.' (He started as I 
 spoke.) ' But thou hast told me that hardly in these days 
 may a poor man rise to be a lord : now I tell thee that in 
 the days to come poor men shall be able to become lords 
 and masters and do-nothings ; and oft will it be seen that 
 they shall do so ; and it shall be even for that cause that 
 their eyes shall be blinded to the robbing of themselves 
 by others, because they shall hope in their souls that 
 they may each live to rob others : and this shall be the 
 very safeguard of all rule and law in those days.' 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 113 
 
 'Now am I sorrier than thou hast yet made me,' said 
 he ; ' for when once this is estabHshed, how then can it be 
 changed? Strong shall be the tyranny of thy latter days. 
 And now meseems, if thou sayest sooth, this time of the 
 conquest of the earth shall not bring heaven down to the 
 earth, as erst I deemed it would, but rather that it shall 
 bring hell up on to the earth. Woe's me, brother, for thy 
 sad and weary foretelling ! And yet saidst thou that the 
 men of those days would seek a remedy. Canst thou yet 
 tell me, brother, what that remedy shall be, lest the sun 
 rise upon me made hopeless by thy tale of what is to be? 
 And, lo you, soon shall she rise upon the earth.' 
 
 In truth the dawn was widening now, and the colors 
 coming into the pictures on wall and in window ; and as 
 well as I could see through the varied glazing of these 
 last (and one window before me had as yet nothing but 
 white glass in it), the ruddy glow, which had but so little 
 a while quite died out in the west, was now beginning 
 to gather in the east — the new day was beginning. I 
 looked at the poppy that I still carried in my hand, and 
 it seemed to me to have withered and dwindled. I felt 
 anxious to speak to my companion and tell him much, and 
 withal I felt that I must hasten, or for some reason or 
 other I should be too late; so I spoke at last loud and 
 hurriedly : 
 
 'John Ball, be of good cheer ; for once more thou 
 knowest, as I know, that the Fellowship of Men shall 
 endure, however many tribulations it may have to wear 
 through. Look you, a while ago was the light bright 
 about us ; but it was because of the moon, and the night 
 was deep notwithstanding, and when the moonlight waned 
 and died and there was but a little glimmer in place of the 
 bright light, yet was the world glad because all things 
 
114 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 knew that the gUmmer was of day and not of night. Lo 
 you, an image of the times to betide the hope of the Fellow- 
 ship of Men. Yet forsooth, it may well be that this bright 
 day of summer which is now dawning upon us is no image 
 of the beginning of the day that shall be ; but rather shall 
 that day-dawn be cold and gray and surly ; and yet by its 
 light shall men see things as they verily are, and no longer 
 enchanted by the gleam of the moon and the glamor of the 
 dreamtide. By such gray light shall wise men and valiant 
 souls, see the remedy, and deal with it, a real thing that may 
 be touched and handled, and no glory of the heavens to be 
 worshiped from afar off. And what shall it be, as I told 
 thee before, save that men shall be determined to be free ; 
 yea, free as thou wouldst have them, when thine hope rises 
 the highest, and thou art thinking not of the king's uncles, 
 and poll-groat bailiffs, and the villeinage of Essex, but of 
 the end of all, when men shall have the fruits of the earth 
 and the fruits of their toil thereon, without money and 
 without price. The time shall come, John Ball, when that 
 dream of thine that this shall one day be, shall be a thing 
 that men shall talk of soberly, and as a thing soon to come 
 about, as even with thee they talk of the villeins becoming 
 tenants paying their lord quit-rent ; therefore, hast thou 
 done well to hope it ; and, if thou heedest this also, as I 
 suppose thou heedest it little, thy name shall abide by the 
 hope in those days to come, and thou shalt not be 
 forgotten.' 
 
 I heard his voice come out of the twilight, scarcely 
 seeing him, though now the light was growing fast, as he 
 said : 
 
 ' Brother, thou givest me heart again ; yet since now I 
 wot well that thou art a sending from far-off times and far- 
 off things ; tell thou, if thou mayest, to a man who is going 
 to his death, how this shall come about.' 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 115 
 
 'Only this may I tell thee,' said I ; 'to thee, when thou 
 didst try to conceive of them, the ways of the days to come 
 seemed follies scarce to be thought of; yet shall they come 
 to be familiar things, and an order by which every man 
 liveth, ill as he liveth, so that men shall deem of them, that 
 thus it hath been since the beginning of the world, and that 
 thus it shall be while the world endureth ; and in this wise 
 so shall they be thought of a long while ; and the complaint 
 of the poor the rich man shall heed, even as much and no 
 more as he who lieth in pleasure under the lime-trees in 
 the summer heedeth the murmur of his toiling bees. Yet 
 in time shall this also grow old, and doubt shall creep in, 
 because men shall scarce be able to live by that order, and 
 the complaint of the poor shall be hearkened, no longer as 
 a tale not utterly grievous, but as a threat of ruin, and a 
 fear. Then shall those things, which to thee seem follies, 
 and to the men between thee and me mere wisdom and the 
 bond of stabihty, seem follies once again ; yet, whereas 
 men have so long lived by them, they shall cling to them 
 yet from blindness and from fear ; and those that see, and 
 that have thus much conquered fear that they are furthering 
 the real time that cometh and not the dream that faileth, 
 these men shall the blind and the fearful mock and missay, 
 and torment and murder ; and great and grievous shall be 
 the strife in those days, and many the failures of the wise, 
 and too oft sore shall be the despair of the valiant ; and 
 back-sliding and doubt, and contest between friends and 
 fellows lacking time in the hubbub to understand each other, 
 shall grieve many hearts and hinder the Host of the Fellow- 
 ship : yet shall all bring about the end, till thy deeming of 
 folly and ours shall be one, and thy hope and our hope ; and 
 then — the Day will have come.' 
 
 Once more I heard the voice of John Ball : ' Now, 
 
1 1 6 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 brother, I say farewell ; for now verily hath the Day of the 
 Earth come, and thou and I are lonely of each other again ; 
 thou hast been a dream to me as I to thee, and sorry and 
 glad have we made each other, as tales of old time and the 
 longing of times to come shall ever make men to be. I go 
 to life and to death, and leave thee ; and scarce do I know 
 whether to wish thee some dream of the days beyond diine 
 to tell what shall be, as thou hast told me, for I know not 
 if that shall help or hinder thee ; but since we have been 
 kind and very friends, I will not leave thee without a wish 
 of good-will, so at least I wish thee what thou thyself wishest 
 for thyself, and that is hopeful strife, and blameless peace, 
 which is to say in one word, life. Farewell, friend.' 
 
 For some little time, although I had known that the 
 daylight was growing and what was around me, I had 
 scarce seen the things I had before noted so keenly ; but 
 now in a flash I saw all — the east crimson with sunrise 
 through the white window on my right hand ; the richly- 
 carved stalls, and gilded screen work, the pictures on the 
 walls, the loveliness of the faultless color of the mosaic 
 window lights, the altar and the red light over it looking 
 strange in the daylight, and the biers with the hidden dead 
 men upon them that lay before the high altar. A great 
 pain filled my heart at the sight of all that beauty, and 
 withal I heard quick steps coming up the paved church- 
 path to the porch, and the loud whisde of a sweet old tune 
 therewith ; then the footsteps stopped at the door ; I heard 
 the latch rattle, and knew that Will Green's hand was on 
 the ring of it. 
 
 Then I strove to rise up, but fell back again ; a white 
 light, empty of all sights, broke upon me for a moment, 
 and lo ! behold, I was lying in my familiar bed, the south- 
 westerly gale rattling the Venetian blinds and making their 
 hold- fasts squeak. 
 
A DREAM OF JOHN BALL. 117 
 
 I got up presently, and going to the window looked out 
 on the winter morning ; the river was before me broad 
 between outer bank and bank, but it was nearly dead ebb, 
 and there was a wide space of mud on each side of the 
 hurrying steam, driven on the faster as it seemed by the 
 push of the south-west wind. On the other side of the 
 water the few willow-trees left us by the Thames Conserv- 
 ancy looked doubtfully alive against the bleak sky and the 
 row of wretched-looking blue-slated houses, although, by 
 the w^ay, the latter were the backs of a sort of street of 
 ' villas' and not a slum ; the road in front of the house was 
 sooty and muddy at once, and in the air was that sense 
 of dirty discomfort which one is never quit of in London. 
 The morning was harsh too, and though the wind was from 
 the south-west it was as cold as a north wind : and yet 
 amidst it all, I thought of the corner of the next bight of 
 the river which I could not quite see from where I was, but 
 over which one can see clear of houses and into Richmond 
 Park, looking like the open country ; and dirty as the river 
 was, and hash as was the January wind, they seemed to woo 
 me tow^ard the country side, where away from the miseries 
 of the ' Great Wen ' I might of my own will carry on a 
 day-dream of the friends I had made in the dream of the 
 night and against my will. 
 
 But as I turned away shivering and down-hearted, on a 
 sudden came the frightful noise of the 'hooters,' one after 
 the other, that call the workmen to the factories, this one 
 the after breakfast one, more by token. So I grinned 
 surlily, and dressed and got ready for my day's 'work' as 
 I call it, but which many a man besides John Ruskin 
 (though not many in his position) would call ' play. ' 
 
A KING'S LESSON 
 
A KINGS LESSON. 
 
 IT is told of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary — the 
 Alfred the Great of his time and people — that he once 
 heard (once only f) that some (only some, my lad?) 
 of his peasants were over- worked and under-fed. So he 
 sent for his Council, and bade come thereto also some of 
 the mayors of the good towns, and some of the lords of 
 land and their bailiffs, and asked them of the truth thereof; 
 and in diverse ways they all told one and the same tale, 
 how the peasant carles were stout and well able to w^ork 
 and had enough and to spare of meat and drink, seeing that 
 they were but churls ; and how if they worked not at the 
 least as hard as they did, it would be ill for them and ill 
 for their lords ; for that the more the churl hath the more 
 he asketh ; and that when he knoweth wealth, he knoweth 
 the lack of it also, as it fared with our first parents in the 
 Garden of God. The King sat and said but litde while 
 they spake, but he misdoubted them that they were liars. 
 So the Council brake up with nothing done ; but the King 
 took the matter to heart, being, as kings go, a just man, 
 besides being more valiant than they mostly were, even in 
 the old feudal time. So within two or three days, says the 
 tale, he called together such lords and councilors as he 
 deemed fittest, and bade busk them for a ride ; and when 
 they were ready he and they set out, over rough and 
 
122 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 smooth, decked out in all the glory of attire which was the 
 wont of those days. Thus they rode till they came to some 
 village or thorpe of the peasant folk, and through it to the 
 vineyards where men were working on the sunny southern 
 slopes that went up from the river : my tale does not say 
 whether that were Theiss, or Donau, or what river. Well, 
 I judge it was late spring or early summer, and the vines 
 but just beginning to show their grapes ; for the vintage is 
 late in those lands, and some of the grapes are not gathered 
 till the first frosts have touched them, whereby the wine 
 made from them is the stronger and sweeter. Anyhow 
 there were the peasants, men and women, boys and young 
 maidens, toiling and swinking ; some hoeing between the 
 vine-rows, some bearing baskets of dung up the steep 
 slopes, some in one way, some in another, laboring for the 
 fruit they should never eat, and the wine they should never 
 drink. Thereto turned the King and got off his horse and 
 began to climb up the stony ridges of the vineyard, and 
 his lords in like manner followed him, wondering in their 
 hearts what was toward ; but to the one who was following 
 next after him he turned about and said with a smile, * Yea, 
 lords, this is a new game we are playing to-day, and a new 
 knowledge will come from it.' And the lord smiled, but 
 somewhat sourly. 
 
 As for the peasants, great was their fear of those gay 
 and golden lords. I judge that they did not know the 
 King, since it was litde likely that any one of them had 
 seen his face ; and they knew of him but as the Great 
 Father, the mighty warrior who kept the Turk from har- 
 rying their thorpe. Though, forsooth, little matter was 
 it to any man there whether Turk or Magyar was their 
 over-lord, since to one master or another they had to pay 
 the due tale of laboring days in the year, and hard was the 
 
A KING'S LESSON. 
 
 123 
 
 livelihood that they earned for themselves on the days when 
 they worked for themselves and their wives and children. 
 
 Well, belike they knew not the King ; but amidst those 
 rich lords they saw and knew their own lord, and of him 
 they were sore afraid. But nought it availed them to flee 
 away from those strong men and strong horses — they who 
 had been toiling from before the rising of the sun, and now 
 it wanted little more than an hour of noon : besides, with 
 the King and lords was a guard of crossbowmen, who were 
 left the other side of the vineyard wall, — keen-eyed Italians 
 of the mountains, straight shooters of the bolt. So the 
 poor folk fled not ; nay they made as if all this were none 
 of their business, and went on with their work. For indeed 
 each man said to himself, ' If I be the one that is not slain, 
 to-morrow I shall lack bread if I do not work my hardest 
 to-day ; and maybe I shall be headman if some of .these be 
 slain and I live.' 
 
 Now comes the King among them and says : ' Good 
 fellows, which of you is the headman?' 
 
 Spake a man, sturdy and sunburnt, well on in years and 
 grizzled : * I am the headman, lord.' 
 
 ' Give me thy hoe, then, says the King ; ' for now shall 
 I order this matter myself, since these lords desire a new 
 game, and are fain to work under me at vine-dressing. 
 But do thou stand by me and set me right if I order them 
 wrong : but the rest of you go play ! ' 
 
 The carle knew not what to think, and let the King 
 stand with his hand stretched out, while he looked askance 
 at his own lord and baron, who wagged his head at him 
 grimly as one who says, * Do it, dog ! ' 
 
 Then the carle lets the hoe come into the King's hand ; 
 and the King falls to, and orders his lords for vine-dressing, 
 to each his due share of the work ; and whiles the carle 
 
 ( 
 
124 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 said yea and whiles nay to his ordering. And then ye 
 should have seen velvet cloaks cast off, and mantles of fine 
 Flemish scarlet go to the dusty earth ; as the lords and 
 knights busked them to the work. 
 
 So they buckled to ; and to most of them it seemed 
 good game to play at vine-dressing. But one there was 
 who, when his scarlet cloak was off, stood up in a doublet 
 of glorious Persian web of gold and silk, such as men make 
 not now, worth a hundred florins the Bremen ell. Unto 
 him the King with no smile on his face gave the job of 
 toing and froing up and down the hill with the biggest and 
 the frailest dung-basket that there was; and thereat the 
 silken lord screwed up a grin that was sport to see, and 
 all the lords laughed ; and as he turned away he said, yet 
 so that none heard him, 'Do I serve this son's son of a 
 whore that he should bid me carry dung ? ' For you must 
 know that the King's father, John Hunyad, one of the 
 great warriors of the world, the Hammer of the Turks, was 
 not gotten in wedlock, though he were a King's son. 
 
 Well, they sped the work bravely for a while, and loud 
 was the laughter as the hoes smote the earth and the flint 
 stones tinkled and the cloud of dust rose up ; the brocaded 
 dung-bearer went up and down, cursing and swearing by 
 the White God and the Black ; and one would say to 
 another, ' See ye how gentle blood outgoes churls' blood, 
 even when the gentle does the churl's work : these lazy 
 loons smote but one stroke to our three.' But the King, 
 who worked no worse than any, laughed not at all ; and 
 meanwhile the poor folk stood by, not daring to speak a 
 word one to the other; for they were still sore afraid, not 
 now of being slain on the spot, but this rather was in their 
 hearts : * These great and strong lords and knights have 
 come to see what work a man may do without dying : if 
 
A KING'S LESSON. 125 
 
 we are to have yet more days added to our year's tale of 
 lord's labor, then are we lost without remedy.' And their 
 hearts sank within them. 
 
 So sped the work ; and the sun rose yet higher in the 
 heavens, and it was noon and more. And now there was 
 no more laughter among those toiHng lords, and the strokes 
 of the hoe and mattock came far slower, while the dung- 
 bearer sat down at the bottom of the hill and looked out 
 on the river ; but the King yet worked on doggedly, so 
 for shame the other lords yet kept at it. Till at last the 
 next man to the king let his hoe drop with a clatter, and 
 swore a great oath. Now he was a strong black-bearded 
 man in the prime of life, a valiant captain of that famous 
 Black Band that had so often rent the Turkish array ; and 
 the King loved him for his sturdy valor ; so he says to him, 
 ' Is aught wrong, Captain ? ' 
 
 'Nay, lord,' says he, 'ask the headman carle yonder 
 what ails us.' 
 
 'Headman,' says the King, 'what ails these strong 
 Knights? Have I ordered them wrongly?' 
 
 'Nay, but shirking ails them, lord,' says he, 'for they 
 are weary ; and no wonder, for they have been playing 
 hard, and are of gentle blood.' 
 
 ' Is that so, lords, ' says the King, ' that ye are weary 
 already ? ' 
 
 Then the rest hung their heads and said nought, all 
 save that captain of war ; and he said, being a bold man 
 and no liar : ' King, I see what thou wouldst be at ; thou 
 hast brought us here to preach us a sermon from that Plato 
 of thine ; and to say sooth, so that I may swink no more, 
 and go eat my dinner, now preach thy worst ! Nay, if thou 
 wilt be priest I will be thy deacon. Wilt thou that I ask 
 this laboring carle a thing or two? ' 
 
126 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 *Yea,' said the King. And there came as it were, a 
 cloud of thought over his face. 
 
 Then the captain straddled his legs and looked big and 
 said to the carle : ' Good fellow, how long have we been 
 working here ? ' 
 
 * Two hours or thereabout, judging by the sun above 
 us,' says he. 
 
 'And how much of thy work have we done in that 
 while?' says the captain, and winks his eye at him withal. 
 
 * Lord,' says the carle, grinning a little despite himself, 
 ' be not wroth with my word. In the first half-hour ye did 
 five-and-forty minutes' work of ours, and in the next half- 
 hour scant a thirty minutes' work, and the third half-hour a 
 fifteen minutes' work, and in the fourth half-hour two 
 minutes' work.' The grin now had faded from his face, 
 but a gleam came into his eyes as he said : ' And now, as I 
 suppose, your day's work is done, and ye will go to your 
 dinner, and eat the sweet and drink the strong; and we 
 shall eat a little rye-bread, and then be working here till 
 after the sun has set and the moon has begun to cast 
 shadows. Now for you, I wot not how ye shall sleep nor 
 where, nor what white body ye shall hold in your arms 
 while the night flits and the stars shine ; but for us, while 
 the stars yet shine, shall we be at it again, and bethink ye 
 for what ! I know not what game and play ye shall be 
 devising for to-morrow as ye ride back home ; but for us 
 when we come back here to-morrow, it shall be as if there 
 had been no yesterday and nothing done therein, and that 
 work of that to-day shall be nought to us also, for we shall 
 win no respite from our toil thereby, and the morrow of 
 to-morrow will all be to begin again once more, and so on 
 and on till no to-morrow abideth us. Therefore, if ye are 
 thinking to lay some new tax or tale upon us, think twice 
 
A KING'S LESSON. 1 27 
 
 of it, for we may not bear it. And all this I say with the 
 less fear, because I perceive this man here beside me, in the 
 black velvet jerkin and the gold chain on his neck, is the 
 King ; nor do I think he will slay me for my word since he 
 hath so many a Turk before him and his mighty sword ! ' 
 
 Then said the captain : ' Shall I smite the man, O 
 King? or hath he preached thy sermon for thee?' 
 
 'Smite not, for he hath preached it,' said the King. 
 'Hearken to the carle's sermon, 'lords and councillors of 
 mine ! Yet when another hath spoken our thought, other 
 thoughts are born therefrom, and now have I another 
 sermon to preach ; but I will refrain me as now. Let us 
 down and to our dinner.' 
 
 So they went, the King and his gentles, and sat down 
 by the river under the rustle of the poplars, and they ate 
 and drank and were merry. And the King bade bear up 
 the broken meats to the vine- dressers, and a good draught 
 of the archer's wine, and to the headman he gave a broad 
 gold piece, and to each man three silver pennies. But 
 when the poor folk had all that under their hands, it was to 
 them as though the kingdom of heaven had come down to 
 earth. 
 
 In the cool of the evening home rode the King and his 
 lords. The King was distraught and silent ; but at last 
 the captain, who rode beside him, said to him : ' Preach me 
 now thine after-sermon, O king ! ' 
 
 'I think thou knowest it already,' said the king, 'else 
 hadst thou not spoken in such wise to the carle ; but tell 
 me what is thy craft and the craft of all these, whereby ye 
 live, as the potter by making pots, and so forth ? * 
 
 Said the captn.in : 'As the potter lives by making pots, 
 so we live by robbing the poor.' 
 
 Again said the King : 'And my trade?' 
 
128 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 Said he, ' Thy trade is to be a king of such thieves, yet 
 no worser than the rest.' 
 
 The King laughed. 
 
 'Bear that in mind,' said he, 'and then shall I tell thee 
 my thought while yonder carle spake. Carle,' I thought, 
 'were I thou or such as thou, then would I take in my 
 hand a sword or a spear, or were it only a hedge-stake, and 
 bid others do the like, and forth would we go ; and since 
 we would be so many, and with nought to lose save a 
 miserable life, we would do battle and prevail, and make an 
 end of the craft of kings and of lords and of usurers, and 
 there should be but one craft in the world, to wit, to work 
 merrily for ourselves and to live merrily thereby.' 
 
 Said the captain : ' This then is thy sermon. Who will 
 heed it if thou preach it?' 
 
 Said the King : ' They who will take the mad king and 
 put him in a king's madhouse, therefore do I forebear to 
 preach it. Yet it shall be preached. ' 
 
 'And not heeded,' said the captain, 'save by those who 
 head and hang the setters forth of new things that are good 
 for the world. Our trade is safe for many and many a 
 generation.' 
 
 And therewith they came to the King's palace, and 
 they ate and drank and slept, and the world went on its 
 ways. 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 OF the seven pieces printed in this book, two, The 
 Aims of Aj't and Useful Work versus Useless Toil, 
 have been printed as pamphlets : three others, How we 
 Live a7id How we Might Live ; Whigs, Democrats ayid 
 Socialists, and Feudal England,'^ are reprinted from the 
 Socialist weekly paper, The Commo7iweal, the other two 
 are printed here for the first time. 
 
 These pieces are all of them simply Socialist lectures 
 written for viva voce delivery ; if any excuse be needed 
 for their publication, as may well be, the one I have to 
 offer is, that I have often been asked by persons among 
 my audiences to publish them, and I would fain hope that 
 what interested those persons may also interest others who 
 may first come across them in a book, instead of in a 
 lecture-room. 
 
 I must ask the reader's indulgence for the repetitions 
 which occur in these pieces. Socialist lecturers speak 
 
 *These two lectures — Whigs, Democrats a7id Socialists, and 
 Feudal England— being of interest principally to Englishmen, 
 are omitted from this edition. — Ed. 
 
132 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 almost always to mixed audiences, and hope on every 
 occasion that amongst those who listen to them there may 
 be some to whom Socialism is only a name, and who have 
 sometimes a dim idea, and sometimes none at all, what that 
 name means; I say "hope," since it is to such persons 
 as this that they are specially anxious to give accurate 
 information about their creed. Therefore they can scarcely 
 omit in any lecture the statement of certain elementary 
 propositions — such, e. g. , as the necessity for the abolition 
 of monopoly in the means of production. Indeed, they are 
 by some among their audiences often expected to do much 
 more than this, and blamed for falling short of giving 
 information which no ingenuity could compress into the 
 space of an hour's lecture, over and above the special 
 subject which they may be speaking to. 
 
 For the rest, I have only to say that these lectures put 
 some sides of Socialism before the reader from the point 
 of view of a man who is neither a professional economist 
 nor a professional politician. My ordinary work has forced 
 on me the contrast between times past and the present 
 day, and has made me look with grief and pain on things 
 which many men notice but little, if at all. The repulsion 
 to pessimism which is, I think, natural to a man busily 
 engaged in the arts, compelled me once to hope that the 
 ugly disgraces of civilization might be got rid of by the 
 conscious will of intelligent persons : yet as I strove to 
 stir up people to this reform, I found that the causes of the 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 133 
 
 vulgarities of civilization lay deeper than I had thought, 
 and little by little I was driven to the conclusion that all 
 these uglinesses are but the outward expression of the 
 innate moral baseness into which we are forced by our 
 present form of society, and that it is futile to attempt to 
 deal with them from the outside. Whatever I have written, 
 or spoken on the platform, on these social subjects is the 
 result of the truths of Socialism meeting my earlier 
 impulse, and giving it a definite and much more serious 
 aim ; and I can only hope, in conclusion, that any of my 
 readers who have found themselves hard-pressed by the 
 sordidness of civilization, and have not known where to 
 turn to for encouragement, may receive the same 
 enlightenment as I have, and that even the rough pieces 
 in this book may help them to that end. 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 Hammersmith, 
 
 March, 1888. 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 
 
 HOW WE LIVE AND HOW WE MIGHT LIVE. 
 
 THE word Revolution, which we Socialists are so often 
 forced to use, has a terrible sound in most people's 
 ears, even when we have explained to them that 
 it does not necessarily mean a change accompanied by riot 
 and all kinds of violence, and cannot mean a change made 
 mechanically and in the teeth of opinion by a group of 
 men who have somehow managed to seize on the executive 
 power for the moment. Even when we explain that we 
 use the word revolution in its etymological sense, and 
 mean by it a change in the basis of society, people are 
 scared at the idea of such a vast change, and beg that you 
 will speak of reform and not revolution. As, however, we 
 Socialists do not at all mean by our word revolution what 
 these worthy people mean by their word reform, I can't 
 help thinking that it would be a mistake to use it, whatever 
 projects we might conceal beneath its harmless envelope. 
 So we will stick to our word, which means a change of the 
 basis of society ; it may frighten people, but it will at least 
 warn them that there is something to be frightened about, 
 which will be no less dangerous for being ignored ; and 
 also it may encourage some people, and will mean to them 
 at least not a fear, but a hope. 
 
136 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 Fear and Hope — those are the names of the two great 
 passions which rule the race of man, and with which 
 revolutionists have to deal ; to give hope to the many- 
 oppressed and fear to the few oppressors, that is our 
 business ; if we do the first and give hope to the many, 
 the few must be frightened by their hope ; otherwise we 
 do not want to frighten them ; it is not revenge we want 
 for poor people, but happiness ; indeed, what revenge can 
 be taken for all the thousands of years of the sufferings 
 of the poor? 
 
 However, many of the oppressors of the poor, most 
 of them, we will say, are not conscious of their being 
 oppressors (we shall see why presently) ; they live in an 
 orderly, quiet way themselves, as far as possible removed 
 from the feelings of a Roman slave-owner or a Legree ; 
 they know that the poor exist, but their sufferings do not 
 present themselves to them in a trenchant and dramatic 
 way ; they themselves have troubles to bear, and they think 
 doubtless that to bear trouble is the lot of humanity, nor 
 have they any means of comparing the troubles of their 
 lives with those of people lower in the social scale ; and 
 if ever the thought of those heavier troubles obtrudes itself 
 upon them, they console themselves with the maxim that 
 people do get used to the troubles they have to bear, 
 whatever they may be. 
 
 Indeed, as far as regards individuals at least, that is but 
 too true, so that we have as supporters of the present state 
 of things, however bad it may be, first those comfortable 
 unconscious oppressors who think that they have every- 
 thing to fear from any change which would involve more 
 than the softest and most gradual of reforms, and secondly 
 those poor people who, living hard and anxiously as they 
 do, can hardly conceive of any change for the better hap- 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 137 
 
 pening to them, and dare not risk one tittle ot their poor 
 possessions in taking any action toward a possible better- 
 ing of their condition ; so that while we can do little with 
 the rich save inspire them with fear, it is hard indeed to 
 give the poor any hope. It is, then, no less than reason- 
 able that those whom we try to involve in the great struggle 
 for a better form of life than that which we now lead should 
 call on us to give them at least some idea of what that life 
 may be like. 
 
 A reasonable request, but hard to satisfy, since we are 
 living under a system that makes conscious effort toward 
 reconstruction almost impossible : it is not unreasonable on 
 our part to answer, "There are certain definite obstacles 
 to the real progress of man ; we can tell you what these 
 are ; take them away, and then you shall see." 
 
 However, I purpose now to offer myself as a victim for 
 the satisfaction of those who consider that as things now 
 go we have at least got something, and are terrified at the 
 idea of losing their hold of that, lest they should find they 
 are worse off than before, and have nothing. Yet in the 
 course of my endeavor to show how we might live, I must 
 more or less deal in negatives. I mean to say I must point 
 out where in my opinion we fall short in our present 
 attempts at decent life. I must ask the rich and well-to-do 
 what sort of a position it is which they are so anxious to 
 preserve at any cost? and if, after all, it will, be such a 
 terrible loss to them to give it up? and I must point out 
 to the poor that they, with capacities for living a dignified 
 and generous life, are in a position which they cannot 
 endure without continued degradation. 
 
 How do we live, then, under our present system? Let 
 us look at it a little. 
 
 And first, please to understand that our present system 
 
138 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 of Society is based on a state of perpetual war. Do any 
 of you think that this is as it should be ? I know that you 
 have often been told that the competition, which is at pres- 
 ent the rule of all production, is a good thing, and stimu- 
 lates the progress of the race ; but the people who tell you 
 this should call competition by its shorter name of war if 
 they wish to be honest, and you would then be free to 
 consider whether or no war stimulates progress, otherwise 
 than as a mad bull chasing you over your own garden may 
 do. War or competition, whichever you please to call it, 
 means at the best pursuing your own advantage at the cost 
 of some one else's loss, and in the process of it you must 
 not be sparing of destruction even of your own possessions, 
 or you will certainly come by the worse in the struggle. 
 You understand that perfectly as to the kind of war in 
 which people go out to kill and be killed ; that sort of war 
 in which ships are commissioned, for instance, "to sink, 
 burn, and destroy;" but it appears that you are not so 
 conscious of this waste of goods when you are only carrying 
 on that other war called commerce ; observe, however, that 
 the waste is there all the same. 
 
 Now let us look at this kind of war a little closer, run 
 through some of the forms of it, that we may see how the 
 "burn, sink, and destroy" is carried on in it. 
 
 First, you have that form of it called national rivalry, 
 which in good truth is nowadays the cause of all gunpowder 
 and bayonet wars which civilized nations wage. For years 
 past we English have been rather shy of them, except on 
 those happy occasions when we could carry them on at no 
 sort of risk to ourselves, when the killing was all on one 
 side, or at all events when we hoped it would be. We 
 have been shy of gunpowder war with a respectable enemy 
 for a long while, and I will tell you why : It is because we 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 139 
 
 have had the lion's share of the world-market; we didn't 
 want to fight for it as a nation, for we had got it ; but now 
 this is changing in a most significant, and, to a Socialist, a 
 most cheering way ; we are losing or have lost that lion's 
 share ; it is now a desperate ' ' competition ' ' between the 
 great nations of civilization for the world-market, and 
 to-morrow it may be a desperate war for that end. As a 
 result, the furthering of war (if it be not on too large a 
 scale) is no longer confined to the honor-and-glory kind 
 of old Tories, who if they meant anything at all by it meant 
 that a Tory war would be a good occasion for damping 
 down democracy ; we have changed all that, and now it is 
 quite another kind of politician that is wont to urge us 
 on to "patriotism" as 'tis called. The leaders of the 
 Progressive Liberals, as they would call themselves, long- 
 headed persons who know well enough that social move- 
 ments are going on, who are not blind to the fact that the 
 world will move with their help or without it ; these have 
 been the Jingoes of these later days. I don't mean to say 
 they know what they are doing : politicians, as you well 
 know, take good care to shut their eyes to everything that 
 may happen six months ahead ; but what is being done is 
 this : that the present system, which always must include 
 national rivalry, is pushing us into a desperate scramble 
 for the markets on more or less equal terms with other 
 nations, because, once more, we have lost that command 
 of them which we once had. Desperate is not too strong 
 a word. We shall let this impulse to snatch markets carry 
 us whither it will, whither it must. To-day it is successful 
 burglary and disgrace, to-morrow it may be mere defeat 
 and disgrace. 
 
 Now this is not a digression, although in saying this I 
 am nearer to what is generally called politics than I shall 
 
I40 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 be again. I only want to show you what commercial war 
 comes to when it has to do with foreign nations, and that 
 even the dullest can see how mere waste must go with it. 
 That is how we live now with foreign nations, prepared to 
 ruin them without war if possible, with it if necessary, let 
 alone meantime the disgraceful exploiting of savage tribes 
 and barbarous peoples, on whom we force at once our 
 shoddy wares and our hypocrisy at the cannon's mouth. 
 
 Well, surely Socialism can offer you something in the 
 place of all that. It can ; it can offer you peace and friend- 
 ship instead of war. We might live utterly without national 
 rivalries, acknowledging that while it is best for those who 
 feel that they naturally form a community under one name 
 to govern themselves, yet that no community in civilization 
 should feel that it had interests opposed to any other, their 
 economical condition being at any rate similar ; so that any 
 citizen of one community could fall to work and live without 
 disturbance of his life when he was in a foreign country, 
 and would fit into his place quite naturally ; so that all 
 civilized nations would form one great community, agreeing 
 together as to the kind and amount of production and 
 distribution needed ; working at such and such production 
 where it could be best produced ; avoiding waste by all 
 means. Please to think of the amount of waste which they 
 would avoid, how much such a revolution w^ouM add to 
 the wealth of the world ! What creature on earth would 
 be harmed by such a revolution? Nay, would not every- 
 body be the better for it? And what hinders it? I will 
 tell you presently. 
 
 Meantime let us pass from this ' ' competition ' ' between 
 nations to that between "the organizers of labor," great 
 firms, joint-stock companies ; capitalists in short, and see 
 how competition "stimulates production" among them: 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 14I 
 
 indeed it does do that ; but what kind of production ? 
 Well, production of something to sell at a profit, or say 
 production of profits : and note how war commercial stim- 
 ulates that : a certain market is demanding goods ; there 
 are, say, a hundred manufacturers who make that kind of 
 goods, and every one of them would if he could keep that 
 market to himself, and struggles desperately to get as much 
 of it as he can, with the obvious result that presently the 
 thing is overdone, and the market is glutted, and all that 
 fury of manufacture has to sink into cold ashes. Doesn't 
 that seem something like war to you? Can't you see the 
 waste of it — waste of labor, skill, cunning, waste of life in 
 short? Well, you may say, but it cheapens the goods. 
 In a sense it does ; and yet only apparently, as wages have 
 a tendency to sink for the ordinary worker in proportion 
 as prices sink ; and at what a cost do we gain this appear- 
 ance of cheapness ! Plainly speaking, at the cost of cheating 
 the consumer and starving the real producer for the benefit 
 of the gambler, who uses both consumer and producer as 
 his milch cows. I needn't go at length into the subject 
 of adulteration, for every one knows what kind of a part 
 it plays in this sort of commerce ; but remember that it is 
 an absolutely necessary incident to the production of profit 
 out of wares, which is the business of the so-called manu- 
 facturer ; and this you must understand, that, taking him 
 in the lump, the consumer is perfectly helpless against the 
 gambler ; the goods are forced on him by their cheapness, 
 and with them a certain kind of life which that energetic, 
 that aggressive cheapness determines for him : for so far- 
 reaching is this curse of commercial war that no country 
 is safe from its ravages ; the traditions of a thousand years 
 fall before it in a month ; it overruns a weak or semi-bar- 
 barous country, and whatever romance or pleasure or art 
 
142 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS, 
 
 existed there, is trodden down into a mire of sordidness 
 and ugliness ; the Indian or Javanese craftsman may no 
 longer ply his craft leisurely, working a few hours a day, 
 in producing a maze of strange beauty on a piece of cloth : 
 a steam-engine is set a-going at Manchester, and that 
 victory over nature and a thousand stubborn difficulties 
 is used for the base work of producing a sort of plaster of 
 china-clay and shoddy, and the Asiatic worker, if he is not 
 starved to death outright, as plentifully happens, is driven 
 himself into a factory to lower the wages of his Manchester 
 brother worker, and nothing of character is left him except, 
 most like, an accumulation of fear and hatred of that to 
 him most unaccountable evil, his English master. The 
 South Sea Islander must leave his canoe-carving, his sweet 
 rest, and his graceful dances, and become the slave of a 
 slave : trowsers, shoddy, rum, missionary, and fatal disease 
 — he must swallow all this civilization in the lump, and 
 neither himself nor we can help him now till social order 
 displaces the hideous tyranny of gambling that has ruined 
 him. 
 
 Let those be types of the consumer : but now for the 
 producer ; I mean the real producer, the worker ; how 
 does this scramble for the plunder of the market affect 
 him? The manufacturer, in the eagerness of his war, has 
 had to collect into one neighborhood a vast army of 
 workers, he has drilled them till they are as fit as may be 
 for his special branch of production, that is, for making a 
 profit out of it, and with the result of their being fit for 
 nothing else : well, when the glut comes in that market he 
 is supplying, what happens to this army, every private in 
 which has been depending on the steady demand in that 
 market, and acting, as he could not choose but act, as if it 
 were to go on for ever? You know well what happens to 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE, 
 
 U3 
 
 these men : the factory door is shut on them ; on a very 
 large part of them often, and at the best on the reserve 
 army of labor, so busily employed in the time of inflation. 
 What becomes of them ? Nay, we know that well enough 
 just now. But what we don't know, or don't choose to 
 know, is, that this reserve army of labor is an absolute 
 necessity for commercial war ; if otir manufacturers had 
 not got these poor devils whom they could draft on to 
 their machines when the demand swelled, other manufac- 
 turers in France, or Germany, or America, would step in 
 and take the market from them. 
 
 So you see, as we live now, it is necessary that a vast 
 part of the industrial population should be exposed to the 
 danger of periodical semi-starvation, and that, not for the 
 advantage of the people in another part of the world, but 
 for their degradation and enslavement. 
 
 Just let your minds run for a moment on the kind of 
 waste which this means, this opening up of new markets 
 among savage and barbarous countries which is the extreme 
 type of the force of the profit-market on the world, and you 
 will surely see what a hideous nightmare that profit-market 
 is : it keeps us sweating and terrified for our livelihood, 
 unable to read a book, or look at a picture, or have 
 pleasant fields to walk in, or to lie in the sun, or to share 
 in the knowledge of our time, to have in short either animal 
 or intellectual pleasure, and for what? that we may go on 
 living the same slavish hfe till we die, in order to provide 
 for a rich man what is called a life of ease and luxury ; that 
 is to say, a life so empty, unwholesome, and degraded, that 
 perhaps, on the whole, he is worse off than we the workers 
 are : and as to the result of all this suffering, it is luckiest 
 when it is nothing at all, when you can say that the wares 
 have done nobody any good ; for oftenest they have done 
 
144 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 niany people harm, and we have toiled and groaned and 
 died in making poison and destruction for our fellow-men. 
 
 Well, I say all this is war, and the results of war, the 
 war this time, not of competing nations, but of competing 
 firms or capitalist units: and it is this war of the firms 
 which hinders the peace between nations which you surely 
 have agreed with me in thinking is so necessary ; for you 
 must know that war is the very breath of the nostrils of 
 these fighting firms, and they have now, in our times, got 
 into their hands nearly all the political power, and they 
 band together in each country in order to make their 
 respective governments fulfill just two functions : the first is 
 at home to act as a strong police force, to keep the ring in 
 which the strong are beating down the weak ; the second 
 is to act as a piratical body-guard abroad, a petard to 
 explode the doors which lead to the markets of the world : 
 markets at any price abroad, uninterfered-with privilege, 
 falsely called laissez-faire,^ at any price at home, to provide 
 these is the sole business of a government such as our 
 industrial captains have been able to conceive of I must 
 now try to show you the reason of all this, and what it rests 
 on, by trying to answer the question, Why have the profit- 
 makers got a)l this power, or at least why are they able to 
 keep it? 
 
 Tha'£ takes us to the third form of war commercial : the 
 last, and the one which all the rest is founded on. We 
 have spoken first of the war of rival nations ; next of that 
 of rival firms : we have now to speak of rival men. As 
 nations under the present system are driven to compete 
 
 * Falsely ; because the privileged classes have at their back the 
 force of the Executive by means of which to compel the unprivileged 
 to accept their terms; if this is "free competition " there is no 
 meaning in words. 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 145 
 
 with one another for the markets of the world, and as firms 
 or the captains of industry have to scramble for their share 
 of the profits of the markets, so also have the workers to 
 compete with each other — for livelihood ; and it is this 
 constant competition or war amongst them which enables 
 the profit-grinders to make their profits, and by means of 
 the wealth so acquired to take all the executive power 
 of the country into their hands. But here is the difference 
 between the position of the workers and the profit-makers : 
 to the latter, the profit-grinders, war is necessary ; you 
 cannot have profit-making without competition, individual, 
 corporate, and national ; but you may work for a livelihood 
 without competing ; you may combine instead of competing. 
 I have said war was the life-breath of the profit-makers ; 
 in like manner, combination is the life of the workers. The 
 working- classes or proletariat cannot even exist as a class 
 without combination of some sort. The necessity which 
 forced the profit-grinders to collect their men first into 
 work-shops working by the division of labor, and next into 
 great factories worked by machinery, and so gradually to 
 draw them into the great towns and centers of civilization, 
 gave birth to a distinct working-class or proletariat : and 
 this it was which gave them their mechanical existence, so 
 to say. But note, that they are indeed combined into 
 social groups for the production of wares, but only as yet 
 mechanically ; they do not know what they are working at, 
 nor whom they are working for, because they are combining 
 to produce wares of which the profit of a master forms an 
 essential part, instead of goods for their own use : as long 
 as they do this, and compete with each other for leave to 
 do it, they will be, and will feel themselves to be, simply a 
 part of those competing firms I have been speaking of; 
 they will be in fact just a part of the machinery for the pro- 
 
146 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 duction of profit ; and so long as this lasts it will be the 
 aim of the masters or profit-makers to decrease the market 
 value of this human part of the machinery ; that is to say, 
 since they already hold in their hands the labor of dead 
 men in the form of capital and machinery, it is their inter- 
 est, or we will say their necessity, to pay as little as they 
 can help for the labor of living men which they have to buy 
 from day to day : and since the workmen they employ 
 have nothing but their labor-power, they are compelled to 
 underbid one another for employment and wages, and so 
 enable the capitalist to play his game. 
 
 I have said that, as things go, the workers are a part 
 of the competing firms, an adjunct of capital. Neverthe- 
 less, they are only so by compulsion ; and, even without 
 their being conscious of it, they struggle against that com- 
 pulsion and its immediate results, the lowering of their 
 wages, of their standard of life ; and this they do, and must 
 do, both as a class and individually : just as the slave of the 
 great Roman lord, though he distinctly felt himself to be a 
 part of the household, yet collectively was a force in reserve 
 for its destruction, and individually stole from his lord 
 whenever he could safely do so. So, here, you see, is 
 another form of war necessary to the way we live now, the 
 war of class against class, which, when it rises to its height, 
 and it seems to be rising at present, will destroy those other 
 forms of war we have been speaking of; will make the 
 position of the profit-makers, of perpetual commercial war, 
 untenable ; will destroy the present system of competitive 
 privilege, or commercial war. 
 
 Now observe, I said that to the existence of the workers 
 it was combination, not competition, that was necessary, 
 while to that of the profit-makers combination was impos- 
 sible, and war necessary, The present position of the 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 
 
 H7 
 
 workers is that of the machinery of commerce, or in plainer 
 words its slaves ; when they change that position and 
 become free, the class of profit-makers must cease to exist ; 
 and what will then be the position of the workers ? Even 
 as it is they are the one necessary part of society, the life- 
 giving part ; the other classes are but hangers-on who live 
 on them. But what should they be, what will they be, 
 when they, once for all, come to know their real power, and 
 cease competing with one another for livelihood? I will 
 tell you : they will be society, they will be the community. 
 And being society — that is, there being no class outside 
 them to contend with — they can then regulate their iabor 
 in accordance with their own real needs. 
 
 There is much talk about supply and demand, but the 
 supply and demand usually meant is an artificial one ; it is 
 under the sway of the gambling market ; the demand is 
 forced, as I hinted above, before it is supplied ; nor, as each 
 producer is working against all the rest, can the producers 
 hold their hands, till the market is glutted and the workers, 
 thrown out on the streets, hear that there has been over- 
 production, amidst which over-plus of unsalable goods 
 they go ill-supplied with even necessaries, because the 
 wealth which they themselves have created is "ill-dis- 
 tributed," as we call it — that is, unjustly taken away from 
 them. 
 
 When the workers are society they will regulate their 
 labor, so that the supply and demand shall be genuine, not 
 gambling ; the two will then be commensurate, for it is the 
 same society which demands that also supplies ; there will 
 be no more artificial famines then, no more poverty amidst 
 over-production, amidst too great a stock of the very things 
 which should supply poverty and turn it into well-being. 
 In short, there will be no waste and therefore no tyranny. 
 
148 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 Well, now, what Socialism offers you in place of these 
 artificial famines, with their so-called over-production, is, 
 once more, regulation of the markets ; supply and demand 
 commensurate ; no gambling, and consequently (once 
 more) no waste ; not overwork and weariness for the 
 worker one month, and the next no work and terror of 
 starvation, but steady work and plenty of leisure every 
 month ; not cheap market wares, that is to say, adulterated 
 wares, with scarcely any good in them, mere scaffold-poles 
 for building up profits ; no labor would be spent on such 
 things as these, which people would cease to want when 
 they ceased to be slaves. Not these, but such goods as best 
 fulfilled the real uses of the consumers, would labor be set 
 to make ; for profit being abolished, people could have 
 what they wanted, instead of what the profit-grinders at 
 home and abroad forced them to take. 
 
 For what I want you to understand is this : that in every 
 civilized country at least there is plenty for all — is, or at any 
 rate might be. Even with labor so misdirected as it is at 
 present, an equitable distribution of the wealth we have 
 would make all people comparatively comfortable ; but 
 that is nothing to the wealth we might have if labor were 
 not misdirected. 
 
 Observe, in the early days of the history of man he was 
 the slave of his most immediate necessities ; Nature was 
 mighty and he was feeble, and he had to wage constant 
 war with her for his daily food and such shelter as he could 
 get. His life was bound down and limited by this constant 
 struggle ; all his morals, laws, religion, are in fact the out- 
 come and the reflection of this ceaseless toil of earning his 
 livelihood. Time passed, and little by little, step by step, 
 he grew stronger, till now after all these ages he has almost 
 completely conquered Nature, and one would think should 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 
 
 149 
 
 now have leisure to turn his thoughts toward higher things 
 than procuring to-morrow's dinner. But, alas ! his progress 
 has been broken and lialting ; and though he has indeed 
 conquered Nature and has her forces under his control to 
 do what he will with, he still has himself to conquer, he still 
 has to think how he will best use those forces which he has 
 mastered. At present he uses them blindly, foolishly, as 
 one dri\'en by mere fate. It would almost seem as if some 
 phantom of the ceaseless pursuit of food which was once 
 the master of the savage was still hunting the civilized man ; 
 who toils in a dream, as it were, haunted by mere dim 
 unreal hopes, born of vague recollections of the days gone 
 by. Out of that dream he must wake, and face things as 
 they really are. The conquest of Nature is complete, may 
 we not say ? and now our business is, and has for long been, 
 the organization of man, who wields the forces of Nature. 
 Nor till this is attempted at least shall we ever be free of 
 that terrible phantom of fear of starvation which, with its 
 brother devil, desire of domination, drives us into injustice, 
 cruelty, and dastardliness of all kinds : to cease to fear our 
 fellows and learn to depend on them, to do away wdth 
 competition and build up cooperation, is our one necessity. 
 Now, to get closer to details ; you probably know that 
 every man in civilization is worth, so to say, more than his 
 skin ; working, as he must work, socially, he can produce 
 more than will keep himself alive and in fair condition ; and 
 this has been so for many centuries, from the time, in fact, 
 when warring tribes began to make their conquered enemies 
 slaves instead of killing them ; and of course his capacity 
 of producing these extras has gone on increasing faster and 
 faster, till to-day one man will weave, for instance, as much 
 cloth in a week as will clothe a whole village for years : 
 and the real question of civilization has always been what 
 
150 
 
 WILLIAM MOI^RIS. 
 
 are we do to with this extra produce of labor — a question 
 which the phantom, fear of starvation, and its fellow, desire 
 of domination, has driven men to answer pretty badly 
 always, and worst of all perhaps in these present days, 
 when the extra produce has grown with such prodigious 
 speed. The practical answer has always been for man to 
 struggle with his fellow for private possession of undue 
 shares of these extras, and all kinds of devices have been 
 employed by those who found themselves in possession of 
 the power of taking them from others to keep those whom 
 they had robbed in perpetual subjection ; and these latter, 
 as I have already hinted, had no chance of resisting this 
 fleecing as long as they were few and scattered, and 
 consequently could have little sense of their common 
 oppression. But now that, owing to the very pursuit of 
 these undue shares of profit, or extra earnings, men have 
 become more dependent on each other for production, and 
 have been driven, as I said before, to combine together for 
 that end more completely, the power of the workers — that 
 is to say, of the robbed or fleeced class — has enormously 
 increased, and it only remains for them to understand that 
 they have this power. When they do that they will be 
 able to give the right answer to the question what is to be 
 done with the extra products of labor over and above what 
 will keep the laborer alive to labor : which answer is, that 
 the worker will have all that he produces, and not be 
 fleeced at all : and remember that he produces collectively, 
 and therefore he will do eflectively what work is required 
 of him according to his capacity, and of the produce of that 
 work he will have what he needs ; because, you see, he 
 cannot use more than he needs — he can only waste it. 
 
 If this arrangement seems to you preposterously ideal, 
 as it well may, looking at our present condition, I must 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE, 151 
 
 back it up by saying that when men are organized so that 
 their labor is not wasted, they will be relieved from the fear 
 of starvation and the desire of domination, and will have 
 freedom and leisure to look round and see what they really 
 do need. 
 
 Now something of that I can conceive for my own self, 
 and I will lay my ideas before you, so that you may 
 compare them with your own, asking you always to remem- 
 ber that the very differences in men's capacities and 
 desires, after the common need of food and shelter is 
 satisfied, will make it easier to deal with their desires in a 
 communal state of things. 
 
 What is it that I need, therefore, which my surrounding 
 circumstances can give me — my dealings with my fellow- 
 men — setting aside inevitable accidents which cooperation 
 and forethought cannot control, if there be such? 
 
 Well, first of all I claim good health ; and I say that a 
 vast proportion of people in civilization scarcely even know 
 what that means. To feel mere life a pleasure ; to enjoy 
 the moving one's limbs and exercising one's bodily powers ; 
 to play, as it were, with the sun and wind and rain ; to 
 rejoice in satisfying the due bodily appetites of a human 
 animal without fear of degradation or sense of wong- 
 doing : yes, and therewithal to be well formed, straight- 
 limbed, strongly knit, expressive of countenance - to be, in 
 a word, beautiful — that also I claim. If we cannot have 
 this claim satisfied, we are but poor creatures after all ; and 
 I claim it in the teeth of those terrible doctrines of 
 asceticism, which, born of the despair of the oppressed and 
 degraded, have been for so many ages used as instruments 
 for the continuance of that oppression and degradation. 
 
 And I believe that this claim for a healthy body for all 
 of us carries with it all other due claims : for who knows 
 
152 
 
 WILLIAM 3I0RRIS. 
 
 where the seeds of disease which even rich people suffer 
 from were first sown : from the luxury of an ancestor, 
 perhaps ; yet often, I suspect, from his poverty. And for 
 the poor : a distinguished physicist has said that the poor 
 suffer always from one disease — hunger ; and at least I 
 know this, that if a man is overworked in any degree he 
 cannot enjoy the sort of health I am speaking of; nor can 
 he if he is continually chained to one dull round of 
 mechanical work, with no hope at the other end of it ; nor 
 if he lives in continual sordid anxiety for his livelihood, nor 
 if he is ill-housed, nor if he is deprived of all enjoyment of 
 the natural beauty of the world, nor if he has no amusement 
 to quicken the flow of his spirits from time to time : all 
 these things, which touch more or less directly on his 
 bodily condition, are born of the claim I make to live in 
 good health ; indeed, I suspect that these good conditions 
 must have been in force for several generations before a 
 population in general will be really healthy, as I have 
 hinted above ; but also I doubt not that in the course 
 of time they would, joined to other conditions, of which 
 more hereafter, gradually breed such a population, living 
 in enjoyment of animal life at least, happy therefore, and 
 beautiful according to the beauty of their race. On this 
 point I may note that the very variations in the races of 
 men are caused by the conditions under which they live, 
 and though in these rougher parts of the world we lack 
 some of the advantages of climate and surroundings, yet, 
 if we were working for liveHhood and not for profit, we 
 might easily neutralize many of the disadvantages of our 
 climate, at least enough to give due scope to the full 
 development of our race. 
 
 Now the next thing I claim is education. And you 
 must not say that every English child is educated now ; 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 
 
 153 
 
 that sort of education will not answer my claim, though I 
 cheerfully admit it is something : something, and yet after 
 all only class education. What I claim is Hberal education ; 
 opportunity, that is, to have my share of whatever knowl- 
 edge there is in the world according to my capacity or 
 bent of mind, historical or scientific ; and also to have my 
 share of skill of hand which is about in the world, either in 
 the industrial handicrafts or in the fine arts ; picture- 
 painting, sculpture, music, acting, or the like : I claim to 
 be taught, if I can be taught, more than one craft to 
 exercise for the benefit of the community. You may think 
 this a large claim, but I am clear it is not too large a claim 
 if the community is to have any gain out of my special 
 capacities, if we are not all to be beaten down to a dull 
 level of mediocrity as we are now, all but the very strongest 
 and toughest of us. 
 
 But also I know that this claim for education involves 
 one for public advantages in the shape of public libraries, 
 schools, and the like, such as no private person, not even 
 the richest, could command : but these I claim very con- 
 fidently, being sure that no reasonable community could 
 bear to be without such helps to a decent life. 
 
 Again, the claim for education involves a claim for 
 abundant leisure, which once more I make with confidence ; 
 because when once we have shaken off the slavery of profit, 
 labor would be organized so unwastefully that no heavy 
 burden would be laid on the individual citizens ; every one 
 of whom as a matter of course would have to pay his toll 
 of some obviously useful work. At present you must note 
 that all the amazing machinery which we have invented has 
 served only to increase the amount of profit-bearing wares ; 
 in other words, to increase the amount of profit pouched by 
 individuals for their own advantage, part of which profit 
 
154 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 they use as capital for the production of more profit, with 
 ever the same waste attached to it ; and part as private 
 riches or means for luxurious living, which again is sheer 
 waste — is in fact to be looked on as a kind of bonfire on 
 which rich men burn up the product of the labor they have 
 fleeced from the workers beyond what they themselves can 
 use. So I say that, in spite of our inventions, no worker 
 works under the present system an hour the less on 
 account of those labor-saving machines, so-called. But 
 under a happier state of things they would be used simply 
 for saving labor, with the result of a vast amount of leisure 
 gained for the community to be added to that gained by 
 the avoidance of the waste of useless luxury, and the 
 abolition of the service of commercial war. 
 
 And I may say that as to that leisure, as I should in no 
 case do any harm to any one with it, so I should often do 
 some direct good to the community with it, by practicing 
 arts or occupations for my hands or brain which would 
 give pleasure to many of the citizens ; in other words, a 
 great deal of the best work done would be done in the 
 leisure time of men relieved from any anxiety as to their 
 livelihood, and eager to exercise their special talent, as all 
 men, nay, all animals are. 
 
 Now, again, this leisure would enable me to please 
 myself and expand my mind by traveling if I had a mind to 
 it : because, say, for instance, that I were a shoemaker ; if 
 due social order were established, it by no means follows 
 that I should always be obliged to make shoes in one 
 place ; a due amount of easily conceivable arrangement 
 would enable me to make shoes in Rome, say, for three 
 months, and to come back with new ideas of building, 
 gathered from the sight of the works of past ages, among 
 other things which would perhaps be of service in London. 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 155 
 
 But now, in order that my leisure might not degenerate 
 into idleness and aimlessness, I must set up a claim for due 
 work to do. Nothing to my mind is more important than 
 this demand, and I must ask your leave to say something 
 about it. I have mentioned that I should probably use my 
 leisure for doing a good deal of what is now called work ; 
 but it is clear that if I am a member of a Socialist Com- 
 munity I must do my due share of rougher work than this 
 — my due share of what my capacity enables me to do, that 
 is ; no fitting of me to a Procrustean bed ; but even that 
 share of work necessary to the existence of the simplest 
 social life must, in the first place, whatever else it is, be 
 reasonable work ; that is, it must be such work as a good 
 citizen can see the necessity for ; as a member of the 
 community, I must have agreed to do it. 
 
 To take two strong instances of the contrary, I won't 
 submit to be dressed up in red and marched off to shoot at 
 my French or German or Arab friend in a quarrel that I 
 don't understand ; I will rebel sooner than do that. 
 
 Nor will I submit to waste my time and energies in 
 making some trifling toy which I know only a fool can 
 desire ; I will rebel sooner than do that. 
 
 However, you may be sure that in a state of social 
 order I shall have no need to rebel against any such pieces 
 of unreason ; only I am forced to speak from the way we 
 live to the way we might live. 
 
 Again, if the necessary reasonable work be of a mechan- 
 ical kind, I must be helped to do it by a machine, not to 
 cheapen my labor, but so that as little time as possible may 
 be spent upon it, and that I may be able to think of other 
 things while I am tending the machine. And if the work 
 be specially rough or exhausting, you will, I am sure, agree 
 with me in saying that I must take turns in doing it with 
 
156 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 other people; I mean I mustn't, for instance, be expected 
 to spend my working hours always at the bottom of a coal- 
 pit. I think such work as that ought to be largely 
 volunteer work, and done, as I say, in spells. And what I 
 say of very rough work I say also of nasty work. On the 
 other hand, I should think very little of the manhood of a 
 stout and healthy man who did not feel a pleasure in doing 
 rough work ; always supposing him to work under the 
 conditions I have been speaking of — namely, feeling that it 
 was useful (and consequently honored), and that it was not 
 continuous or hopeless, and that he was really doing it of 
 his own free will. 
 
 The last claim I make for my work is that the places I 
 worked in, factories or workshops, should be pleasant, just 
 as the fields where our most necessary work is done are 
 pleasant. Believe me there is nothing in the world to 
 prevent this being done, save the necessity of making 
 profits on all wares ; in other words, the wares are cheapened 
 at the expense of people being forced to work in crowded, 
 unwholesome, squalid, noisy dens : that is to say, they are 
 cheapened at the expense of the workman's life. 
 
 Well, so much for my claims as to my ftecessary work, 
 my tribute to the community. I believe people would find, 
 as they advanced in their capacity for carrying on social 
 order, that life so lived was much less expensive than we 
 now can have any idea of, and that, after a little, people 
 would rather be anxious to seek work than to avoid it ; 
 that our working hours would rather be merry parties of 
 men and maids, young men and old enjoying themselves 
 over their work, than the grumpy weariness it mostly is 
 now. Then would come the time for the new birth of art, 
 so much talked of, so long deferred ; people could not help 
 showing their mirth and pleasure in their work, and would 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 157 
 
 be always wishing to express it in a tangible and more or 
 less enduring form, and the workshop would once more be 
 a school of art, whose influence no one could escape from. 
 
 And, again, that word art leads me to my last claim, 
 which is that the material surroundings of my life should 
 be pleasant, generous, and beautiful ; that I know is a large 
 claim, but this I will say about it, that if it cannot be 
 satisfied, if every civilized community cannot provide such 
 surroundings for all its members, I do not want the world 
 to go on ; it is a mere misery that man has ever existed. I 
 do not think it possible under the present circumstances to 
 speak too strongly on this point. I feel sure that the time 
 will come when people will find it difficult to believe that a 
 rich community such as ours, having such command over 
 external Nature, could have submitted to live such a mean, 
 shabby, dirty life as we do. 
 
 And once for all, there is nothing in our circumstances 
 save the hunting of profit that drives us into it. It is profit 
 which draws men into enormous unmanageable aggrega- 
 tions called towns, for instance ; profit which crowds them 
 up when they are there into quarters without gardens or 
 open spaces; profit which won't take the most ordinary 
 precautions against wrapping a whole district in a cloud of 
 sulphurous smoke ; which turns beautiful rivers into filthy 
 sewers ; which condemns all but the rich to live in houses 
 idiotically cramped and confined at the best, and at the 
 worst in houses for whose wretchedness there is no name. 
 
 I say it is almost incredible that we should bear such 
 crass stupidity as this ; nor should we if we could help it. 
 We shall not bear it when the workers get out of their 
 heads that they are but an appendage to profit-grinding, 
 that the more profits that are made the more employment 
 at high wages there will be for them, and that, therefore, all 
 
i5«3 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 the incredible filth, disorder, and degradation of modern 
 civilization are signs of their prosperity. So far from that, 
 they are signs of their slavery. When they are no longer 
 slaves they will claim as a matter of course that every man 
 and every family should be generously lodged ; that e\'ery 
 child should be able to play in a garden close to the place 
 his parents live in ; that the houses should by their obvious 
 decency and order be ornaments to Nature, not disfigure- 
 ments of it ; for the decency and order above-mentioned 
 when carried to the due pitch would most assuredly lead to 
 beauty in building. All this, of course, would mean the 
 people — that is, all society — duly organized, having in its 
 own hands the means of production, to be owned by no 
 individual, but used by all as occasion called for its use, and 
 can only be done on those terms ; on any other terms 
 people will be driven to accumulate private wealth for 
 themselves, and thus, as we have seen, to waste the goods 
 of the community and perpetuate the division into classes, 
 which means continual war and waste. 
 
 As to what extent it may be necessary or desirable for 
 people under social order to live in common, we may differ 
 pretty much according to our tendencies toward social life. 
 For my part I can't see why we should think it a hardship 
 to eat with the people w^e.work with ; I am sure that as to 
 many things, such as valuable books, pictures, and splendor 
 of surroundings, we shall find it better to club our means 
 together ; and I must say that often when I have been 
 sickened by the stupidity of the mean idiotic rabbit warrens 
 that rich men build for themselves in Bayswater and else- 
 where, I console myself with visions of the noble communal 
 hall of the future, unsparing of materials, generous in 
 worthy ornament, alive with the noblest thoughts of our 
 time, and the past, embodied in the best art which a free 
 
SIGNS OF\CHANGE. 159 
 
 and manly people could produce ; such an abode of man as 
 no private enterprise could come anywhere near for beauty 
 and fitness, because only collective thought and collective 
 life could cherish the aspirations which would give birth to 
 its beauty, or have the skill and leisure to carry them out. 
 I for my part should think it much the reverse of a hard- 
 ship if I had to read my books and meet my friends in such 
 a place ; nor do I think I am better off to live in a vulgar 
 stuccoed house crowded with upholstery that I despise, in 
 all respects degrading to the mind and enervating to the 
 body to live in, simply because I call it my own, or my 
 house. 
 
 It is not an original remark, but I make it here, that 
 my home is where I meet people with whom I sympathize, 
 whom I love. 
 
 Well, that is my opinion as a middle-class man. 
 Whether .a working-class man would think his family 
 possession of his wretched little room better than his share 
 of the palace of which I have spoken, I must leave to his 
 opinion, and to the imaginations of the middle class, who 
 perhaps may sometimes conceive the fact that the said 
 worker is cramped for space and comfort — say on washing- 
 day. 
 
 Before I leave this matter of the surroundings of life, I 
 wish to meet a possible objection. I have spoken of 
 machinery being used freely for releasing people from the 
 more mechanical and repulsive part of necessary labor ; 
 and I know that to some cultivated people, people of the 
 artistic turn of mind, machinery is particularly distasteful, 
 and they will be apt to say you will never get your 
 surroundings pleasant so long as you are surrounded by 
 machinery. I don't quite admit that; it is the allowing 
 machines to be our masters and not our servants that so 
 
i6o WlfJJAM MORRIS. 
 
 injures the beauty of life nowadays. In other words, it is 
 the token of the terrible crime we have fallen into of using 
 our control of the powers of Nature for the purpose of 
 enslaving people, we careless meantime of how much 
 happiness we rob their lives of 
 
 Yet for the consolation of the artists I will say that I 
 believe indeed that a state of social order would probably 
 lead at first to a great development of machinery for really 
 useful purposes, because people will still be anxious about 
 getting through the work necessary to holding society 
 together ; but that after a while they wall fmd that there is 
 not so much work to do as they expected, and that then 
 they w^ill have leisure to reconsider the whole subject ; and 
 if it seems to them that a certain industry would be carried 
 on more pleasantly as regards the worker, and more effect- 
 ually as regards the goods, by using hand-work rather 
 than machinery, they will certainly get rid of their machin- 
 ery, because it will be possible for them to do so. It isn't 
 possible now ; we are not at liberty to do so ; we are slaves 
 to the monsters which we have created. And I have a 
 kind of hope that the very elaboration of machinery in a 
 society whose purpose is not the multiplication of labor, as 
 it now is, but the carrying on of a pleasant life, as it would 
 be under social order — that the elaboration of machinery, I 
 say, will lead to the simplification of life, and so once more 
 to the limitation of machinery. 
 
 Well, I will now let my claims for decent life stand as I 
 have made them. To sum them up in brief, they are : 
 First, a healthy body ; second, an active mind in sympathy 
 with the past, the present, and the future ; thirdly, occupa- 
 tion fit for a healthy body and an active mind ; and fourthly, 
 a beautiful world to live in. 
 
 These are the conditions of life which the refined man 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. l6l 
 
 of all ages has set before him as the thing above all others 
 to be attained. Too often he has been so foiled in their 
 pursuit that he has turned longing eyes backward to the 
 days before civilization, when man's sole business was 
 getting himself food from day to day, and hope was 
 dormant in him, or at least could not be expressed by him. 
 
 Indeed, if civilization (as many think) forbids the real- 
 ization of the hope to attain such conditions of life, then 
 civilization forbids mankind to be happy ; and if that be the 
 case, then let us stifle all aspirations toward progress — 
 nay, all feelings of mutual good-will and affection between 
 men — and snatch each one of us what we can from the 
 heap of wealth that fools create for rogues to grow fat on ; 
 or better still, let us as speedily as possible find some means 
 of dying like men, since we are forbidden to live like men. 
 
 Rather, however, take courage, and believe that we of 
 this age, in spite of all its torment and disorder, have been 
 born to a wonderful heritage fashioned of the work of those 
 that have gone before us ; and that the day of the organiza- 
 tion of man is dawning. It is not we who can build up the 
 new social order ; the past ages have done the most of that 
 work for us ; but we can clear our eyes to the signs of the 
 times, and we shall then see that the attainment of a good 
 condition of life is being made possible for us, and that it is 
 now our business to stretch out our hands to take it. 
 
 And how ? Chiefly, I think, by educating people to a 
 sense of their real capacities as men, so that they may be 
 able to use to their own good the political power which is 
 rapidly being thrust upon them ; to get them to see that 
 the old system of organizing labor for individual profit is 
 becoming unmanageable, and that the whole people have 
 now got to choose between the confusion resulting from 
 the break up of that system and the determination to take 
 
1 62 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 in hand the labor now organized for profit, and use its 
 organization for the Hvehhood of the community : to get 
 people to see that individual profit-makers are not a neces- 
 sity for labor but an obstruction to it, and that not only or 
 chiefly because they are the perpetual pensioners of labor, 
 as they are, but rather because of the waste which their 
 existence as a class necessitates. All this we have to teach 
 people, when we have taught ourselves ; and I admit that 
 the work is long and burdensome ; as I began by saying, 
 people have been made so timorous of change by the terror 
 of starvation that even the unluckiest of them are stolid 
 and hard to move. Hard as the work is, however, its 
 reward is not doubtful. The mere fact that a body of men, 
 however small, are banded together as Socialist missionaries 
 shows that the change is going on. As the working-classes, 
 the real organic part of society, take in these ideas, hope 
 will arise in them, and they will claim changes in society, 
 many of which doubtless will not tend directly toward 
 their emancipation, because they will be claimed without 
 due knowledge of the one thing necessary to claim, equality 
 of condition; but which indirectly will help to break up our 
 rotten sham society, while that claim for equality of condi- 
 tion will be made constantly and with growing loudness till 
 it 7nnst be listened to, and then at least it will only be a 
 step over the border and the civilized world will be social- 
 ized ; and, looking back on what has been, we shall be 
 astonished to think of how long we submitted to live as we 
 live now. 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 163 
 
 THE HOPES OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 EVERY age has had its hopes, hopes that look to some- 
 thing beyond the Hfe of the age itself, hopes that try 
 to pierce into the future ; and, strange to say, I believe 
 that those hopes have been stronger not in the heyday of 
 the epoch which has given them birth, but rather in its 
 decadence and times of corruption : in sober truth it may 
 well be that these hopes are but a reflection in those that 
 live happily and comfortably of the vain longings of those 
 others who suffer with little power of expressing their 
 sufferings in an audible voice : when all goes well the 
 happy world forgets these people and their desires, sure 
 as it is that their woes are not dangerous to them, the 
 wealthy : whereas when the woes and grief of the poor 
 begin to rise to a point beyond the endurance of men, fear 
 conscious or unconscious falls upon the rich, and they begin 
 to look about them to see what there may be among the 
 elements of their society which may be used as palliatives 
 for the misery which, long existing and ever growing greater 
 among the slaves of that society, is now at last forcing 
 itself on the attention of the masters. Times of chanoe, 
 disruption, and revolution are naturally times of hope also, 
 and not seldom the hopes of something better to come are 
 the first tokens that tell people that revolution is at hand, 
 though commonly such tokens are no more believed than 
 Cassandra's prophecies, or are even taken in a contrary 
 sense by those who have anything to lose ; since they look 
 upon them as signs of the prosperity of the times, and the 
 
164 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 long endurance of that state of things which is so kind 
 to them. Let us then see what the hopes of civiHzation 
 are hke to-day : for indeed I purpose speaking of our own 
 times chiefly, and will leave for the present all mention of 
 that older civilization which was destroyed by the healthy 
 barbarism out of which our present society has grown. 
 
 Yet a few words may be necessary concerning the birth 
 of our present epoch and the hopes it gave rise to, and 
 what has become of them ; that will not take us very far 
 back in history ; as to my mind our modern civilization 
 begins with the stirring period about the time of the 
 Reformation in England, the time which in the then more 
 important countries of the Continent- is known as the period 
 of the Renaissance, the so-called new-birth of art and 
 learning. 
 
 And first remember that this period includes the death- 
 throes of feudalism, with all the good and evil which that 
 system bore with it. For centuries past its end was getting 
 ready by the gradual weakening of the bonds of the great 
 hierarchy which held men together : the characteristics of 
 those bonds were, theoretically at least, personal rights and 
 j^ersonal duties between superior and inferior all down the 
 scale ; each man was born, so to say, subject to these condi- 
 tions, and the mere accidents of his life could not free him 
 from them : commerce, in our sense of the word, there was 
 none ; capitalistic manufacture, capitalistic exchange was 
 unknown : to buy goods cheap that you might sell them 
 dear was a legal offence (forestalling) ;"to buy goods in the 
 market in the morning and to sell them in the afternoon in 
 the same place was not thought useful occupation and was 
 forbidden under the name of regrating ; usury, instead of 
 leading as now directly to the highest offices of the State, 
 was thought wrong, and the profit of it mostly fell to the 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 165 
 
 chosen people of God : the robbery of the workers, thought 
 necessary then as now to the very existence of the State, 
 was carried out quite crudely without any concealment or 
 excuse by arbitrary taxation or open violence : on the other 
 hand, life was easy, and common necessaries plenteous ; the 
 holidays of the Church were holidays in the modern sense 
 of the word, downright play-days, and there were ninety- 
 six obligatory ones : nor were the people tame and sheep- 
 like, but as rough-handed and bold a set of good fellows as 
 ever rubbed through life under the sun. 
 
 I remember three passages, from contemporary history 
 or gossip, about the life of those times which luck has left 
 us, and which illustrate curiously the change that has taken 
 place in the habits of Englishmen. A lady writing from 
 Norfolk 400 years ago to her husband in London, amidst 
 various commissions for tapestries, groceries, and gowns, 
 bids him also not to forget to bring back with him a good 
 supply of cross-bows and bolts, since the windows of their 
 hall were too low to be handy for long-bow shooting. A 
 German traveler, writing quite at the end of the medieval 
 period, speaks of the English as the laziest and proudest 
 people and the best cooks in Europe. A Spanish Ambas- 
 sador about the same period says, "These English live in 
 houses built of sticks and mud,* but therein they fare as 
 plenteously as lords." 
 
 Indeed, I confess that it is with a strange emotion that 
 I recall these times and try to realize the life of our fore- 
 fathers, men who were named like ourselves, spoke nearly 
 the same tongue, lived on the same spots of earth, and 
 therewithal were as different from us in manners, habits, 
 ways of life and thought, as though they lived in another 
 planet. The very face of the country has changed ; not 
 
 * I suppose he was speaking of the frame houses of Kent. 
 
1 66 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 merely I mean in London and the great manufacturing- 
 centers, but through the country generally ; there is no 
 piece of English ground, except such places as Salisbury 
 Plain, but bears witness to the amazing change which 400 
 years has brought upon us. 
 
 Not seldom I please myself with trying to realize the 
 face of medieval England ; the many chases and great 
 woods, the stretches of common tillage and common pasture 
 quite unenclosed ; the rough husbandry of the tilled 
 parts, the unimproved breeds of cattle, sheep, and sw^ine ; 
 especially the latter, so lank and long and lathy, looking so 
 strange to us ; the strings of packhorses along the bridle- 
 roads, the scantiness of the wheel-roads, scarce any except 
 those left by the Romans, and those made from monastery 
 to monastery : the scarcity of bridges, and people using 
 ferries instead, or fords where they could ; the little towns, 
 well bechurched, often walled ; the villages just where they 
 are now (except for those that have nothing but the church 
 left to tell of them), but better and more populous; their 
 churches, some big and handsome, some small and curious, 
 but all crowded with altars and furniture, and gay wath 
 pictures and ornament ; the many religious houses, with 
 their glorious architecture ; the beautiful manor-houses, 
 some of them castles once, and survivals from an earlier 
 period ; some new and elegant ; some out of all proportion 
 small for the importance of their lords. How strange it 
 would be to us if we could be landed in fourteenth century 
 England ; unless we saw the crest of some familiar hill, like 
 that which yet bears upon it a symbol of an English tribe, 
 and from which, looking down on the plain where Alfred 
 was born, I once had many such ponderings, we should not 
 know into what country of the world we were come : the 
 name is left, scarce a thing else. 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 
 
 167 
 
 And when I think of this it quickens my hope of what 
 may be : even so it will be with us in time to come ; all 
 will have changed, and another people will be dwelling here 
 in England, who, although they may be of our blood and 
 bear our name, will wonder how we lived in the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 Well, under all that rigidly ordered caste society of the 
 fourteenth century, with its rough plenty, its sauntering 
 life, its cool acceptance of rudeness and violence, there was 
 going on a keen struggle of classes which carried with it 
 the hope of progress of those days : the serfs gradually 
 getting freed, and becoming some of them the town popu- 
 lation, the first journeymen, or "free-laborers," so called, 
 some of them the copyholders of agricultural land : the cor- 
 porations of the towns gathered power, the craft-guilds grew 
 into perfection and corruption, the power of the Crown 
 increased, attended with nascent bureaucracy ; in short, 
 the middle class was forming underneath the outward show 
 of feudalism still intact : and all was getting ready for the 
 beginning of the great commercial epoch in whose latter 
 days I would fain hope we are living. That epoch began 
 with the portentous change of agriculture which meant 
 cultivating for profit instead of for livelihood, and which 
 carried with it the expropriation of the people from the land, 
 the extinction of the yeoman, and the rise of the capitalist 
 farmer ; and the growth of the town population, which, 
 swelled by the drift of the landless vagabonds and master- 
 less men, grew into a definite proletariat or class of free- 
 workmen ; and their existence made that of the embryo 
 capitalist-manufacturer also possible ; and the reign of com- 
 mercial contract and cash payment began to take the place 
 of the old feudal hierarchy, with its many-linked chain of 
 personal responsibilities. The latter half of the seventeenth 
 
l68 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 century, the reign of Charles II., saw the last blow struck 
 at this feudal system, when the landowners' military service 
 was abolished, and they became simple owners of property 
 that had no duties attached to it save the payment of a 
 land-tax. 
 
 The hopes of the early part of the commercial period 
 may be read in almost every book of the time, expressed 
 in various degrees of dull or amusing pedantry, and show 
 a naif arrogance and contempt of the times just past which 
 nothing but the utmost simplicity of ignorance could have 
 attained to. But the times were stirring, and gave birth 
 to the most powerful individualities in many branches of 
 literature, and More and Campanella, at least from the 
 midst of the exuberant triumph of young commercialism, 
 gave to the world prophetic hopes of times yet to come 
 when that commercialism itself should have given place to 
 the society which we hope will be the next transform of 
 civilization into something else ; into a new social life. 
 
 This period of early and exuberant hopes passed into 
 the next stage of sober realization of many of them, for 
 commerce grew and grew, and molded all society to its 
 needs : the workman of the sixteenth century worked still 
 as an individual with little cooperation, and scarce any 
 division of labor : by the end of the seventeenth he had 
 become only a part of a group which by that time was in 
 the handicrafts the real unit of production ; division of 
 labor even at that period had quite destroyed his individ- 
 uality, and the worker was but part of a machine : all 
 through the eighteenth century this system went on 
 progressing toward perfection, till to most men of that 
 period, to most of those who were in any way capable of 
 expressing their thoughts, civilization had already reached 
 a high stage of perfection, and was certain to go on from 
 better to better. 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 1 69 
 
 These hopes were not on the surface of a very revolu- 
 tionary kind, but nevertheless the class struggle still went 
 on, and quite openly too ; for the remains of feudality, 
 aided by the mere mask and grimace of the religion which 
 was once a real part of the feudal system, hampered the 
 progress of commerce sorely, and seemed a thousandfold 
 more powerful than it really was ; because in spite of the 
 class struggle there was really a covert alliance between the 
 powerful middle classes, who were the children of commerce, 
 and their old masters the aristocracy ; an unconscious 
 understanding between them rather, in the midst of their 
 contest, that certain matters were to be respected even by 
 the advanced party : the contest and civil war between the 
 king and the commons in England in the seventeenth 
 century illustrates this well : the caution with which 
 privilege was attacked in the beginning of the struggle, the 
 unwillingness of all the leaders save a few enthusiasts to 
 carry matters to their logical consequences, even when the 
 march of events had developed the antagonism between 
 aristocratic privilege and middle-class freedom of contract 
 (so called) ; finally, the crystallization of the new order 
 conquered by the sword of Naseby into a mongrel condi- 
 tion of things between privilege and bourgeois freedom, the 
 defeat and grief of the purist Republicans, and the horror 
 at and swift extinction of the Levelers, the pioneers of 
 Socialism in that day, all point to the fact that the ' ' party 
 of progress," as we should call it now, was determined after 
 all that privilege shall not be abolished further than its own 
 standpoint. 
 
 The seventeenth century ended in the great Whig 
 revolution in England, and, as I said, commerce throve and 
 grew enormously, and the power of the middle classes 
 increased proportionately and all things seemed going 
 
lyo WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 smoothly with them, till at last in France the culminating 
 corruption of a society, still nominally existing for the 
 benefit of the privileged aristocracy, forced their hand : the 
 old order of things, backed as it was by the power of the 
 executive, by that semblance of overwhelming physical 
 force which is the real and only cement of a society founded 
 on the slavery of the many — the aristocratic power, seemed 
 strong and almost inexpugnable : and since any stick will 
 do to beat a dog with, the middle classes in France were 
 forced to take up the first stick that lay ready to hand if 
 they were not to give way to the aristocrats, which indeed 
 the whole evolution of history forbade them to do. There- 
 fore, as in England in the seventeeth century the middle 
 classes allied themselves to religious and republican, and 
 even communistic enthusiasts, with the intention, firm 
 though unexpressed, to keep them down when they had 
 mounted to power by their means, so in France they had 
 to ally themselves with the proletariat ; which, shamefully 
 oppressed and degraded as it had been, now for the first 
 time in history began to feel its power, the power of num- 
 bers : by means of this help they triumphed over aristocratic 
 privilege, but, on the other hand, although the proletariat 
 was speedily reduced again to a position not much better 
 than that it had held before the revolution, the part it 
 played therein gave a new and terrible character to that 
 revolution, and from that time forward the class struggle 
 entered on to a new phase ; the middle classes had gained 
 a complete victory, which in France carried with it all the 
 outward signs of victory, though in England they chose to 
 consider a certain part of themselves an aristocracy, who 
 had indeed little signs of aristocracy about them either for 
 good or for evil, being in very few cases of long descent, 
 and being in their manners and ideas unmistakably 
 bourgeois. 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 171 
 
 So was accomplished the second act of the great class 
 struggle with whose first act began the age of commerce ; 
 as to the hopes of this period of the revolution we all know 
 how extravagant they were ; what a complete regeneration 
 of the world was expected to result from the abolition of 
 the grossest form of privilege ; and I must say that, before 
 we mock at the extravagance of those hopes, we should try 
 to put ourselves in the place of those that held them, and 
 try to conceive how the privilege of the old noblesse must 
 have galled the respectable well-to-do people of that time. 
 Well, the reasonable part of those hopes were realized by 
 the revolution ; in other words, it accomplished what it 
 really aimed at, the freeing of commerce from the fetters 
 of sham feudality ; or, in other words, the destruction of 
 aristocratic privilege. The more extravagant part of the 
 hopes expressed by the eighteenth century revolution were 
 vague enough, and tended in the direction of supposing 
 that the working classes would be benefited by what was to 
 the interest of the middle class in some way quite unex- 
 plained — by a kind of magic, one may say — which welfare 
 of the workers, as it was never directly aimed at, but only 
 hoped for by the way, so also did not come about by any 
 such magical means, and the triumphant middle classes 
 began gradually to find themselves looked upon no longer 
 as rebelious servants, but as oppressive masters. 
 
 The middle class had freed commerce from her fetters 
 of privilege, and had freed thought from her fetters of theol- 
 ogy, at least partially ; but it had not freed, nor attempted 
 to free, labor from its fetters. The leaders of the French 
 Revolution, even amidst the fears, suspicions and slaughter 
 of the Terror, upheld the rights of "property" so called, 
 though a new pioneer or prophet appeared in France, 
 analogous in some respects to the Levelers of Cromwell's 
 
172 
 
 WILLI A 3/ MO A'A' IS. 
 
 time, but, as might be expected, far more advanced and 
 reasonable than they were. Gracchus Babeuf and his 
 fellows were treated as criminals, and died or suffered the 
 torture of prison for attempting to put into practice those 
 words which the Republic still carried on its banners, and 
 Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality were interpreted in a 
 middle-class, or if you please a Jesuitical, sense, as the 
 rewards of success for those who could struggle into an 
 exclusive class ; and at last property had to be defended 
 by a military adventurer, and the Revolution seemed to 
 have ended with Napoleonism. 
 
 Nevertheless, the Revolution was not dead, nor was it 
 possible to say thus far and no farther to the rising tide. 
 Commerce, which had created the propertyless proletariat 
 throughout civilization had still another part to play, which 
 is not yet played out ; she had and has to teach the 
 workers to know what they are ; to educate them, to con- 
 solidate them, and not only to give them aspirations for 
 their advancement as a class, but to make means for them 
 to realize those aspirations. All this she did, nor loitered 
 in her work either ; from the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century the history of civilization is really the history of 
 the last of the class-struggles which was inaugurated by the 
 French Revolution ; and England, who all through the 
 times of the Revolution and the Caesarism which followed 
 it appeared to be the steady foe of Revolution, was really 
 as steadily furthering it ; her natural conditions, her store 
 of coal and minerals, her temperate climate, extensive sea- 
 board and many harbors, and lastly her position as the 
 outpost of Europe looking into America across the ocean, 
 doomed her to be for a time at least the mistress of the 
 commerce of the civilized world, and its agent with barbar- 
 ous and semi-barbarous countries. The necessities of thi§ 
 
S/G.VS OF CHANGE. 1 73 
 
 destiny drove her into the implacable war with France, a 
 war which, nominally waged on behalf of monarchical prin- 
 ciples, was really, though doubtless unconsciously, carried 
 on for the possession of the foreign and colonial markets. 
 She came out victorious from that war, and fully prepared 
 to take advantage of the industrial revolution which had 
 been going on the while, and which I now ask you to note. 
 
 I have said that the eighteenth century perfected the 
 system of labor which took the place of the medieval sys- 
 tem, under which a workman individually carried his piece 
 of work all through its various stages from the first to the 
 last. 
 
 This new system, the first change in industrial produc- 
 tion since the Middle Ages, is known as the system of 
 division of labor, wherein, as I said, the unit of labor is a 
 group, not a man ; the individual workman in this system 
 is kept life-long at the performance of some task quite petty 
 in itself, and which he soon masters, and having mastered 
 it has nothing more to do but to go on increasing his speed 
 of hand under the spur of competition with his fellows, until 
 he has become the perfect machine which it is his ultimate 
 duty to become, since without attaining to that end he 
 must die or become a pauper. You can well imagine how 
 this glorious invention of division of labor, this complete 
 destruction of individuality in the workman, and his appar- 
 ent hopeless enslavement to his profit-grinding master, 
 stimulated the hopes of civilization ; probably more hymns 
 have been sung in praise of division of labor, more sermons 
 preached about it, than have done homage to the precept, 
 "do unto others as ye would they should do unto you." 
 
 To drop all irony, surely this was one of those stages 
 of civilization at which one might well say that, if it was to 
 stop there, it was a pity that it had ever got so far. I have 
 
174 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 had to study books and methods of work of the eighteenth 
 century a good deal, French chiefly ; and I must say that 
 the impression made on me by that study is that the eight- 
 eenth century artisan must have been a terrible product 
 of civilization, and quite in a condition to give rise to hopes 
 — of the torch, the pike, and the guillotine. 
 
 However, civilization was not going to stop there ; 
 having turned the man into a machine, the next stage for 
 commerce to aim at was to contrive machines which would 
 widely dispense with human labor; nor was this aim 
 altogether disappointed. 
 
 Now, at first sight it would seem that having got the 
 w^orkman into such a plight as he was, as the slave of 
 division of labor, this new invention of machines which 
 should free him from a part of his labor at least, could be 
 nothing to him but an unmixed blessing. Doubtless it will 
 prove to have been so in the end, when certain institutions 
 have been swept away which most people now look on as 
 eternal ; but a longish time has passed during which the 
 workman's hopes of civilization have been disappointed, 
 for those who invented the machines, or rather who profited 
 by their invention, did not aim at the saving of labor in the 
 sense of reducing the labor which each man had to do, but, 
 first taking it for granted that every workman would have 
 to work as long as he could stand up to it, aimed, under 
 those conditions of labor, at producing the utmost possible 
 amount of goods which they could sell at a profit. 
 
 Need I dwell on the fact that, under these circumstances, 
 the invention of the machines has benefited the workman 
 but Httle even to this day? 
 
 Nay, at first they made his position worse than it had 
 been : for, being thrust on the world very suddenly, they 
 distinctly brought about an industrial revolution, changing 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 175 
 
 everything suddenly and completely ; industrial produc- 
 tiveness was increased prodigiously, but so far from the 
 workers reaping the benefit of this, they were thrown out 
 of work in enormous numbers, while those who were still 
 employed were reduced from the position of skilled artisans 
 to that of unskilled laborers : the aims of their masters 
 being, as I said, to make a profit, they did not trouble 
 themselves about this as a class, but took it for granted 
 that it was something that couldn't be helped and didn't 
 hurt them: nor did they think of offering to the workers 
 that compensation for harassed interests which they have 
 since made a point of claiming so loudly for themselves. 
 
 This was the state of things which followed on the con- 
 clusion of European peace, and even that peace itself rather 
 made matters worse than better, by the sudden cessation 
 of all war industries, and the throwing on to the market 
 many thousands of soldiers and sailors : in short, at no 
 period of English history was the condition of the workers 
 worse than in the early years of the nineteenth century. 
 
 There seem during this period to have been two currents 
 of hope that had reference to the working-classes : the first 
 affected the masters, the second the men. 
 
 In England, and, in what I am saying of this period, I 
 am chiefly thinking of England, the hopes of the richer 
 classes ran high ; and no wonder ; for England had by this 
 time become the mistress of the markets of the world, and 
 also, as the people of that period were never weary of boast- 
 ing, the workshop of the world : the increase in the riches 
 of the country was enormous, even at the early period I 
 am thinking of now — prior to '48, I mean — though it 
 increased much more speedily in times that we have all 
 seen : but part of the jubilant hopes of this newly rich man 
 concerned his servants, the instruments of his fortune : it 
 
176 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 was hoped that the population in general would grow wiser, 
 better educated, thriftier, more industrious, more comfort- 
 able ; for which hope there was surely some foundation, 
 since man's mastery over the forces of Nature was growing 
 yearly toward completion ; but you see these benevolent 
 gentlemen supposed that these hopes would be realized 
 perhaps by some unexplained magic as aforesaid, or perhaps 
 by the working- classes, at their own expense, by the exercise 
 of virtues supposed to be specially suited to their condition, 
 and called, by their masters, "thrift" and "industry." 
 For this latter supposition there was no foundation : indeed, 
 the poor wretches who Avere thrown out of work by the 
 triumphant march of commerce had perforce worn thrift 
 threadbare, and could hardly better their exploits in that 
 direction ; while as to those who worked in the factories, 
 or who formed the fringe of labor elsewhere, industry was 
 no new gospel to them, since they already worked as long 
 as they could work without dying at the loom, the spindle, 
 or the stithy. They for their part had their hopes, vague 
 enough as to their ultimate aim, but expressed in the pass- 
 ing day by a very obvious tendency to revolt : this tendency 
 took various forms, which I cannot dwell on here, but settled 
 down at last into Chartism : about which I must speak a 
 few words : but first I must mention, I can scarce do more, 
 the honored name of Robert Owen, as representative of 
 the nobler hopes of his day, just as More was of his, and 
 the lifter of the torch of Socialism amidst the dark days of 
 the confusion consequent on the reckless greed of the early 
 period of the great factory industries. 
 
 That the conditions under which man lived could affect 
 his life and his deeds infinitely, that not selfish greed and 
 ceaseless contention, but brotherhood and cooperation 
 were the basis of true society, was the gospel which he 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 177 
 
 preached and also practiced with a single-heartedness, 
 devotion, and fervor of hope which have never been 
 surpassed : he was the embodied hope of the days when 
 the advance of knowledge and the sufferings of the people 
 thrust revolutionary hope upon those thinkers who were 
 not in some form or other in the pay of the sordid 
 masters of society. 
 
 As to the Chartist agitation, there is this to be said 
 of it, that it was thoroughly a working-class movement, and 
 it was caused by the simplest and most powerful of all 
 causes — hunger. It is noteworthy that it was strongest, 
 especially in its earlier days, in the Northern and Midland 
 manufacturing districts — that is, in the places which felt 
 the distress caused by the industrial revolution most sorely 
 and directly ; it sprang up with particular vigor in the 
 years immediately following the great Reform Bill ; and 
 it has been remarked that disappointment of the hopes 
 which that measure had cherished had something to do 
 with its bitterness. As it went on, obvious causes for 
 failure were developed in it ; self-seeking leadership ; futile 
 discussion of the means of making the change, before 
 organization of the party was perfected ; blind fear of 
 ultimate consequences on the part of some, blind disregard 
 of immediate consequences on the part of others ; these 
 were the surface reasons for its failure ; but it would have 
 triumphed over all these and accomplished revolution in 
 England, if it had not been for causes deeper and more 
 vital than these. Chartism differed from mere Radicalism 
 in being a class movement ; but its aim was after all 
 political rather than social. The Socialism of Robert Owen 
 fell short of its object because it did not understand that, as 
 long as there is a privileged class in possession of the 
 executive power, they will take good care that their 
 
1 78 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 economical position, which enables them to live on the 
 unpaid labor of the people, is not tampered with : the 
 hopes of the Chartists were disappointed because they did 
 not understand that true political freedom is impossible to 
 people who are economically enslaved : there is no first and 
 second in these matters, the two must go hand in hand 
 together : we cannot live as we will, and as we should, as 
 long as we allow people to goveim us whose interest it is 
 that we should live as they will, and by no means as we 
 should ; neither is it any use claiming the right to manage 
 our own business unless we are prepared to have some 
 business of our own : these two aims united mean the 
 furthering of the class struggle till all classes are abolished 
 — the divorce of one from the other is fatal to any hope 
 of social advancement. 
 
 Chartism, therefore, though a genuine popular move- 
 ment, was incomplete in its aims and knowledge ; the time 
 was not yet come and it could not triumph openly ; but 
 it would be a mistake to say that it failed utterly : at least 
 it kept alive the holy flame of discontent ; it made it 
 possible for us to attain to the political goal of democracy, 
 and thereby to advance the cause of the people by the 
 gain of a stage from whence could be seen the fresh 
 gain to be aimed at. 
 
 I have said that the time for revolution had not then 
 come : the great wave of commercial success went on 
 swelling, and though the capitalists would if they had 
 dared have engrossed the whole of the advantages thereby 
 gained at the expense of their wage slaves, the Chartist 
 revolt warned them that it was not safe to attempt it. They 
 were forced to try to allay discontent by palliative 
 measures. They had to allow Factory Acts to be passed 
 regulating the hours and conditions of labor of women 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 179 
 
 and children, and consequently of men also in some of the 
 more important and consolidated industries ; they were 
 forced to repeal the ferocious laws against combination 
 among the workmen ; so that the Trades Unions won for 
 themselves a legal position and became a power in the 
 labor question, and were able by means of strikes and 
 threats of strikes to regulate the wages granted to the 
 workers, and to raise the standard of livelihood for a 
 certain part of the skilled workmen and the laborers 
 associated with them : though the main part of the 
 unskilled, including the agricultural workmen, were no 
 better off than before. 
 
 Thus was damped down the flame of a discontent 
 vague in its aims, and passionately crying out for what, 
 if granted, it could not have used : twenty years ago 
 any one hinting at the possibility of serious class discon- 
 tent in this country would have been looked upon as a 
 madman ; in fact, the well-to-do and cultivated were 
 quite unconscious (as many still are) that there was any 
 class distinction in this country other than what was made 
 by the rags and cast clothes of feudalism, which in a per- 
 functory manner they still attacked. 
 
 There was no sign of revolutionary feeling in England 
 twenty years ago ; the middle class were so rich that 
 they had no need to hope for anything — but a heaven 
 which they did not believe in : the well-to-do working men 
 did not hope, since they were not pinched and had no 
 means of learning their degraded position : and lastly, the 
 drudges of the proletariat had such hope as charity, the 
 hospital, the workhouse, and kind death at last could 
 offer them. 
 
 In this stock-jobbers' heaven let us leave our dear 
 countrymen for a little, while I say a few words about 
 
I go WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 the affairs of the people on the continent of Europe. 
 Things were not quite so smooth for the fleecer there : 
 Socialist thinkers and writers had arisen about the same 
 time as Robert Owen ; St. Simon, Proudhon, Fourier and 
 his followers kept up the traditions of hope in the midst 
 of a bourgeois world. Among these Fourier is the one 
 that calls for most attention : since his doctrine of the 
 necessity and possibility of making labor attractive is one 
 which Socialism can by no means do without. France also 
 kept up the revolutionary and insurrectionary tradition, the 
 result of something like hope still fermenting among the 
 proletariat : she fell at last into the clutches of a second 
 Caesarism developed by the basest set of sharpers, 
 swindlers, and harlots that ever insulted a country, and 
 of whom our own happy bourgeois at home made heroes 
 and heroines : the hideous open corruption of Parisian 
 society, to which, I repeat, our respectable classes accorded 
 heartfelt sympathy, was finally swept away by the horrors 
 of a race war : the defeats and disgraces of this war 
 developed, on the one hand, an increase in the wooden 
 implacability and baseness of the French bourgeois, but 
 on the other made way for revolutionary hope to spring 
 again, from which resulted the attempt to establish society 
 on the basis of the freedom of labor, which we call the 
 Commune of Paris of 1871. Whatever mistakes or impru- 
 dences were made in this attempt, and all wars blossom 
 thick with such mistakes, I will leave the reactionary 
 enemies of the people's cause to put fon\'ard : the imme- 
 diate and obvious result was the slaughter of thousands 
 of brave and honest revolutionists at the hands of the 
 respectable classes, the loss in fact of an army for the 
 popular cause: but we may be sure that the results of the 
 Commune will not stop there : to all Socialists that heroic 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. i8l 
 
 attempt will give hope and ardor in the cause as long as 
 it is to be won ; we feel as though the Paris workman 
 had striven to bring the day-dawn for us, and had lifted us 
 the sun's rim over the horizon, never to set in utter 
 darkness again : of such attempts one must say, that 
 though those who perished in them might have been put 
 in a better place in the battle, yet after all brave men 
 never die for nothing, when they die for principle. 
 
 Let us shift from France to Germany before we get 
 back to England again, and conclude with a few words 
 about our hopes at the present day. To Germany we owe 
 the school of economists, at whose head stands the name of 
 Karl Marx, who have made modern Socialism what it is : 
 the earlier Socialist writers and preachers based their hopes 
 on man being taught to see the desirableness of coopera- 
 tion taking the place of competition, and adopting the 
 change voluntarily and consciously, and they trusted to 
 schemes more or less artificial being tried and accepted, 
 although such schemes were necessarily constructed out of 
 the materials which capitalistic society offered : but the new 
 school, starting with an historical view of what had been, 
 and seeing that a law of evolution swayed all events in it, 
 was able to point out to us that the evolution was still 
 going on, and that, whether Socialism be desirable or not, 
 it is at least inevitable. Here then was at last a hope of a 
 different kind to any that had gone before it ; and the 
 German and Austrian workmen were not slow to learn the 
 lesson founded on this theory ; from being one of the most 
 backward countries in Europe in the movement, before 
 Lassalle started his German workman's party in 1863, 
 Germany soon became the leader in it : Bismarck's repres- 
 sive law has only acted on opinion there as the roller does 
 to the growing grass — made it firmer and stronger; and 
 
1 8 2 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 whatever vicissitudes may be the fate of the party as a 
 party, there can be no doubt that Sociahstic opinion is 
 firmly estabHshed there, and that when the time is ripe for 
 it that opinion will express itself in action. 
 
 Now, in all I have been saying, I have been wanting 
 you to trace the fact that, ever since the establishment of 
 commercialism on the ruins of feudality, there has been 
 growing a steady feeling on the part of the workers that 
 they are a class dealt with as a class, and in like manner to 
 deal with others ; and that as this class feeling has grown, 
 so also has grown with it a consciousness of the antagonism 
 between their class and the class which employs it, as the 
 phrase goes ; that is to say, which lives by means of its 
 labor. 
 
 Now it is just this growing consciousness of the fact 
 that as long as there exists in society a propertied class 
 living on the labor of a propertyless one, there must be a 
 struggle always going on between those two classes — it is 
 just the dawning knowledge of this fact which should show 
 us what civilization can hope for — namely, transformation 
 into true society, in w^hich there will no longer be classes 
 with their necessary struggle for existence and superiority : 
 for the antagonism of classes which began in all simplicity 
 between the master and the chattel slave of ancient society, 
 and was continued between the feudal lord and the serf of 
 medieval society, has gradually become the contention 
 between the capitalist developed from the workman of the 
 last-named period, and the wage-earner ; in the former 
 struggle the rise of the artisan and villenage tenant created 
 a new class, the middle class, while the place of the old 
 serf was filled by the propertyless laborer, with whom the 
 middle class, which has absorbed the aristocracy, is now 
 face to face : the struggle between the classes, therefore, is 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 183 
 
 once again a simple one, as in the days of the classical 
 peoples ; but since there is no longer any strong race left 
 out of civilization, as in the time of the disruption of Rome, 
 the whole struggle in all its simplicity between those who 
 have and those who lack is within civilization. 
 
 Moreover, the capitalist or modern slave-owner has 
 been forced by his very success, as we have seen, to 
 organize his slaves, the wage-earners, into a cooperation 
 for production so well arranged that it requires little but 
 his own elimination to make it a foundation for communal 
 life : in the teeth also of the experience of past ages, he has 
 been compelled to allow a modicum of education to the 
 propertyless, and has not even been able to deprive them 
 wholly of political rights ; his own advance in wealth and 
 power has bred for him the very enemy who is doomed to 
 make an end of him. 
 
 But will there be any new class to take the place of the 
 present proletariat when that has triumphed, as it must do, 
 over the present privileged class? We cannot forsee the 
 future, but we may fairly hope not : at least we cannot see 
 any signs of such a new class forming. It is impossible to 
 see how destruction of privilege can stop short of absolute 
 equality of condition ; pure Communism is the logical 
 deduction from the imperfect form of the new society, 
 which is generally differentiated from it as Socialism. 
 
 Meantime, it is this simplicity and directness of the 
 growing contest which above all things presents itself as a 
 terror to the conservative instinct of the present day. 
 Many among the middle class who are sincerely grieved 
 and shocked at the condition of the proletariat which civil- 
 ization has created, and even alarmed by the frightful 
 inequalities which it fosters, do nevertheless shudder back 
 from the idea of the class struggle, and strive to shut their 
 
1 84 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 eyes to the fact that it is going on. They try to think that 
 peace is not only possible, but natural, between the two 
 classes, the very essence of whose existence is that each 
 can only thrive by what it manages to force the other to 
 yield to it. They propose to themselves the impossible 
 problem of raising the inferior or exploited classes into a 
 position in which they will cease to struggle against the 
 superior classes, while the latter will not cease to exploit 
 them. This absurd position drives them into the concoction 
 of schemes for bettering the condition of the working 
 classes at their own expense, some of them futile, some 
 merely fantastic ; or they may be divided again into those 
 which point out the advantages and pleasures of invol- 
 untary asceticism, and reactionary plans for importing tjie 
 conditions of the production and life of the Middle Ages 
 (wholly misunderstood by them, by the way) into the 
 present system of the capitalist farmer, the great industries, 
 and the universal world-market. Some see a solution of the 
 social problem in sham cooperation, which is merely an 
 improved form of joint-stockery : others preach thrift to 
 (precarious) incomes of eighteen shillings a week, and 
 industry to men killing themselves by inches in working 
 overtime, or to men whom the labor-market has rejected as 
 not wanted : others beg the proletarians not to breed so 
 fast ; an injunction the compliance with which might be at 
 first of advantage to the proletarians themselves in their 
 present condition, but would certainly undo the capitalists, 
 if it were carried to any lengths, and would lead through 
 ruin and misery to the violent outbreak of the very 
 revolution which these timid people are so anxious to 
 forego. 
 
 Then there are others who, looking back on the past, 
 and perceiving that the workmen of the Middle Ages lived 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 185 
 
 in more comfort and self-respect than ours do, even though 
 they were subjected to the class rule of men who were 
 looked on as another order of beings than they, think that 
 if those conditions of life could be reproduced under our 
 better political conditions the question would be solved for 
 a time at least. Their schemes may be summed up in 
 attempts, more or less preposterously futile, to graft a class 
 of independent peasants on our system of wages and 
 capital. They do not understand that this system of 
 independent workmen, producing almost entirely for the 
 consumption of themselves and their neighbors, and 
 exploited by the upper classes by obvious taxes on their 
 labor, which was not otherwise organized or interfered with 
 by the exploiters, was what in past times took the place 
 of our system, in which the workers sell their labor in 
 the competitive market to masters who have in their hands 
 the whole organization of the markets, and that these 
 two systems are mutually destructive. 
 
 Others again believe in the possibility of starting from 
 our present workhouse system, for the raising of the lowest 
 part of the working population into a better condition, but 
 do not trouble themselves as to the position of the workers 
 who are fairly above the condition of pauperism, or 
 consider what part they will play in the contest for a better 
 livelihood. And, lastly, quite a large number of well- 
 intentioned persons belonging to the richer classes believe, 
 that in a society that compels competition for livehhood, 
 and holds out to the workers as a stimulus to exertion the 
 hope of their rising into a monopolist class of non-pro- 
 ducers, it is yet possible to ** moralize" capital (to use 
 a slang phrase of the Positivists) : that is to say, that a 
 sentiment imported from a religion which looks upon 
 another world as the true sphere of action for mankind. 
 
1 86 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 will override the necessities of our daily life in this world. 
 This curious hope is founded on the feeling that a 
 sentiment antagonistic to the full development of commer- 
 cialism exists, and is gaining ground, and that this 
 sentiment is an independent growth of the ethics of the 
 present epoch. As a matter of fact, admitting its existence, 
 as I think we must do, it is the birth of the sense of 
 insecurity which is the shadow cast before by the 
 approaching dissolution of modern society founded on 
 wage-slavery. 
 
 The greater part of these schemes aim, though seldom 
 with the consciousness of their promoters, at the creation 
 of a new middle-class out of the wage-earning class, and at 
 their expense, just as the present middle-class was developed 
 out of the serf-population of the early Middle Ages. It 
 may be possible that such a further development of the 
 middle-class lies before us, but it will not be brought about 
 by any such artificial means as the above-mentioned 
 schemes. If it comes at all, it must be produced by events, 
 which at present we cannot foresee, acting on our commer- 
 cial system, and revivifying for a little time, maybe, that 
 Capitalist Society which now seems sickening toward its 
 end. 
 
 For what is visible before us in these days is the com- 
 petitive commercial system killing itself by its own force : 
 profits lessening, businesses growing bigger and bigger, 
 the small employer of labor thrust out of his function, and 
 the aggregation of capital increasing the numbers of the 
 lower middle- class from above rather than from below, by 
 driving the smaller manufacturer into the position of a mere 
 servant to the bigger. The productixity of labor also 
 increasing out of all proportion to the capacity of the 
 capitalists to manage the market or deal with the labor 
 
S/GNS OF CHANGE. 
 
 187 
 
 supply : lack of employment therefore becoming chronic, 
 and discontent therewithal. 
 
 All this on the one hand. On the other, the workmen 
 claiming everywhere political equality, which cannot long 
 be denied ; and education spreading, so that what between 
 the improvement in the education of the working-class and 
 the continued amazing fatuity of that of the upper classes, 
 there is a distinct tendency to equalization here ; and, as I 
 have hinted above, all history shows us what a danger to 
 society may be a class at once educated and socially 
 degraded : though, indeed, no history has yet shown us — 
 what is swiftly advancing upon us — a class which, though 
 it shall have attained knowledge, shall lack utterly the 
 refinement and self-respect which come from the union of 
 knowledge with leisure and ease of life. The growth of 
 such a class may well make the "cultured" people of 
 to-day tremble. 
 
 Whatever, therefore, of unforeseen and unconceived-of 
 may lie in the womb of the future, there is nothing visible 
 before us but a decaying system, with no outlook but ever- 
 increasing entanglement and blindness, and a new system, 
 Socialism, the hope of which is ever growing clearer in 
 men's minds — a system which not only sees how labor can 
 be freed from its present fetters, and organized unwastefully, 
 so as to produce the greatest possible amount of wealth for 
 the community and for every member of it, but which bears 
 with it its own ethics and religion and aesthetics : that is the 
 hope and promise of a new and higher life in all ways. So 
 that even if those unforeseen economical events above 
 spoken of were to happen, and put off for a while the end 
 of our Capitalist system, the latter would drag itself along 
 as an anomaly cursed by all, a mere clog on the aspirations 
 of humanity. \ 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 It is not likely that it will come to that : in all probability 
 the logical outcome of the latter days of Capitalism will go 
 step by step with its actual history : while all men, e\Tn its 
 declared enemies, will be working to bring Socialism about, 
 the aims of those who have learned to believe in the cer- 
 tainty and beneficence of its advent will become clearer, 
 their methods for realizing it clearer also, and at last ready 
 to hand. Then will come that open acknowledgment for 
 the necessity of the change (an acknowledgment coming 
 from the intelligence of civilization) which is commonly 
 called Revolution. It is no use prophesying as to the 
 events which will accompany that revolution, but to a 
 reasonable man it seems unlikely to the last degree, or we 
 will say impossible, that a moral sentiment will induce the 
 proprietary classes — those who live by oiuning the means 
 of production which the unprivileged classes must needs 
 use — to yield up this privilege un compelled ; all one can 
 hope is that they will see the implicit threat of compulsion 
 in the events of the day, and so yield with a good grace to 
 the terrible necessity of forming part of a world in which 
 all, including themselves; will work honestly and live easily. 
 
S/GNS OF CHANGE. 189 
 
 THE AIMS OF ART. 
 
 IN considering the Aims of Art, that is, why men toil- 
 somely cherish and practice Art, I find myself compelled 
 to generalize from the only specimen of humanity of 
 which I know anything ; to wit, myself Now, when I 
 think of what it is that I desire, I find that I can give it no 
 other name than happiness. I want to be happy while I 
 live ; for as for death, I find that, never having experienced 
 it, I have no conception of what it means, and so cannot 
 even bring my mind to bear upon it. I know what it is to 
 live ; I cannot even guess what it is to be dead. Well, 
 then, I want to be happy, and even sometimes, say gener- 
 ally, to be merry ; and I find it difficult to believe that that 
 is not the universal desire : so that, whatever tends toward 
 that end I cherish with all my best endeavor. Now, when 
 I consider my life further, I find out, or seem to, that it is 
 under the influence of two dominating moods, which for 
 lack of better words I must call the mood of energy and 
 the mood of idleness : these two moods are now one, now 
 the other, always crying out in me to be satisfied. When 
 the mood of energy is upon me, I must be doing some- 
 thing, or I become mopish and unhappy ; when the mood 
 of idleness is on me, I find it hard indeed if I cannot rest 
 and let my mind wander over the various pictures, pleasant 
 or terrible, which niy own experience or my communing 
 with the thoughts of other men, dead or alive, have fashioned 
 in it ; and if circumstances will not allow me to cultivate 
 this mood of idleness, I find I must at the best pass through 
 
igo WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 a period of pain till I can manage to stimulate my mood of 
 energy to take its place and make me happy again. And 
 if I have no means wherewith to rouse up that mood of 
 energy to do its duty in making me happy, and I have to 
 toil while the idle mood is upon me, then am I unhappy 
 indeed, and almost wish myself dead, though I do not know 
 what that means. 
 
 Furthermore, I find that while in the mood of idleness 
 memory amuses me, in the mood of energy hope cheers 
 me ; which hope is sometimes big and serious, and some- 
 times trivial, but that without it there is no happy energy. 
 Again, I find that while I can sometimes satisfy this mood 
 by merely exercising it in work that has no result beyond 
 the passing hour — in play, in short — yet that it presently 
 wearies of that and gets languid, the hope therein being too 
 trivial, and sometimes even scarcely real ; and that on the 
 whole, to satisfy my master the mood, I must either be 
 making something or making believe to make it. 
 
 Well, I believe that all men's lives are compounded 
 of these two moods in various proportions, and that this 
 explains why they have always, with more or less of toil, 
 cherished and practised art. 
 
 Why should they have touched it else, and so added to 
 the labor which they could not choose but do in order to 
 live? It must have been done for their pleasure, since it 
 has only been in very elaborate civilizations that a man 
 could get other men to keep him alive merely to produce 
 works of art, whereas all men that have left any signs of 
 their existence behind them have practised art. 
 
 I suppose, indeed, that nobody will be inclined to deny 
 that the end proposed by a work of art is always to please 
 the person whose senses are to be made conscious of it. It 
 was done for some one who was to be made happier by it ; 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 191 
 
 his idle or restful mood was to be amused by it, so that the 
 vacancy which is the besetting evil of that mood might give 
 place to pleased contemplation, dreaming, or what you will ; 
 and by this means he would not so soon be driven into 
 his workful or energetic mood : he would have more 
 enjoyment, and better. 
 
 The restraining of restlessness, therefore, is clearly one 
 of the essential aims of art, and few things could add to the 
 pleasure of life more than this. There are, to my knowl- 
 edge, gifted people now alive who have no other vice than 
 this of restlessness, and seemingly no other curse in their 
 lives to make them unhappy : but that is enough ; it is 
 "the little rift within the lute." Restlessness makes them 
 hapless men and bad citizens. 
 
 But granting, as I suppose you all will do, that this is a 
 most important function for art to fulfill, the question next 
 comes, at what price do we obtain it? I have admitted that 
 the practice of art has added to the labor of mankind, 
 though I believe in the long run it will not do so ; but in 
 adding to the labor of man has it added, so far, to his pain ? 
 There always have been people who would at once say yes 
 to that question ; so that there have been and are two sets 
 of people who dislike and contemn art as an embarrassing 
 folly. Besides the pious ascetics, who look upon it as a 
 worldly entanglement which prevents men from keeping 
 their minds fixed on the chances of their individual happi- 
 ness or misery in the next world ; who, in short, hate art, 
 because they think that it adds to man's earthly happiness — 
 besides these, there are also people who, looking on the 
 struggle of life from the most reasonable point that they 
 know o.f, contemn the arts because they think that they add 
 to man's slavery by increasing the sum of his painful labor: 
 if this were the case, it would still, to my mind, be a ques- 
 
192 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 tion whether it might not be worth the while to endure the 
 extra pain of labor for the sake of the extra pleasure added 
 to rest ; assuming, for the present, equality of condition 
 among men. But it seems to me that it is not the case 
 that the practice of art adds to painful labor ; nay more, I 
 believe that, if it did, art would never have arisen at all, 
 would certainly not be discernible, as it is, among peoples 
 in whom only the germs of civilization exist. In other 
 words, I believe that art cannot be the result of external 
 compulsion ; the labor which goes to produce it is voluntary, 
 and partly undertaken for. the sake of the labor itself, 
 partly for the sake of the hope of producing something 
 which, when done, shall give pleasure to the user of it. Or, 
 again, this extra labor, when it is extra, is undertaken with 
 the aim of satisfying that mood of energy by employing it 
 to produce something worth doing, and which, therefore, 
 will keep before the worker a lively hope while he is work- 
 ing ; and also by giving it work to do in which there is 
 absolute immediate pleasure. Perhaps it is difficult to 
 explain to the non-artistic capacity that this definite 
 sensuous pleasure is always present in the handiwork of the 
 deft workman when he is working successfully, and that it 
 increases in proportion to the freedom and individuality 
 of the work. Also you must understand that this produc- 
 tion of art, and consequent pleasure in work, is not confined 
 to the production of matters which are works of art only, 
 hke pictures, statues, and so forth, but has been and should 
 be a part of all labor in some form or other : so only will 
 the claims of the mood of energy be satisfied. 
 
 Therefore the Aim of Art is to increase the happiness 
 of men, by giving them beauty and interest of incident to 
 amuse their leisure, and prevent them wearying even of 
 rest, and by giving them hope and bodily pleasure in their 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 193 
 
 work ; or, shortly, to make man's work happy and his rest 
 fruitful. Consequently, genuine art is an unmixed blessing 
 to the race of man. 
 
 But as the word "genuine" is a large qualification, I 
 must ask leave to attempt to draw some practical conclu- 
 sions from this assertion of the Aims of Art, which will, I 
 suppose, or indeed hope, lead us into some controversy on 
 the subject ; because it is futile indeed to expect any one to 
 speak about art, except in the most superficial way, without 
 encountering those social problems which all serious men 
 are thinking of; since art is and must be, either in its 
 abundance or its barrenness, in its sincerity or its hollowness, 
 the expression of the society among which it exists. 
 
 First, then, it is clear to me that, at the present time, 
 those who look widest at things and deepest into them are 
 quite dissatisfied with the present state of the arts, as they 
 are also with the present condition of society. This I say 
 in the teeth of the supposed revivification of art which has 
 taken place of late years : in fact, that very excitement 
 about the arts among a part of the cultivated people of 
 to-day does but show on how firm a basis the dissatisfac- 
 tion above mentioned rests. Forty years ago there was 
 much less talk about art, much less practice of it, than there 
 is now ; and that is specially true of the architectural arts, 
 which I shall mostly have to speak about now. People 
 have consciously striven to raise the dead in art since that 
 time, and with some superficial success. Nevertheless, in 
 spite of this conscious effort, I must tell you that England, 
 to a person who can feel and understand beauty, was a less 
 grievous place to live in then than it is now ; and we who 
 feel what art means know well, though we do not often dare 
 to say so, that forty years hence it will be a more grievous 
 place to us than it is now if we still follow up the road we 
 
194 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 are on. Less than forty years ago — about thirty — I first 
 saw the city of Rouen, then still in its outward aspect a 
 piece of the Middle Ages : no words can tell you how its 
 mingled beauty, history, and romance took hold on me ; 
 I can only say that, looking back on my past life, I find it 
 was the greatest pleasure I have ever had : and now it is a 
 pleasure which no one can ever have again : it is lost to the 
 world for ever. At that time I was an undergraduate of 
 Oxford. Though not so astounding, so romantic, or at 
 first sight so medieval as the Norman city, Oxford in those 
 days still kept a great deal of its earlier loveliness : and the 
 memory of its gray streets as they then were has been an 
 abiding influence and pleasure in my life, and would be 
 greater still if I could only forget what they are now^a 
 matter of far more importance than the so-called learning 
 of the place could have been to me in any case, but which, 
 as it was, no one tried to teach me, and I did not try to 
 learn. Since then the guardians of this beauty and romance 
 so fertile of education, though professedly engaged in ' ' the 
 higher education" (as the futile system of compromises 
 which they follow is nick-named), have ignored it utterly, 
 have made its preservation give way to the pressure of 
 commercial exigencies, and are determined apparently to 
 destroy it altogether. There is another pleasure for the 
 world gone down the wind ; here, again, the beauty and 
 romance have been uselessly, causelessly, most foolishly 
 thrown away. 
 
 These two cases are given simply because they have 
 been fixed in my mind ; they are but types of what is going 
 on everywhere throughout civilization : the world is every- 
 where growing uglier and more commonplace, in spite of 
 the conscious and very strenuous efforts of a small group 
 of people toward the revival of art, which are so obviously 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 195 
 
 out of joint with the tendency of the age that, while the 
 uncultivated have not even heard of them, the mass of the 
 cultivated look upon them as a joke, and even that they 
 are now beginning to get tired of 
 
 Now, if it be true, as I have asserted, that genuine art 
 is an unmixed blessing to the world, this is a serious matter ; 
 for at first sight it seems to show that there will soon be no 
 art at all in the world, which will thus lose an unmixed 
 blessing ; it can ill afford to do that, I think. 
 
 For art, if it has to die, has worn itself out, and its aim 
 will be a thing forgotten ; and its aim was to make work 
 happy and rest fruitful. Is all work to be unhappy, all rest 
 unfruitful, then? Indeed, If art is to perish, that will be the 
 case, unless something is to take its place — something at 
 present unnamed, undreamed of 
 
 I do not think that anything will take the place of art ; 
 not that I doubt the ingenuity of man, which seems to be 
 boundless in the direction of making himself unhappy, but 
 because I believe the springs of art in the human mind to 
 be deathless, and also because it seems to me easy to see 
 the causes of the present obliteration of the arts. 
 
 For we civilized people have not given them up con- 
 sciously, or of our free will ; we have been forced to give 
 them. up. Perhaps I can illustrate that by the detail of the 
 application of machinery to the production of things in which 
 artistic form of some sort is possible. Why does a reason- 
 able man use a machine? Surely to save his labor. There 
 are some things which a machine can do as well as a man's 
 \\2iViA,plus a tool, can do them. He need not, for instance, 
 grind his corn in a hand-quern ; a little trickle of water, a 
 wheel, and a few simple contrivances will do it all perfectly 
 well, and leave him free to smoke his pipe and think, or to 
 carve the handle of his knife. That, so far, is unmixed 
 
196 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 gain in the use of a machine — always, mind you, supposing 
 equality of condition among men ; no art is lost, leisure or 
 time for more pleasurable work is gained. Perhaps a per- 
 fectly reasonable and free man would stop there in his deal- 
 ings with machinery ; but such reason and freedom are too 
 much to expect, so let us follow our machine-inventor a 
 step further. He has to weave plain cloth, and finds doing 
 so dullish on the one hand, and on the other that a power- 
 loom will weave the cloth nearly as well as a hand-loom : 
 so, in order to gain more leisure or time for more pleasur- 
 able work, he uses a power-loom, and foregoes the small 
 advantage of the little extra art in the cloth. But so doing, 
 as far as the art is concerned, he has not got a pure gain ; 
 he has made a bargain between art and labor, and got a 
 make-shift as a consequence. I do not say that he may 
 not be right in so doing, but that he has lost as well as 
 gained. Now, this is as far as a man who values art and 
 is reasonable would go in the matter of machinery as long 
 as he was free — that is, was not forced to work for another 
 man's profit ; so long as he was living in a society that had 
 accepted equality of condition. Carry the machine used for 
 art a step further, and he becomes an unreasonable man, if 
 he values art and is free. To avoid misunderstanding, I 
 must say that I am thinking of the modern machine, which 
 is as it were alive, and to which the man is auxiliary, and 
 not of the old machine, the improved tool, which is auxil- 
 iary to the man, and only works as long as his hand is 
 thinking ; though I will remark, that even this elementary 
 form of machine has to be dropped when we come to the 
 higher and more intricate forms of art. Well, as to the 
 machine proper used for art, when it gets to the stage 
 above dealing with a necessary production that has accident- 
 ally some beauty about it, a reasonable man with a feeling 
 
SIGjVS of change. 1 97 
 
 for art will only use it when he is forced to. If he thinks 
 he would like ornament, for instance, and knows that the 
 machine cannot do it properly, and does not care to spend 
 the time to do it properly, why should he do it at all? 
 He will not diminish his leisure for the sake of making 
 something he does not want unless some man or band of 
 men force him to it ; so he will either go without the orna- 
 ment, or sacrifice some of his leisure to have it genuine. 
 That will be a sign that he wants it very much, and that it 
 will be worth his trouble : in which case, again, his labor 
 on it will not be mere trouble, but will interest and please 
 him by satisfying the needs of his mood of energy. 
 
 This, I say, is how a reasonable man would act if he 
 were free from man's compulsion; not being free, he acts 
 very differently. He has long passed the stage at which 
 machines are only used for doing work repulsive to an 
 average man, or for doing what could be as well done by 
 a machine as a man, and he instinctively expects a machine 
 to be invented whenever any product of industry becomes 
 sought after. He is the slave to machinery ; the new 
 machine must be invented, and when invented he viust — I 
 will not say use it, but be used by it, whether he likes it 
 or not. 
 
 But why is he the slave to machinery? Because he is 
 the slave to the system for whose existence the invention 
 of machinery was necessary. 
 
 And now I must drop, or rather have dropped, the 
 assumption of the equality of condition, and remind you 
 that, though in a sense we are all the slaves of machinery, 
 yet that some men are so directly without any metaphor at 
 all, and that these are just those on whom the great body 
 of the arts depends — the workmen. It is necessary for the 
 system which keeps them in their position as an inferior 
 
198 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 class that they should either be themselves machines or be 
 the servants to machines, in no case having any interest in 
 the work which they turn out. To their employers they 
 are, so far as they are workmen, a part of the machinery 
 of the workshop or the factory ; to themselves they are 
 proletarians, human beings working to live that they may 
 live to work : their part of craftsmen, of makers of things 
 by their own free will, is played out. 
 
 At the risk of being accused of sentimentality, I will say 
 that since this is so, since the work which produces the 
 things that should be matters of art is but a burden and a 
 slavery, I exult in this at least, that it cannot produce art ; 
 that all it can do lies between stark utilitarianism and idiotic 
 sham. 
 
 Or indeed is that merely sentimental? Rather, I think, 
 we who have learned to see the connection between indus- 
 trial slavery and the degradation of the arts have learned 
 also to hope for a future for those arts ; since the day will 
 certainly come when men will shake off the yoke, and refuse 
 to accept the mere artificial compulsion of the gambling 
 market to waste their lives in ceaseless and hopeless toil ; 
 and when it does come, their instincts for beauty and imag- 
 ination set free along with them, will produce such art as 
 they need ; and who can say that it will not as far surpass 
 the art of past ages as that does the poor relics of it left us 
 by the age of commerce? 
 
 A word or two on an objection which has often been 
 made to me when I have been talking on this subject. It 
 may be said, and is often. You regret the art of the Middle 
 Ages (as indeed I do), but those who produced it were 
 not free ; they were serfs, or guild-craftsmen surrounded by 
 brazen walls of trade restrictions ; they had no political 
 rights, and were exploited by their masters, the noble caste, 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE, 199 
 
 most grievously. Well, I quite admit that the oppression 
 and violence of the Middle Ages had its effect on the art 
 of those days, its shortcomings are traceable to them ; they 
 repressed art in certain directions, I do not doubt that ; and 
 for that reason I say, that when we shake off the present 
 oppression as we shook off the old, we may expect the art 
 of the days of real freedom to rise above that of those old 
 violent days. But I do say that it was possible then to 
 have social, organic, hopeful progressive art ; whereas now 
 such poor scraps of it as are left are the result of individual 
 and wasteful struggle, are retrospective and pessimistic. 
 And this hopeful art was possible amidst all the oppression 
 of those days, because the instruments of that oppression 
 were grossly obvious, and were external to the work of the 
 craftsman. They were laws and customs obviously intended 
 to rob him, and open violence of the highway robbery kind. 
 In short, industrial production was not the instrument used 
 for robbing the ' * lower classes ; " it is now the main instru- 
 ment used in that honorable profession. The medieval 
 craftsman was free in his work, therefore he made it as 
 amusing to himself as he could ; and it was his pleasure 
 and not his pain that made all things beautiful that were 
 made, and lavished treasures of human hope and thought 
 on everything that man made, from a cathedral to a por- 
 ridge-pot. Come, let us put it in the way least respectful 
 to the medieval craftsman, most polite to the modern 
 ''hand:" the poor devil of the fourteenth century, his 
 work was of so little value that he was allowed to waste 
 it by the hour in pleasing himself — and others ; but our 
 highly-strung mechanic, his minutes are too rich with the 
 burden of perpetual profit for him to be allowed to waste 
 one of them on art ; the present system will not allow him 
 —cannot allow him — to produce works of art. 
 
200 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 So that there has arisen this strange phenomenon, that 
 there is now a class of ladies and gentlemen, very refined 
 indeed, though not perhaps as well informed as is generally 
 supposed, and of this refined class there are many who do 
 really love beauty and incident — i.e., art, and would make 
 sacrifices to get it ; and these are led by artists of great 
 manual skill and high intellect, forming altogether a large 
 body of demand for the article. And yet the supply does 
 not come. Yes, and moreover, this great body of enthu- 
 siastic demanders are no mere poor and helpless people, 
 ignorant fisher-peasants, half-mad monks, scatter-brained 
 sansculottes — none of those, in short, the expression of 
 whose needs has shaken the world so often before, and 
 will do yet again. No, they are of the ruling classes, the 
 masters of men, who can live without labor, and have abun- 
 dant leisure to scheme out the fulfillment of their desires; 
 and yet I say they cannot have the art which they so much 
 long for, though they hunt it about the world so hard, sen- 
 timentalizing the sordid lives of the miserable peasants of 
 Italy and the starving proletarians of her towns, now that 
 all the picturesqueness has departed from the poor devils 
 of our own country-side, and of our own slums. Indeed, 
 there is little of reality left them anywhere, and that little is 
 fast fading away before the needs of the manufacturer and 
 his ragged regiment of workers, and before the enthusiasm 
 of the archaeological restorer of the dead past. Soon there 
 will be nothing left except the lying dreams of history, the 
 miserable wreckage of our museums and picture-galleries, 
 and the carefully guarded interiors of our aesthetic drawing- 
 rooms, unreal and foolish, fitting witnesses of the life of 
 corruption that goes on there, so pinched and meager 
 and cowardly, with its concealment and ignoring, rather 
 than restraint of, natural longings ; which does not forbid 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 20I 
 
 the greedy indulgence in them if it can but be decently 
 hidden. 
 
 The art then is gone, and can no more be ' * restored ' ' 
 on its old lines than a medieval building can be. The rich 
 and refined cannot have it though they would, and though 
 we will believe many of them would. And why ? Because 
 those who could give it to the rich are not allowed by the 
 rich to do so. In one word, slavery lies between us and art. 
 
 I have said as much as that the aim of art was to destroy 
 the curse of labor by making work the pleasurable satisfac- 
 tion of our impulse toward energy, and giving to that energy 
 hope of producing something worth its exercise. 
 
 Now, therefore, I say, that since we cannot have art by 
 striving after its mere superficial manifestation, since we can 
 have nothing but its sham by so doing, there yet remains 
 for us to see how it would be if we let the shadow take care 
 of itself and try, if we can, to lay hold of the substance. 
 For my part I believe, that if we try to realize the aims of 
 art without much troubling ourselves what the aspect of 
 the art itself shall be, we shall find we shall have what we 
 want at last : whether it is to be called art or not, it will at 
 least be /t/h; and, after all, that is what we want. It may 
 lead us into new splendors and beauties of visible art ; to 
 architecture with manifolded magnificence free from the 
 curious incompleteness and failings of that which the older 
 times have produced — to painting, uniting to the beauty 
 which medieval art attained the realism which modern 
 art aims at ; to sculpture, uniting the beauty of the Greek 
 and the expression of the Renaissance with some third 
 quality yet undiscovered, so as to give us the images of 
 men and women splendidly alive, yet not disqualified from 
 making, as all true sculpture should, architectural orna- 
 ment. All this it may do ; or, on the other hand, it may 
 
202 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 lead us into the desert, and art may seem to be dead amidst 
 us ; or feebly and uncertainly to be struggling in a world 
 which has utterly forgotten its old glories. 
 
 For my part, with art as it now is, I cannot bring myself 
 to think that it much matters which of these dooms awaits 
 it, so long as each bears with it some hope of what is to 
 come ; since here, as in other matters, there is no hope 
 save in Revolution. The old art is no longer fertile, no 
 longer yields us anything save elegantly poetical regrets ; 
 being barren, it has but to die, and the matter of moment 
 now is, as to how it shall die, whether with hope or with- 
 out it. 
 
 What is it, for instance, that has destroyed the Rouen, 
 the Oxford of uty elegant poetic regret? Has it perished 
 for the benefit of the people, either slowly yielding to the 
 growth of intelligent change and new happiness ? or has it 
 been, as it were, thunderstricken by the tragedy which 
 mostly accompanies some great new birth? Not so. 
 Neither phalangstere nor dynamite has swept its beauty 
 away, its destroyers have not been either the philanthropist 
 or the Socialist, the cooperator or the anarchist. It has 
 been sold, and at a cheap price indeed : muddled away by 
 the greed and incompetence of fools who do not know what 
 life and pleasure mean, who will neither take them them- 
 selves nor let others have them. That is why the death 
 of that beauty wounds us so : no man of sense or feeling 
 would dare to regret such losses if they had been paid for 
 by new life and happiness for the people. But there is the 
 people still as it was before, still facing for its part the 
 monster who destroyed all that beanty, and whose name 
 is Commercial Profit. 
 
 I repeat, that every scrap of genuine art will fall by the 
 same hands if the matter only goes on long enough, although 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 
 
 203 
 
 a sham art may be left in its place, which may very well be 
 carried on by dilettmiti fine gentlemen and ladies without 
 any help from below ; and, to speak plainly, I fear that this 
 gibbering ghost of the real thing would satisfy a great many 
 of those who now think themselves lovers of art ; though 
 it is not difficult to see a long vista of its degradation till it 
 shall become at last a mere laughing-stock ; that is to say, 
 if the thing were to go on : I mean, if art were to be for 
 ever the amusement of those whom we now call ladies and 
 gentlemen. 
 
 But for my part I do not think it will go on long enough 
 to reach such depths as that ; and yet I should be hypo- 
 critical if I were to say that I thought that the change in 
 the basis of society, which would enfranchise labor and 
 make men practically equal in condition, would lead us by 
 a short road to the splendid new birth of art which I have 
 mentioned, though I feel quite certain that it would not 
 leave what we now call art untouched, since the aims of 
 that revolution do include the aims of art — viz. , abolishing 
 the curse of labor. 
 
 I suppose that this is what is likely to happen ; that 
 machinery will go on developing, with the purpose of saving 
 men labor, till the mass of the people attain real leisure 
 enough to be able to appreciate the pleasure of life ; till, in 
 fact, they have attained such mastery over Nature that they 
 no longer fear starvation as a penalty for not working more 
 than enough. When they get to that point they will doubt- 
 less turn themselves and begin to find out what it is that 
 they really want to do. They would soon find out that 
 the less work they did (the less work unaccompanied by 
 art, I mean), the more desirable a dw^elling-place the earth 
 would be; they would accordingly do less and less work, 
 till the mood of energy, of which I began by speaking, 
 
204 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 urged them on afresh : but by that time Nature, rcHeved 
 by the relaxation of man's work, would be recovering her 
 ancient beauty, and be teaching men the old story of art. 
 And as the Artificial Famine, caused by men working for 
 the profit of a master, and which we now look upon as a 
 matter of course, would have long disappeared, they would 
 be free to do as they chose, and they would set aside their 
 machines in all cases where the work seemed pleasant or 
 desirable for handiwork ; till in all crafts where production 
 of beauty was required, the most direct communication 
 between a man's hand and his brain would be sought for. 
 And there would be many occupations also, as the processes 
 of agriculture, in which the voluntary exercise of energy 
 would be thought so delightful, that people w^ould not 
 dream of handing over its pleasure to the jaws of a machine. 
 
 In short, men will find out that the men of our days 
 were wrong in first multiplying their needs, and then trying 
 each man of them, to evade all participation in the means 
 and processes whereby those needs are satisfied ; that this 
 kind of division of labor is really only a new and willful form 
 of arrogant and slothful ignorance, far more injurious to the 
 happiness aud contentment of life than the ignorance of the 
 processes of Nature, of what we sometimes call science, 
 which men of the earlier days unwittingly lived in. 
 
 They will discover, or rediscover rather, that the true 
 secret of happiness lies in the taking a genuiyie interest hi 
 all the details of daily life, in elevating them by art instead 
 of handing the performance of them over to unregarded 
 drudges, and ignoring them ; and that in cases where it 
 was impossible either so to elevate them and make them 
 interesting, or to lighten them by the use of machinery, so 
 as to make the labor of them trifling, that should be taken 
 as a token that the supposed advantages gained by them 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 
 
 205 
 
 were not worth the trouble and had better be given up. 
 All this to my mind would be the outcome of men throwing 
 off the burden of Artificial Famine, supposing, as I cannot 
 help supposing, that the impulses w^hich have from the first 
 glimmerings of history urged men on to the practice of Art 
 were still at work in them. 
 
 Thus and thus only can come about the new birth of 
 Art, and I think it tvill come about thus. You may say it 
 is a long process, and so it is ; but I can conceive of a 
 longer. I have given you the Socialist or Optimist view of 
 the matter. Now for the Pessimist view. 
 
 I can conceive that the revolt against Artificial Famine 
 or Capitalism, which is now on foot, may be vanquished. 
 The result will be that the working class — the slaves of 
 society — will become more and more degraded ; that they 
 will not strive against overwhelming force, but, stimulated 
 by that love of life which Nature, always anxious about the 
 perpetuation of the race, has implanted in us, will learn 
 to bear everything — starvation, overwork, dirt, ignorance, 
 brutality. All these things they will bear, as, alas ! they 
 bear them too well even now ; all this rather than risk sweet 
 life and bitter livelihood, and all sparks of hope and 
 manliness will die out of them. 
 
 Nor will their masters be much better off: the earth's 
 surface will be hideous everywhere, save in the unin- 
 habitable desert ; Art will utterly perish, as in the manual 
 arts so in literature, which will become, as it is indeed 
 speedily becoming, a mere string of orderly and calculated 
 ineptitudes and passionless ingenuities ; Science will grow 
 more and more one-sided, more incomplete, more wordy 
 and useless, till at last she will pile herself up into such a 
 mass of superstition, that beside it the theologies of old time 
 will seem mere reason and enlightenment. All will get 
 
2o6 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 lower and lower, till the heroic struggles of the past to 
 realize hope from year to year, from century to century, 
 will be utterly forgotten, and man will be an indescribable 
 being — hopeless, desireless, lifeless. 
 
 And will there be deliverance from this even ? Maybe : 
 man may, after some terrible cataclysm, learn to strive 
 toward a healthy animalism, may grow from a tolerable 
 animal into a savage, from a savage into a barbarian, and 
 so on ; and some thousands of years hence he may be 
 beginning once more those arts which we have now lost, 
 and be carving interlacements like the New Zealanders, or 
 scratching forms of animals on their cleaned blade-bones, 
 like the pre-historic men of the drift. 
 
 But in any case, according to the pessimist view, which 
 looks upon revolt against Artificial Famine as impossible to 
 succeed, we shall wearily trudge the circle again, until some 
 accident, some unforeseen consequence of arrangement, 
 makes an end of us altogether. 
 
 That pessimism I do not believe in, nor, on tlie other 
 hand, do I suppose that it is altogether a matter of our wills 
 as to whether we shall further human progress or human 
 degradation ; yet, since there are those who are impelled 
 toward the Socialist or Optiniistic side of things, I must 
 conclude that there is some hope of its prevailing, that the 
 strenuous efforts of many individuals imply a force which is 
 thrusting them on. So that I believe that the "Aims of 
 Art" will be realized, though I know that they cannot be, 
 so long as we groan under the tyranny of Artificial 
 Famine. Once again I warn you against supposing, you 
 who may specially love art, that you will do any good by 
 attempting to revivify art by dealing with its dead exterior. 
 I say it is the aims of art that you must seek rather than 
 the art itself ; and in that search we may find ourselves in 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 207 
 
 a world blank and bare, as the result of our caring at least 
 this much for art, that we will not endure the shams of it. 
 
 Anyhow, I ask you to think with me that the worst 
 which can happen to us is to endure tamely the evils that 
 we see ; that no trouble or turmoil is so bad as that ; that 
 the necessary destruction which reconstruction bears with it 
 must be taken calmly ; that everywhere — in State, in 
 Church, in the household — we must be resolute to endure 
 no tyranny, accept no lie, quail before no fear, although 
 they may come before us disguised as piety, duty or 
 affection, as useful opportunity and good-nature, as prudence 
 or kindness. The world's roughness, falseness, and injustice 
 will bring about their natural consequences, and we and our 
 lives are part of those consequences ; but since we inherit 
 also the consequences of old resistance to those curses, let 
 us each look to it to have our fair share of that inheritance 
 also, which, if nothing else come of it, will at least bring to 
 us courage and hope ; that is, eager life while we live, 
 which is above all things the Aim of Art. 
 
2o8 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 USEFUL WORK VERSUS USELESS TOIL. 
 
 THE above title may strike some of my readers as 
 strange. It is assumed by most people nowadays, 
 that all work is useful, and by most well-to-do people 
 that all work is desirable. Most people, well-to-do or not, 
 believe that, even when a man is doing work which appears 
 to be useless, he is earning his livelihood by it — he is 
 "employed," as the phrase goes; and most of those who 
 are well-to-do cheer on the happy worker with congratu- 
 lations and praises, if he is only "industrious" enough and 
 deprives himself of all pleasure and holidays in the sacred 
 cause of labor. In short, it has become an article of the 
 creed of modern morality that all labor is good in itself — 
 a convenient belief to those who live on the labor of others. 
 But as to those on whom they live, I recommend them not 
 to take it on trust, but to look into the matter a little 
 deeper. 
 
 Let us grant, first, that the race of man must either 
 labor or perish. Nature does not give us our livelihood 
 gratis ; we must win it by toil of some sort or degree. Let 
 us see, then, if she does not give us some compensation for 
 this compulsion to labor, since certainly in other matters 
 she takes care to make the acts necessary to the continu- 
 ance of life in the individual and the race not only 
 endurable, but even pleasurable. 
 
 You may be sure that she does so, that it is of the 
 nature of man, when he is not diseased, to take pleasure in 
 his work under certain conditions. And, yet, we must say 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 
 
 209 
 
 in the teeth of the hypocritical praise of all labor, whatso- 
 ever it may be, of which I have made mention, that there is 
 some labor which is so far from being a blessing that it is a 
 curse ; that it would be better for the community and for 
 the worker if the latter were to fold his hands and refuse 
 to work, and either die or let us pack him off to the 
 workhouse or prison — which you will 
 
 Here, you see, are two kinds of work — one good, 
 the other bad ; one not far removed from a blessing, a 
 lightening of life ; the other a mere curse, a burden to 
 life. 
 
 What is the difference between them, then ? This : one 
 has hope in it, the other has not. It is manly to do the one 
 kind of work, and manly also to refuse to do the other. 
 
 What is the nature of the hope which, when it is present 
 in work, makes it worth doing? 
 
 It is threefold, I think — hope of rest, hope of product, 
 hope of pleasure in the work itself; and hope of these also 
 in some abundance and of good quality ; rest enough and 
 good enough to be worth having ; product worth having 
 by one who is neither a fool nor an ascetic ; pleasure enough 
 for all for us to be conscious of it while we are at work ; 
 not a mere habit, the loss of which we shall feel as a fidgety 
 man feels the loss of the bit of string he fidgets w4th. 
 
 I have put the hope of rest first because it is the simplest 
 and most natural part of our hope. Whatever pleasure 
 there is in some work, there is certainly some pain in all 
 work, the beast-like pain of stirring up our slumbering 
 energies to action, the beast-like dread of change when 
 things are pretty well with us ; and the compensation for 
 this animal pain is animal rest. We must feel while we are 
 working that the time will come when we shall not have to 
 work. Also the rest, when it comes, must be long enough 
 
2IO WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 to allow us to enjoy it ; it must be longer than is merely- 
 necessary for us to recover the strength we have expended 
 in working, and it must be animal rest also in this, that it 
 must not be disturbed by anxiety, else we shall not be able 
 to enjoy it. If we have this amount and kind of rest we 
 shall, so far, be no worse off than the beasts. 
 
 As to the hope of product, I have said that Nature 
 compels us to work for that. It remains for iis to look to 
 it that we do really produce something, and not nothing, or 
 at least nothing that we want or are allowed to use. If we 
 look to this and use our wills we shall, so far, be better 
 than machines. 
 
 The hope of pleasure in the work itself: how strange 
 that hope must seem to some of my readers — to most of 
 them ! Yet I think that to all living things there is a 
 pleasure in the exercise of their energies, and that even 
 beasts rejoice in being lithe and swift and strong. But a 
 man at work, making something which he feels will exist 
 because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the 
 energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body. 
 Memory and imagination help him as he works. Not only 
 his own thoughts, but the thoughts of the men of past ages 
 guide his hands ; and, as a part of the human race, he 
 creates. If we work thus we shall be men, and our days 
 will be happy and eventful. 
 
 Thus worthy work carries wuth it the hope of pleasure 
 in rest, the hope of the pleasure in our using what it makes, 
 and the hope of pleasure in our daily creative skill. 
 
 All other work but this is worthless ; it is slaves' work — 
 mere toiling to live, that we may live to toil. 
 
 Therefore, since we have, as it were, a pair of scales in 
 which to w^eigh the work now done in the world, let us use 
 them. Let us estimate the worthiness of the work we do, 
 
SIGNS OF CHANG K 2il 
 
 after so many thousand years of toil, so many promises of 
 hope deferred, such boundless exultation over the progress 
 of civilization and the gain of liberty. 
 
 Now, the first thing as to the work done in civilization 
 and the easiest to notice is that it is portioned out very 
 unequally among the different classes of society. First, 
 there are people — not a few — who do no work, and make 
 no pretence of doing any. Next, there are people, and 
 very many of them, who work fairly hard, though with 
 abundant easements and holidays, claimed and allowed; 
 and lastly, there are people who work so hard that they 
 may be said to do nothing else than work, and are accord- 
 ingly called "the working classes," as distinguished from 
 the middle classes and the rich, or aristocracy, whom I 
 have mentioned above. 
 
 It is clear that this inequality presses heavily upon the 
 "working" class, and must visibly tend to destroy their 
 hope of rest at least, and so, in that particular, make them 
 worse off than mere beasts of the field ; but that is not the 
 sum and end of our folly of turning useful work into useless 
 toil, but only the beginning of it. 
 
 For first, as to the class of rich people doing no work, 
 we all know that they consume a great deal while they 
 produce nothing. Therefore, clearly, they have to be kept 
 at the expense of those who do work, just as paupers have, 
 and are a mere burden on the community. In these days 
 there are many who have learned to see this, though they 
 can see no further into the evils of our present system, and 
 have formed no idea of any scheme for getting rid of this 
 burden ; though perhaps they have a vague hope that 
 changes in the system of voting for members of the House 
 of Commons may, as if by magic, tend in that direction. 
 With such hopes or superstitions we need not trouble 
 
212 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 ourselves. Moreover, this class, the aristocracy, once thought 
 most necessary to the State, is scant of numbers, and has 
 now no power of its own, but depends on the support of 
 the class next below it — the middle class. In fact, it is 
 really composed either of the most successful men of that 
 class, or of their immediate descendants. 
 
 As to the middle class, including the trading, manu- 
 facturing, and professional people of our society, they do, 
 as a rule, seem to work quite hard enough, and so at first 
 sight might be thought to help the community, and not 
 burden it. But by far the greater part of them, though 
 they work, do not produce, and even when they do pro- 
 duce, as in the case of those engaged (wastefully indeed) in 
 the distribution of goods, or doctors, or (genuine) artists 
 and literary men, they consume out of all proportion to 
 their due share. The commercial and manufacturing part 
 of them, the most powerful part, spend their lives and 
 energies in fighting amongst themselves for their respective 
 shares of the wealth which they force the genuine workers 
 to provide for them ; the others are almost wholly the 
 hangers-on of these ; they do not work for the public, but a 
 privileged class : they are the parasites of property, some- 
 times, as in the case of lawyers, undisguisedly so ; some- 
 times, as the doctors and others above mentioned, professing 
 to be useful, but too often of no use save as supporters of 
 the system of folly, fraud, and tyranny of which they form 
 a part. And all these we must remember have, as a rule, 
 one aim in view ; not the production of utilities, but the 
 gaining of a position either for themselves or their children 
 in w^hich they will not have to work at all. It is their 
 ambition and the end of their whole lives to gain, if not for 
 themselves yet at least for their children, the proud position 
 of being obvious burdens on the community. For their 
 
SIGNS OF CHANCE. 
 
 2T3 
 
 work itself, in spite of the sham dignity with which they 
 surround it, they care nothing : save a few enthusiasts, men 
 of science, art or letters, who, if they are not the salt of the 
 earth, are at least (and oh, the pity of it !) the salt of the 
 miserable system of which they are the slaves, which 
 hinders and thwarts them at every turn, and even sometimes 
 corrupts them. 
 
 Here then is another class, this time very numerous and 
 all-powerful, which produces very litde and consumes 
 enormously, and is therefore in the main supported, as 
 paupers are, by the real producers. The class that remains 
 to be considered produces all that is produced, and sup- 
 ports both itself and the other classes, though it is placed 
 in a position of inferiority to them ; real inferiority, mind 
 you, involving a degradation both of mind and body. But 
 it is a necessary consequence of this tyranny and folly that 
 again many of these workers are not producers. A vast 
 number of them once more are merely parasites of property, 
 some of them openly so, as the soldiers by land and sea 
 who are kept on foot for the perpetuating of national 
 rivalries and enmities, and for the purposes of the national 
 struggle for the share of the product of unpaid labor. But 
 besides this obvious burden on the producers and the 
 scarcely less obvious one of domestic servants, there is first 
 the army of clerks, shop-assistants, and so forth, who are 
 engaged in the service of the private war for wealth, which, 
 as above said, is the real occupation of the well-to-do 
 middle class. This is a larger body of workers than 
 might be supposed, for it includes among others all those 
 engaged in what I should call competitive salesmanship, or, 
 to use a less dignified word, the puffery of wares, which 
 has now got to such a pitch that there are many things 
 which cost far more to sell than they do to make. 
 
214 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 Next there is the mass of people employed in making 
 all those articles of folly and luxury, the demand for which 
 is the outcome of the existence of the rich non-producing 
 classes ; things which people leading a manly and uncor- 
 rupted life would not ask for or dream of These things, 
 whoever may gainsay me, I will forever refuse to call 
 wealth : they are not wealth, but waste. Wealth is what 
 Nature gives us and what a reasonable man can make out 
 of the gifts of Nature for his reasonable use. The sunlight, 
 the fresh air, the unspoiled face of the earth, food, raiment 
 and housing necessary and decent ; the storing up of 
 knowledge of all kinds, and the power of disseminating it ; 
 means of free communication between man and man ; works 
 of art, the beauty which man creates when he^ is most a 
 man, most aspiring and thoughtful — all things which serve 
 the pleasure of people, free, manly and uncorrupted. This 
 is wealth. Nor can I think of anything worth having 
 which does not come under one or other of these heads. 
 But think, I beseech you, of the product of England^ the 
 workshop of the world, and will you not be bewildered, as 
 I am, at the thought of the mass of things which no sane 
 man could desire, but which our useless toil makes — and 
 sells? 
 
 Now, further, there is even a sadder industry yet, which 
 is forced on many, very many, of our workers — -the making 
 of wares which are necessary to them and their brethren, 
 because they are an mferior class. For if many men live 
 without producing, nay, must live lives so empty and foolish 
 that Xh^Y force a great part of the workers to produce wares 
 which no one needs, not even the rich, it follows that most 
 men must be poor ; and, living as they do on wages from 
 those whom they support, cannot get for their use the goods 
 which men naturally desire, but must put up with miserable 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 
 
 215 
 
 makeshifts for them, with coarse food that does not nourish, 
 with rotten raiment which does not shelter, with wretched 
 houses w^hich may well make a town- dweller in civilization 
 look back with regret to the tent of the nomad tribe, or 
 the cave of the pre-historic savage. Nay, the workers 
 must even lend a hand to the great industrial invention of 
 the age — adulteration, and by its help produce for their 
 own use shams and mockeries of the luxury of the rich ; 
 for the wage-earners must always live as the wage-payers 
 bid them, and their very habits of life are forced on them 
 by their masters. 
 
 But it is waste of time to try to express in words due 
 contempt of the productions of the much-praised cheapness 
 of our epoch. It must be enough to say that this cheap- 
 ness is necessary to the system of exploiting on which 
 modern manufacture rests. In other words, our society 
 includes a great mass of slaves, who must be fed, clothed, 
 housed and amused as slaves, and their daily necessity 
 compels them to make the slave-wares whose use is the 
 perpetuation of their slavery. 
 
 To sum up, then, concerning the manner of work in 
 civilized States, these States are composed of three classes — 
 a class which does not even pretend to w'ork, a class which 
 pretends to work but which produces nothing, and a class 
 which works, but is compelled by the other two classes to 
 do work which is often unproductive. 
 
 Civilization, therefore, wastes its own resources, and will 
 do so as long as the present system lasts. These are cold 
 words with which to describe the tyranny under which we 
 suffer ; try then to consider what they mean. 
 
 There is a certain amount of natural material and of 
 natural forces in the world, and a certain amount of labor- 
 power inherent in the persons of the men that inhabit it. 
 
2i6 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 Men urged by their necessities and desires have labored for 
 many thousands of years at the task of subjugating the 
 forces of Nature and of making the natural material useful 
 to them. To our eyes, since we cannot see into the future, 
 that struggle with Nature seems nearly over, and the victory 
 of the human race over her nearly complete. And, looking 
 backward to the time when history first began, we note 
 that the progress of that victory has been far swifter and 
 more startling within the last two hundred years than ever 
 before. Surely, therefore, we moderns ought to be in all 
 ways vastly better off than any who have gone before us. 
 Surely we ought, one and all of us, to be wealthy, to be 
 well furnished with the good things which our victory over 
 Nature has won for us. 
 
 But what is the real fact? Who will dare to deny that 
 the great mass of civilized men are poor? So poor are 
 they that it is mere childishness troubling ourselves to 
 discuss whether perhaps they are in some ways a little 
 better off than their forefathers. They are poor ; nor can 
 their poverty be measured by the poverty of a resourceless 
 savage, for he knows of nothing else than his poverty ; that 
 he should be cold, hungry, houseless, dirty, ignorant, all 
 that is to him as natural as that he should have a skin. But 
 for us, for the most of us, civilization has bred desires which 
 she forbids us to satisfy, and so is not merely a niggard but 
 a torturer also. 
 
 Thus then have the fruits of our victory over Nature 
 been stolen from us, thus has compulsion by Nature to 
 labor in hope of rest, gain, and pleasure been turned into 
 compulsion by man to labor in hope — of living to labor ! 
 
 What shall we do then, can we mend it? 
 
 Well, remember once more that it is not our remote 
 ancestors who achieved the victory over Nature, but our 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 
 
 217 
 
 fathers, nay, our very selves. For us to sit hopeless and 
 helpless then would be a strange folly indeed : be sure that 
 we can amend it. What, then, is the first thing to be done? 
 
 We have seen that modern society is divided into two 
 classes, one of which is privileged to be kept by the labor 
 of the other — that is, it forces the other to work for it and 
 takes from this inferior class everything that it can take 
 from it, and uses the wealth so taken to keep its own mem- 
 bers in a superior position, to make them beings of a higher 
 order than the others : longer lived, more beautiful, more 
 honored, more refined than those of the other class. I do 
 not say that it troubles itself about its members being 
 positively long lived, beautiful or refined, but merely insists 
 that they shall be so 7'elatively to the inferior class. As also 
 it cannot use the labor-power of the inferior class fairly 
 in producing real wealth, it wastes it wholesale in the 
 production of rubbish. 
 
 It is this robbery and waste on the part of the minority 
 which keeps the majority poor ; if it could be shown that 
 it is necessary for the preservation of society that this 
 should be submitted to, little more could be said on the 
 matter, save that the despair of the oppressed majority 
 would probably at some time or other destroy Society. 
 But it has been shown, on the contrary, even by such 
 incomplete experiments, for instance, as Cooperation (so 
 called), that the existence of a privileged class is by no 
 means necessary for the production of wealth, but rather 
 for the "government" of the producers of wealth, or, in 
 other words, for the upholding of privilege. 
 
 The first step to be taken then is to abolish a class of 
 men privileged to shirk their duties as men, thus forcing 
 others to do the work which they refuse to do. All must 
 work according to their ability, and so produce what they 
 
2i8 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 consume — that is, each man should work as well as he can 
 for his own livelihood, and his livelihood should be assured 
 to him ; that is to say, all the advantages which society 
 would provide for each and all of its members. 
 
 Thus, at last, would true Society be founded. It would 
 rest on equality of condition. No man would be tormented 
 for the benefit of another — nay, no one man would be 
 tormented for the benefit of Society. Nor, indeed, can 
 that order be called Society which is not upheld for the 
 benefit of every one of its members. 
 
 But since men live now, badly as they live, when so 
 many people do not produce at all, and when so much 
 ■work is wasted, it is clear that, under conditions where all 
 produced and no work was wasted, not only would every 
 one work with the certain hope of gaining a due share of 
 wealth by his work, but also he could not miss his due 
 share of rest. Here, then, are two out of the three kinds 
 of hope mentioned above as an essential part of w^orthy 
 work assured to the worker. When class robbery is 
 abolished, every man will reap the fruits of his labor, every 
 man will have due rest — leisure, that is. Some Socialists 
 might say we need not go any further than this ; it is 
 enough that the worker should get the full produce of his 
 work, and that his rest should be abundant. But though 
 the compulsion of man's tyranny is thus abolished, I yet 
 demand compensation for the compulsion of Nature's neces- 
 sity. As long as the work is repulsive it will still be a 
 burden which must be taken up daily, and even so would 
 mar our life, even though the hours of labor were short. 
 What we want to do is to add to our wealth without dimin- 
 ishing our pleasure. Nature will not be finally conquered 
 till our work becomes a part of the pleasure of our lives. 
 
 That first step of freeing people from the compulsion to 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 219 
 
 labor needlessly will at least put us on the way toward this 
 happy end ; for we shall then have time and opportunities 
 for bringing it about. As things are now, between the waste 
 of labor-power in mere idleness and its waste in unpro- 
 ductive work, it is clear that the world of civilization is 
 supported by a small part of its people ; when a// were 
 working usefully for its support, the share of work which, 
 each would have to do would be but small, if our standard 
 of life were about on the footing of what well-to-do and 
 refined people now think desirable. We shall have labor- 
 power to spare, and shall, in short, be as wealthy as we 
 please. It will be easy to live. If we were to wake up some 
 morning now, under our present system, and find it *' easy 
 to live," that system would force us to set to work at once 
 and make it hard to live; we should call that '* developing 
 our resources," or some such fine name. The multiplication 
 of labor has become a necessity for us, and as long as that 
 goes on no ingenuity in the invention of machines will be 
 of any real use to us. Each new machine will cause a 
 certain amount of misery among the workers whose special 
 industry it may disturb ; so many of them will be reduced 
 from skilled to unskilled workmen, and then gradually 
 matters will slip Into their due grooves, and all will work 
 apparently smoothly again ; and If It were not that all this 
 is preparing revolution, things would be, for the greater 
 part of men, just as they were before the new wonderful 
 invention. 
 
 But when revolution has made It ''easy to live," when 
 all are working harmoniously together and there Is no one 
 to rob the worker of his time, that is to say, his life ; in 
 those coming days there will be no compulsion on us to go 
 on producing things we do not want, no compulsion on us 
 to labor for nothing ; we shall be able calmly and thought- 
 
220 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 fully to consider what we shall do with our wealth of labor- 
 power. Now, for my part, I think the first use we ought to 
 make of that wealth, of that freedom, should be to make 
 all our labor, even the commonest and most necessary, 
 pleasant to everybody ; for thinking over the matter care- 
 fully I can see that the one course which will certainly 
 make life happy in the face of all accidents and troubles 
 is to take a pleasurable interest in all the details of life. 
 And lest perchance you think that an assertion too univer- 
 sally accepted to be worth making, let me remind you how 
 entirely modern civilization forbids it ; with what sordid, 
 and even terrible, details it surrounds the life of the poor, 
 what a mechanical and empty life she forces on the rich ; 
 and how rare a holiday it is for any of us to feel ourselves 
 a part of Nature, and unhurriedly, thoughtfully, and 
 happily to note the course of our lives amidst all the little 
 links of events which connect them wuth the lives of 
 others, and build up the great whole of humanity. 
 
 But such a holiday our whole lives might be, if we were 
 resolute to make all our labor reasonable and pleasant. 
 But we must be resolute indeed ; for no half measures will 
 help us here. It has been said already that our present 
 joyless labor, and our lives scared and anxious as the 
 life of a hunted beast, are forced upon us by the present 
 system of producing for the profit of the privileged classes. 
 It is necessary to state what this means. Under the present 
 system of wages and capital the ''manufacturer" (most 
 absurdly so called, since a manufacturer means a person 
 who makes with his hands) having a monopoly of the 
 means whereby the power to labor inherent in every man's 
 body can be used for production, is the master of those 
 who are not so privileged ; he, and he alone, is able to 
 make use of this labor-power, which, on the other hand, 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 221 
 
 is the only commodity by means of which his "capital," 
 that is to say, the accumulated product of past labor, can be 
 made productive to him. He, therefore, buys the labor- 
 power of those who are bare of capital and can only live 
 by selling it to him ; his purpose in this transaction is to 
 increase his capital, to make it breed. It is clear that if he 
 paid those with w^hom he makes his bargain the full value 
 of their labor, that is to say, all that they produced, he 
 would fail in his purpose. But since he is the monopolist 
 of the means of productive labor, he can compel them to 
 make a bargain better for him and worse for them than 
 that ; which bargain is that after they have earned their 
 livelihood, estimated according to a standard high enough 
 to insure their peaceable submission to his mastership, the 
 rest (and by far the larger part as a matter of fact) of what 
 they produce shall belong to him, shall be his property 
 to do as he likes with, to use or abuse at his pleasure ; 
 which property is, as we all know, jealously guarded by 
 army and navy, police and prison ; in short, by that huge 
 mass of physical force which superstition, habit, fear of 
 death by starvation — Ignorance, in one word, among the 
 propertyless masses enables the propertied classes to use 
 for the subjection of — their slaves. 
 
 Now, at other times, other evils resulting from this 
 system may be put forward. What I want to point out 
 now is the impossibility of our attaining to attractive labor 
 under this system, and to repeat that it is this robbery 
 (there is no other word for it) which wastes the available 
 labor-power of the civilized world, forcing many men to do 
 nothing, and many, very many more to do nothing useful ; 
 and forcing those who carry on really useful labor to most 
 burdensome over-work. For understand once for all that 
 the " manufacturer" aims primarily at producing, by means 
 
222 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 of the labor he has stolen from others, not goods but profits, 
 that is, the ' ' wealth ' ' that is produced over and above the 
 livelihood of his workmen, and the wear and tear of his 
 machinery. Whether that ' ' wealth ' ' is real or sham matters 
 nothing to him. If it sells and yields him a "profit" it is 
 all right. I have said that, owing to there being rich 
 people who have more money than they can spend reason- 
 ably, and who, therefore, buy sham wealth, there is waste 
 on that side ; and also that, owing to there being poor 
 people who cannot afford to buy things which are worth 
 making, there is waste on that side. So that the 
 "demand" which the capitalist "supplies" is a false 
 demand. The market in which he sells is "rigged" by 
 the miserable inequalities produced by the robbery of the 
 system of Capital and Wages. 
 
 It is this system, therefore, which we must be resolute 
 in getting rid of, if we are to attain to happy and useful 
 work for all. The first step toward making labor attractive 
 is to get the means of making labor fruitful, the Capital, 
 including the land, machinery, factories, &c., into the hands 
 of the community, to be used for the good of all alike, so 
 that we might all work at ' ' supplying ' ' the real ' ' demands ' ' 
 of each and all — that is to say, work for livelihood, instead 
 of working to supply the demand of the profit market — 
 instead of working for profit — i.e., the power of compelling 
 other men to work against their will. 
 
 When this first step has been taken and men begin to 
 understand that Nature wills all men either to work or 
 starve, and when they are no longer such fools as to allow 
 some the alternative of stealing, when this happy day is 
 come, we shall then be relieved from the tax of waste, and 
 consequently shall find that we have, as aforesaid, a mass 
 of labor-power available, which M^ill enable us to live as we 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 223 
 
 please within reasonable limits. We shall no longer be 
 hurried and driven by the fear of starvation, which at 
 present presses no less on the greater part of men in 
 civilized communities than it does on mere savages. The 
 first and most obvious necessities will be so easily provided 
 for in a community in which there is no waste of labor, that 
 we shall have time to look round and consider what we 
 really do want that can be obtained without over-taxing 
 our energies ; for the often-expressed fear of mere idleness 
 falling upon us when the force supplied by the present 
 hierarchy of compulsion is withdrawn, is a fear which is but 
 generated by the burden of excessive and repulsive labor, 
 which we most of us have to bear at present. 
 
 I say once more that, in my belief, the first thing which 
 we shall think so necessary as to be worth sacrificing some 
 idle time for, will be the attractiveness of labor. No very 
 heavy sacrifice will be required for attaining this object, 
 but some wi/l be required. For we may hope that men 
 who have just waded through a period of strife and revolu- 
 tion will be the last to put up long with a life of mere 
 utilitarianism, though Socialists are sometimes accused by 
 ignorant persons of aiming at such a life. On the other 
 hand, the ornamental part of modern life is already rotten 
 to the core, and must be utterly swept away before the 
 new order of things is realized. There is nothing of it — 
 there is nothing which could come of it that could satisfy 
 the aspirations of men set free from the tyranny of 
 commercialism. 
 
 We must begin to build up the ornamental part of life — 
 its pleasures, bodily and mental, scientific and artistic, social 
 and individual — on the basis of work undertaken willingly 
 and cheerfully, with the consciousness of benefiting ourselves 
 and our neighbors by it. Such absolutely necessary work 
 
224 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 as we should have to do would in the first place take up 
 but a small })art of each day, and so far would not be 
 burdensome ; but it would be a task of daily recurrence, 
 and therefore would spoil our day's pleasure unless it were 
 made at least endurable while it lasted. In other words, 
 all labor, even the commonest, must be made attractive. 
 
 How can this be done? — is the cjuestion the answer to 
 which will take up the rest of this paper. In giving some 
 hints on this question, I know that, while all Socialists will 
 agree with many of the suggestions made, some of them 
 may seem to some strange and \^enturesome. These must 
 be considered as being given without any intention of 
 dogmatizing, and as merely expressing my own personal 
 opinion. 
 
 From all that has been said already it follows that labor, 
 to be attractive, must be directed toward some obviously 
 useful end, unless in cases where it is undertaken voluntarily 
 by each individual as a pastime. This element of obvious 
 usefulness is all the more to be counted on in sweetening 
 tasks otherwise irksome, since social morality, the responsi- 
 bility of man toward the life of man, will, in the new order 
 of things, take the place of theological morality, or the 
 responsibility of man to some abstract idea. Next, the 
 day's work will be short. This need not be insisted on. 
 It is clear that with work un wasted it can be short. It is 
 clear also that much work which is now a torment, would 
 be easily endurable if it were much shortened. 
 
 Variety of work is the next point, and a most important 
 one. To compel a man to do day after day the same task, 
 without any hope of escape or change, means nothing short 
 of turning his life into a prison-torment. Nothing but the 
 tyranny of profit-grinding makes this necessary. A man 
 might easily learn and practice at least three crafts, varying 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 225 
 
 sedentary occupation with outdoor — occupation calling for 
 the exercise of strong bodily energy for work in which the 
 mind had more to do. There are few men, for instance, 
 who would not wish to spend part of their lives in the most 
 necessary and pleasantest of all work— cultivating the 
 earth. One thing which will make this variety of employ- 
 ment possible will be the form that education will take in a 
 socially ordered community. At present all education is 
 directed toward the end of fitting people to take their places 
 in the hierarchy of commerce — these as masters, those as 
 workmen. The education of the masters is more orna- 
 mental than that of the workmen, but it is commercial still ; 
 and even at the ancient universities learning is but little 
 regarded, unless it can in the long run be made fo pay. 
 Due education is a totally different thing from this, and 
 concerns itself in finding out what different people are fit 
 for, and helping them along the road which they are inclined 
 to take. In a duly ordered society, therefore, young people 
 would be taught such handicrafts as they had a turn for as 
 a part of their education, the discipline of their minds and 
 bodies ; and adults would also have opportunities of learning 
 in the same schools, for the development of individual 
 capacities would be of all things chiefly aimed at by educa- 
 tion, instead, as now, of the subordination of all capacities to 
 the great end of "money-making" for oneself — or one's 
 master. The amount of talent, and even genius, which the 
 present system crushes, and which would be drawn out by 
 such a system, would make our daily work easy and 
 interesting. 
 
 Under this head of variety I will note one product of 
 industry which has suffered so much from commercialism 
 that it can scarcely be said to exist, and is, indeed, so 
 foreign from our epoch that I fear there are some who will 
 
226 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 find it difficult to understand what I have to say on the 
 subject, which I nevertheless must say, since it is really a 
 most important one. I mean that side of art which is, or 
 dtight to be, done by the ordinary workman while he is 
 about his ordinary work, and which has got to be called, 
 very properly. Popular Art. This art, I repeat, no longer 
 exists now, having been killed by commercialism. But 
 from the beginning of man's contest with Nature till the 
 rise of the present capitalistic system, it was alive, and 
 generally flourished. While it lasted, everything that was 
 made by man was adorned by man, just as everything made 
 by Nature is adorned by her. The craftsman, as he 
 fashioned the thing he had under his hand, ornamented it 
 so naturally and so entirely without conscious effort, that it 
 is often difficult to distinguish where the mere utilitarian 
 part of his work ended and the ornamental began. Now 
 the origin of this art was the necessity that the workman 
 felt for variety in his work, and though the beauty produced 
 by this desire was a great gift to the world, yet the obtain- 
 ing variety and pleasure in the work by the workman was 
 a matter of more importance still, for it stamped all labor 
 with the impress of pleasure. All this has now quite dis- 
 appeared from the work of civilization. If you wish to have 
 ornament, you must pay specially for it, and the workman 
 is compelled to produce ornament, as he is to produce 
 other wares. He is compelled to pretend happiness in his 
 work, so that the beauty produced by man's hand, which 
 was once a solace to his labor, has now become an extra 
 burden to him, and ornament is now but one of the follies 
 of useless toil, and perhaps not the least irksome of its 
 fetters. 
 
 Besides the short duration of labor, its conscious useful- 
 ness, and the variety which should go with it, there is 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 
 
 227 
 
 another thing needed to make it attractive, and that is 
 pleasant surroundings. The misery and squalor which we 
 people of civilization bear with so much complacency as a 
 necessary part of the manufacturing system, is just as neces- 
 sary to the community at large as a proportionate amount 
 of filth would be in the house of a private rich man. If 
 such a man were to allow the cinders to be raked all over 
 his drawing-room, and a privy to be established in each 
 corner of his dining-room, if he habitually made a dust and 
 refuse heap of his once beautiful garden, never washed his 
 sheets or changed his tablecloth, and made his family sleep 
 five in a bed, he would surely find himself in the claws of a 
 commission de hinatico. But such acts of miserly folly are 
 just what our present society is doing daily under the 
 compulsion of a supposed necessity, which is nothing short 
 of madness. I beg you to bring your commission of lunacy 
 against civilization without more delay. 
 
 For all our crowded towns and bewildering factories are 
 simply the outcome of the profit system. CapitaHstic man- 
 ufacture, capitalistic land-owning, and capitalistic exchange 
 force men into big cities in order to manipulate them in the 
 interests of capital ; the same tyranny contracts the due 
 space of the factory so much that (for instance) the interior 
 of a great weaving-shed is almost as ridiculous a spectacle 
 as it is a horrible one. There is no other necessity for all 
 this, save the necessity for grinding profits out of men's 
 lives, and of producing cheap goods for the use (and sub- 
 jection) of the slaves who grind. All labor is not yet 
 driven into factories ; often where it is there is no necessity 
 for it, save again the profit- tyranny. People engaged in 
 all such labor need by no means be compelled to pig 
 together in close city quarters. There is no reason why 
 they should not follow th^ir occupations in quiet country 
 
228 WILLIAM MORRIS, 
 
 homes, in industrial colleges, in small towns, or, in short, 
 where they find it happiest for them to live. 
 
 As to that part of labor which must be associated on a 
 large scale, this very factory system, under a reasonable 
 order of things (though to my mind there might still be 
 drawbacks to it), would at least offer opportunities for a 
 full and eager social life surrounded by many pleasures. 
 The factories might be centers of intellectual activity also, 
 and work in them might well be varied very much : the 
 tending of the necessary machinery might to each individ- 
 ual be but a short part of the day's work. The other work 
 might vary from raising food from the surrounding country 
 to the study and practice of art and science. It is a matter 
 of course that people engaged in such work, and being the 
 masters of their own lives, w^ould not allow any hurry or 
 want of foresight to force them into enduring dirt, disorder, 
 or want of room. Science duly applied would enable them 
 to get rid of refuse, to minimize, if not wholly to destroy, 
 all the inconveniences w^hich at present attend the use of 
 elaborate machinery, such as smoke, stench and noise ; nor 
 would they endure that the buildings in which they worked 
 or lived should be ugly blots on the fair face of the earth. 
 Beginning by making their factories, buildings, and sheds 
 decent and convenient like their homes, they would infalli- 
 bly go on to make them not merely negatively good, inof- 
 fensive merely, but even beautiful, so that the glorious art 
 of architecture, now for some time slain by commercial 
 greed, would be born again and flourish. 
 
 So, you see, I clami that work in a duly ordered com- 
 munity should be made attractive by the consciousness of 
 usefulness, by its being carried on with intelligent interest, 
 by variety, and by its being exercised amidst pleasurable 
 surroundings. But I liave also .claimed, as we all do, that 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 229 
 
 the day's work should not be wearisomely long. It may 
 be said, "How can you make this last claim square with 
 the others? If the work is to be so refined, will not the 
 goods made be very expensive ? ' ' 
 
 I do admit, as I have said before, that some sacrifice 
 will be necessary in order to make labor attractive. I mean 
 that, if we could be contented in a free community to work 
 in the same hurried, dirty, disorderly, heartless way as we 
 do now, we might shorten our day's labor very much more 
 than I suppose we shall do, taking all kinds of labor into 
 account. But if we did, it would mean that our new-won 
 freedom of condition would leave us listless and wretched, 
 if not anxious, as we are now, which I hold is simply impos- 
 sible. We should be contented to make the sacrifices 
 necessary for raising our condition to the standard called 
 out for as desirable by the whole community. Nor only 
 so. We should, individually, be emulous to sacrifice quite 
 freely still more of our time and our ease toward the raising 
 of the standard of life. Persons, either by themselves or 
 associated for such purposes, would freely, and for the love 
 of the work and for its results — stimulated by the hope of 
 the pleasure of creation — produce those ornaments of life 
 for the service of all, which they are now bribed to produce 
 (or pretend to produce) for the service of a few rich men. 
 The experiment of a civilized community living wholly 
 without art or literature has not yet been tried. The past 
 degradation and corruption of civilization may force this 
 denial of pleasure upon the society which will arise from 
 its ashes. If that must be, we will accept the passing phase 
 of utilitarianism as a foundation for the art which is to be. 
 If the cripple and the starveling disappear from our streets, 
 if the earth nourish us all alike, if the sun shine for all of 
 us alike, if to one and all of us the glorious drama of the 
 
230 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 earth — day and night, summer and winter — can be presented 
 as a thing to understand and love, we can afford to wait 
 awhile till we are purified from the shame of the past cor- 
 ruption, and till art arises again among people freed from 
 the terror of the slave and the shame of the robber. 
 
 Meantime, in any case, the refinement, thoughtfulness, 
 and deliberation of labor must indeed be paid for, but not 
 by compulsion to labor long hours. Our epoch has in\'ented 
 machines which would have appeared wild dreams to the 
 men of past ages, and of those machines we have as yet 
 made no use. 
 
 They are called ' ' labor-saving ' ' machines — a commonly 
 used phrase which implies what we expect of them ; but we 
 do not get what we expect. What they really do is to 
 reduce the skilled laborer to the ranks of the unskilled, to 
 increase the number of the "reserve army of labor" — that 
 is, to increase the precariousness of life among the workers 
 and to intensify the labor of those who serve the machines 
 (as slaves their masters). All this they do by the way, while 
 they pile up the profits of the employers of labor, or force 
 them to expend those profits in bitter commercial war with 
 each other. In a true society these miracles of ingenuity 
 would be for the first time used for minimizing the amount 
 of time spent in unattractive labor, which by their means 
 might be so reduced as to be but a very light burden on 
 each individual. All the more as these machines would 
 most certainly be very much improved when it was no 
 longer a question as to whether their improvement would 
 "pay" the individual, but rather whether it would benefit 
 the community. 
 
 So much for the ordinary use of machinery, which would 
 probably, after a time, be somewhat restricted, when men 
 found out that there was no need for anxiety as to mere 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 
 
 231 
 
 subsistence, and learned to take an interest and pleasure 
 in handiwork which, done deliberately and thoughtfully, 
 could be made more attractive than machine work. 
 
 Again, as people freed from the daily terror of starva- 
 tion find out what they really wanted, being no longer 
 compelled by anything but their own needs, they would 
 refuse to produce the mere inanities which are now called 
 luxuries, or the poison and trash now called cheap wares. 
 No one would make plush breeches when there were no 
 flunkies to wear them, nor would anybody waste his time 
 over making oleomargarine when no one was compelled to 
 abstain from real butter. Adulteration laws are only needed 
 in a society of thieves — and in such a society they are a 
 dead letter. 
 
 Socialists are often asked how work of the rougher and 
 more repulsive kind could be carried out in the new con- 
 dition of things. To attempt to answer such questions fully 
 or authoritatively would be attempting the impossibility of 
 constructing a scheme of a new society out of the materials 
 of the old, before we knew which of those materials would 
 disappear and which endure through the evolution which is 
 leading us to the great change. Yet it is not difficult to 
 conceive of some arrangement whereby those who did the 
 roughest work should work for the shortest spells. And 
 again, what is said above of the variety of work applies 
 specially here. Once more I say, that for a man to be the 
 w^hole of his life hopelessly engaged in performing one 
 repulsive and never-ending task, is an arrangement fit 
 enough for the hell imagined by theologians, but scarcely 
 fit for any other form of society. Lastly, if this rougher 
 work were of any special kind, we may suppose that special 
 volunteers would be called on to perform it, who would 
 surely be forthcoming, unless men in a state of freedom 
 
232 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 should lose the sparks of manliness which they possessed as 
 slaves. 
 
 And yet if there be any work which cannot be made 
 other than repulsive, either by the shortness of its duration 
 or the intermittency of its recurrence, or by the sense of 
 S})ecial and peculiar usefulness (and therefore honor) in the 
 mind of the man who performs it freely, — if there be any 
 work which cannot be but a torment to the worker, what 
 then? Well, then, let us see if the heavens will fall on us 
 if we leave it undone, for it were better that they should. 
 The produce of such work cannot be worth the price of it. 
 
 Now we have seen that the semi-theological dogma that 
 all labor, under any circumstances, is a blessing to the 
 laborer, is hypocritical and false ; that, on the other hand, 
 labor is good when due hope of rest and pleasure accom- 
 panies it. We have weighed the work of civilization in the 
 balance and found it wanting, since hope is mostly lacking 
 to it, and therefore we see that civilization has bred a dire 
 curse for men. But we have seen also that the work of the 
 world might be carried on in hope and with pleasure if it 
 were not wasted by folly and tyranny, by the perpetual 
 strife of opposing classes. 
 
 It is Peace, therefore, which we need in order that we 
 may live and work in hope and with pleasure. Peace so 
 much desired, if we may trust men's words, but which has 
 been so continually and steadily rejected by them in deeds. 
 But for us, let us set our hearts on it and win it at whatever 
 cost. 
 
 What the cost may be, who can tell? Will it be possible 
 to win peace peaceably? Alas, how can it be? We are so 
 hemmed in by wTong and folly, that in one way or other 
 we must always be fighting against them : our own li\'es 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 233 
 
 may see no end to the struggle, perhaps no obvious hope 
 of the end. It may be that the best we can hope to see is 
 that struggle getting sharper and bitterer day by day, until 
 it breaks out openly at last into the slaughter of men by 
 actual warfare instead of by the slower and cruder methods 
 of "peaceful" commerce. If we live to see that, we shall 
 Hve to see much ; for it will mean the rich classes grown 
 conscious of their own wrong and robbery, and consciously 
 defending them by open violence ; and then the end will be 
 drawing near. 
 
 But in any case, and whatever the nature of our strife 
 for peace may be, if we only aim at it steadily and with 
 singleness of heart, and ever keep it in view, a reflection 
 from that peace of the future will illumine the turmoil and 
 trouble of our lives, whether the trouble be seemingly 
 petty, or obviously tragic ; and we shall, in our hopes at 
 least, live the lives of men : nor can the present times give 
 us any reward greater than that. 
 
234 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 DAWN OF A NEW EPOCH. 
 
 PERHAPS some of my readers may think that the 
 above title is not a correct one : it may be said, a new 
 epoch is always dawning, change is always going on, 
 and it goes on so gradually that we do not know when we 
 are out of an old epoch and into a new one. There is truth 
 in that, at least to this extent, that no age can see itself: 
 we must stand some way off before the confused picture 
 with its rugged surface can resolve itself into its due order, 
 and seem to be something with a definite purpose carried 
 through all its details. Nevertheless, when we look back 
 on history we do distinguish periods in the lapse of time 
 that are not merely arbitrary ones, we note the early 
 growth of the ideas which are to form the new order of 
 things, we note their development into the transitional 
 period, and finally the new epoch is revealed to us bearing 
 in its full development, unseen as yet, the seeds of the 
 newer order still which shall transform it in its turn into 
 something else. 
 
 Moreover, there are periods in which even those alive 
 in them become more or less conscious of the change which 
 is always going on ; the old ideas w^hich were once so 
 exciting to men's imaginations, now cease to move them, 
 though they may be accepted as dull and necessary plati- 
 tudes : the material circumstances of man's life which were 
 once only struggled with in detail, and only according to a 
 kind of law made manifest in their working, are in such 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 235 
 
 times conscious of change, and are only accepted under 
 protest until some means can be found to alter them. The 
 old and dying order, once silent and all-powerful, tries to 
 express itself violently, and becomes at once noisy and 
 weak. The nascent order once too weak to be conscious 
 of need of expression, or capable of it if it were, becomes 
 conscious now and finds a voice. The silent sap of the 
 years is being laid aside for open assault ; the men are 
 gathering under arms in the trenches, and the forlorn hope 
 is ready, no longer trifling with little solacements of the 
 time of weary waiting, but looking forward to mere death 
 or the joy of victory. 
 
 Now I think, and some who read this will agree with 
 me, that we are now living in one of these times of conscious 
 change ; we not only are, but we also feel oursel-ves to be 
 living between the old and the new ; we are expecting 
 something to happen, as the phrase goes : at such times it 
 behooves us to understand what is the old which is dying, 
 what is the new which is coming into existence. That is a 
 question practically important to us all, since these periods 
 of conscious change are also, in one way or other, times of 
 serious combat, and each of us, if he does not look to it 
 and learn to understand what is going on, may find himself 
 fighting on the wrong side, the side with which he really 
 does not sympathize. 
 
 What is the combat we are now entering upon — who is 
 it to be fought between? Absolutism and Democracy, 
 perhaps some will answer. Not quite, I think ; that contest 
 was practically settled by the great French Revolution ; it 
 is only its embers which are burning now : or at least that 
 is so in the countries which are not belated like Russia, for 
 instance. Democracy, or at least what used to be con- 
 sidered Democracy, is now triumphant; and though it is 
 
236 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 true that there are countries where freedom of speech is 
 repressed besides Russia, as^.^. , Germany and Ireland,* 
 that only happens when the rulers of the triumphant 
 Democracy are beginning to be afraid of the new order of 
 things, now becoming conscious of itself, and are being 
 driven into reaction in consequence. No, it is not Absolut- 
 ism and Democracy as the French Revolution understood 
 those two words that are the enemies now : the issue is 
 deeper than it was ; the two foes are now Mastership and 
 Fellowship. This is a far more serious quarrel than the old 
 one, and involves a much completer revolution. The 
 grounds of conflict are really quite diflerent. Democracy 
 said and says, men shall not be the masters of others, 
 because hereditary privilege has made a race or a family so, 
 and they happen to belong to such race ; they shall individ- 
 ually grow into being the masters of others by the develop- 
 ment of certain qualities under a system of authority which 
 artificially protects the wealth of every man, if he has 
 acquired it in accordance with this artificial system, from 
 the interference of every other, or from all others combined. 
 
 The new order of things says, on the contrary, why 
 have masters at all? let us be fellows working in the 
 harmony of association for the common good, that is, for 
 the greatest happiness and completest development of 
 every human being in the community. 
 
 This ideal and hope of a new society founded on 
 industrial peace and forethought, bearing with it its own 
 ethics, aiming at a new and higher life for all men, has 
 received the general name of Socialism, and it is my firm 
 belief that it is destined to supercede the old order of things 
 
 * And the brick and mortar country London, also, it seems 
 (Feb. 1888). 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 237 
 
 founded on industrial war, and to be the next step in the 
 progress of humanity. 
 
 Now, since I must explain further what are the aims of 
 Socialism, the ideal of the new epoch, I find that I must 
 begin by explaining to you what is the constitution of the 
 old order which it is destined to supplant. If I can make 
 that clear to you, I shall have also made clear to you the 
 first aim of Socialism : for I have said that the present and 
 decaying order of things, like those which have gone before 
 it, has to be propped up by a system of artificial authority ; 
 when that artificial authority has been swept away, har- 
 monious association will be felt by all men to be a neces- 
 sity of their happy and undegraded existence on the earth, 
 and Socialism will become the condition under which we 
 shall all live, and it will develop naturally, and probably 
 with no violent conflict, whatever detailed system may 
 be necessary : I say the struggle will not be over these 
 details, which will surely vary according to the difference of 
 unchangeable natural surroundings, but over the question, 
 shall it be mastership or fellowship ? 
 
 Let us see then what is the condition of society under 
 the last development of mastership, the commercial system, 
 which has taken the place of the Feudal system. 
 
 Like all other systems of society, it is founded on the 
 necessity of man conquering his subsistence from Nature by 
 labor, and also, like most other systems that we know of, 
 it presupposes the unequal distribution of labor among 
 different classes of society, and the unequal distribution of 
 the results of that labor : it does not differ in that respect 
 from the system which it supplanted ; it has only altered 
 the method whereby that unequal distribution should be 
 arranged. There are still rich people and poor people 
 among us, as there were in the Middle Ages ; nay, there 
 
238 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 is no doubt that, relatively at least to the sum of wealth 
 existing, the rich are richer and the poor are poorer now 
 than they were then. However that may be, in any case 
 now as then there are people who have much work and 
 little wealth living beside other people who have much 
 wealth and little work. The richest are still the idlest, and 
 those who work hardest and perform the most painful tasks 
 are the worst rewarded for their labor. 
 
 To me, and I should hope to my readers, this seems 
 grossly unfair ; and I may remind you here that the world 
 has always had a sense of its injustice. For century after 
 century, while society has strenuously bolstered up this 
 injustice forcibly and artificially, it has professed belief in 
 philosophies, codes of ethics, and religions which have 
 inculcated justice and fair dealing between men : nay, some 
 of them have gone so far as to bid us bear one another's 
 burdens, and have put before men the duty, and in the long 
 run the pleasure, of the strong working for the weak, the 
 wise for the foolish, the helpful for the helpless ; and yet 
 these precepts of morality have been set aside in practice as 
 persistently as they have been preached in theory ; and 
 naturally so, since they attack the very basis of class 
 society. I as a Socialist am bound to preach them to you 
 once more, assuring you that they are no mere foolish 
 dreams bidding us to do what we now must acknowledge 
 to be impossible, but reasonable rules of action, good for 
 our defense against the tyranny of Nature. Anyhow, 
 honest men have the choice before them of either putting 
 these theories in practice or rejecting them altogether. If 
 they will but face that dilennna, I think we shall soon have 
 a new world of it ; yet I fear they will find it hard to do so : 
 the theory is old, and we have got used to it and its 
 form of words : the practice is new, and would involve 
 responsibilities we have not yet thought much of 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 239 
 
 Now the great difference between our present system 
 and that of the feudal period is that, as far as the conditions 
 of life are concerned, all distinction of classes is abolished 
 except that between rich and poor : society is thus sim- 
 plitied ; the arbitrary distinction is gone, the real one 
 remains and is far more stringent that the arbitrary one 
 was. Once all society was rude, there was little real 
 difference between the gentleman and the non-gentleman, 
 and you had to dress them differently from one another in 
 order to distinguish them. But now a well-to-do man is a 
 refined and cultured being, enjoying to the full his share of 
 the conquest over Nature which the modern world has 
 achieved, while the poor man is rude and degraded, and 
 has no share in the wealth conquered by modern science 
 from Nature : he is certainly no better as to material 
 condition than the serf of the Middle Ages, perhaps he is 
 worse : to my mind he is at least worse than the savage 
 living in a good climate. 
 
 I do not think that any thoughtful man seriously denies 
 this : let us try to see what brings it about ; let us see it as 
 clearly as we all see that the hereditary privilege of the 
 noble caste, and the consequent serf slavery of the workers 
 of the Middle Ages, brought about the peculiar conditions 
 of that period. 
 
 Society is now divided between two classes, those who 
 monopolize all the means of the production of wealth save 
 one ; and those who possess nothing except that one, the 
 Power of Labor. That power of labor is useless to its 
 possessors, and cannot be exercised without the help of the 
 other means of production ; but those who have nothing 
 but labor-power — i.e., who have no means of making 
 others work for them, must work for themselves in order to 
 live ; and they must, therefore, apply to the owners of the 
 
240 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 means of fructifying labor — i.e.^ the land, machinery, &c., 
 for leave to work that they may live. The possessing 
 class (as for short we will call them) are quite prepared to 
 grant this leave, and indeed they must grant it if they are 
 to use the labor-power of the non-possessing class for their 
 own advantage, which is their special privilege. But that 
 privilege enables them to compel the non-possessing class 
 to sell them their labor-power on terms which insure the 
 continuance of their monopoly. These terms are at the 
 outset very simple. The possessing class, or masters, 
 allow the men just so much of the wealth produced by their 
 labor as will give them such a livelihood as is considered 
 necessary at the time, and will permit them to breed and 
 rear children to a working age : that is the simple condition 
 of the * ' bargain ' ' which obtains when the labor-power 
 required is low in quality, what is called unskilled labor, 
 and when the workers are too weak or ignorant to combine 
 so as to threaten the masters with some form of rebellion. 
 When skilled labor is wanted, and the laborer has con- 
 sequently cost more to produce, and is rarer to be found, 
 the price of the article is higher : as also when the 
 commodity labor takes to thinking and remembers that 
 after all it is also men, and as aforesaid holds out threats to 
 the masters ; in that case they for their part generally think 
 it prudent to give way, when the competition of the market 
 allows them to do so, and so the standard of livelihood for 
 the workers rises. 
 
 But to speak plainly, the greater part of the workers, in 
 spite of strikes and Trades' Unions, do get little more than 
 a bare subsistence wage, and when they grow sick or old 
 they would die outright if it were not for the refuge afforded 
 them by the workhouse, which is purposely made as prison- 
 like and wretched as possible, in order to prevent the 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 241 
 
 lower-paid workers from taking refuge in it before the time 
 of their industrial death. 
 
 Now comes the question as to how the masters are able 
 to force the men to sell their commodity labor-power so 
 dirt-cheap without treating them as the ancients treated 
 their slaves — i.e., with the whip. Well, of course you 
 understand that the master having paid his workmen what 
 they can live upon, and having paid for the wear and tear 
 of machinery and other expenses of that kind, has for his 
 share whatever remains over and above, the whole of which 
 he gets from the exercise of the labor-power possessed by the 
 worker : he is anxious, therefore, to make the most of this 
 privilege, and competes with his fellow-manufacturers to 
 the utmost in the market : so that the distribution of wares 
 is organized on a gambling basis, and as a consequence 
 many more hands are needed when trade is brisk than 
 when it is slack, or even in an ordinary condition : under 
 the stimulus also of the lust for acquiring this surplus 
 value of labor, the great machines of our epoch were 
 invented and are yearly improved, and they act on labor 
 in a threefold way : first they get rid of many hands ; next 
 they lower the quality of the labor required, so that skilled 
 work is wanted less and less ; thirdl}% the improvement in 
 them forces the workers to work harder while they are at 
 work, as notably in the cotton-spinning industry. Also in 
 most trades women and children are employed, to whom it 
 is not even pretended that a subsistence wage is given. 
 Owing to all these causes, the reserve army of labor neces- 
 sary to our present system of manufactures for the gambling 
 market, the introduction of labor-saving machines (labor 
 saved for the master, mind you, not the man), and the 
 intensifying of the labor while it lasts, the employment of 
 the auxiliary labor of women and children : owing to all this 
 
242 W'lLlJAM MORRIS. 
 
 there are in ordinary years even, not merely in specially 
 bad years like the current one,* more workers than there 
 is work for them to do. The workers therefore undersell 
 one another in disposing of their one commodity, labor- 
 power, and 2iVQ forced to do so, or they would not be allowed 
 to work, and therefore would ha\'e to starve or go to the 
 prison called the workhouse. This is why the masters at 
 the present day are able to dispense with the exercise of 
 obvious violence which in bygone times they used toward 
 their slaves. 
 
 This then is the first distinction between the two great 
 classes of modern Society : the upper class possesses wealth, 
 the lower lacks wealth ; but there is another distinction to 
 which I will now draw your attention : the class which 
 lacks wealth is the class that produces it, the class that 
 possesses it does not produce it, it consumes it only. If 
 by any chance the so-called lower class were to perish or 
 leave the community, production of wealth would come to 
 a standstill, until the wealth-owners had learned how to 
 produce, until they had descended from their position, and 
 had taken the place of their former slaves. If, on the 
 contrary, the wealth-owners were to disappear, production 
 of wealth would at the worst be only hindered for awhile, 
 and probably would go on pretty much as it does now. 
 
 But you may say, though it is certain that some of the 
 wealth-owners, as landlords, holders of funds, and the like 
 do nothing, yet there are many of them who work hard. 
 Well, that is true, and perhaps nothing so clearly shows 
 the extreme folly of the present system than this fact that 
 there are so many able and industrious men employed by 
 it, in working hard at — nothing : nothing or worse. They 
 work, but they do not produce. 
 
 * 1886, to wit. 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 243 
 
 It is true that some useful occupations are in the hands 
 of the privileged classes, physic, education, and the fine arts, 
 e.g. The men who work at these occupations are certainly 
 working usefully ; and all that we can say against them is 
 that they are sometimes paid too high in proportion to the 
 pay of other useful persons, which high pay is given them 
 in recognition of their being the parasites of the possessing 
 classes. But even as to numbers these are not a very large 
 part of the possessors of wealth, and, as to the wealth they 
 hold, it is quite insignificant compared with that held by 
 those who do nothing useful. 
 
 Of these last, some, as we all agree, do not pretend to 
 do anything except amuse themselves, and probably these 
 are the least harmful of the useless classes. Then there are 
 others who follow occupations which would have no place 
 in a reasonable condition of society, as, e.g-., lawyers, judges, 
 jailers, and soldiers of the higher grades, and most govern- 
 ment officials. Finally comes the much greater group of 
 those who are engaged in gambling or fighting for their 
 individual shares of the tribute which their class compels 
 the working-class to yield to it : these are the group that 
 one calls broadly business men, the conductors of our 
 commerce, if you please to call them so. 
 
 To extract a good proportion of this tribute, and to keep 
 as much as possible of it when extracted for oneself, is the 
 main business of life for these men, that is, for most well-to- 
 do and rich people ; it is called, quite inaccurately, "money- 
 making;" and those who are most successful in this occu- 
 pation are, in spite of all hypocritical pretences to the 
 contrary, the persons most respected by the public. 
 
 A word or two as to the tribute extracted from the 
 workers as aforesaid. It is no tnfle, but amounts to at 
 least two-thirds of all that the worker produces ; but you 
 
244 WILLIAM MORRLS. 
 
 must understand that it is not all taken directly from the 
 workman by his immediate employer, but by the employ- 
 ing class. Besides the tribute or profit of the direct 
 employer, which is in all cases as much as he can get amid 
 his competition or war with other employers, the worker 
 has also to pay taxes in various forms, and the greater part 
 of the wealth so extorted is at the best merely wasted : and 
 remember, whoever seems to pay the taxes, labor in the 
 long run is the only real taxpayer. Then he has to pay 
 house-rent, and very much heavier rent in proportion to 
 his earnings than well-to-do people have. He has also to 
 pay the commission of the middle-men who distribute the 
 goods which he has made, in a way so wasteful that now 
 all thinking people cry out against it, though they are quite 
 helpless against it in our present society. Finally, he has 
 often to pay an extra tax in the shape of a contribution to 
 a benefit society or trades' union, which is really a tax on 
 the precariousness of his employment caused by the gam- 
 bling of his masters in the market. In short, besides the 
 profit or the result of unpaid labor which he yields to his 
 immediate master he has to give back a large part of his 
 wages to the class of which his master is a part. 
 
 The privilege of the possessing class, therefore, consists 
 in their living on this tribute, they themselves either not 
 working or working unproductively — i. e. , living on the 
 labor of others ; no otherwise than as the master of ancient 
 days lived on the labor of his slave, or as the baron lived 
 on the labor of his serf If the capital of the rich man 
 consists of land, he is able to force a tenant to improve his 
 land for him and pay him tribute in the form of rack-rent ; 
 and at the end of the transaction has his land again, gener- 
 ally improved, so that he can begin again and go on for 
 ever, he and his heirs, doing nothing, a mere burden on the 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 245 
 
 community for ever, while others are working for him. If 
 he has houses on his land he has rent for them also, often 
 receiving the value of the building many times over, and in 
 the end house and land once more. Not seldom a piece 
 of barren ground or swamp, worth nothing in itself, becomes 
 a source of huge fortune to him from the development of a 
 town or a district, and he pockets the results of the labor 
 of thousands upon thousands of men, and calls it his 
 property : or the earth beneath the surface is found to be 
 rich in coal or minerals, and again he must be paid vast 
 sums for allowing others to labor them into marketable 
 wares, to which labor he contributes nothing. 
 
 Or again, if his capital consists of cash, he goes into the 
 labor market and buys the labor-power of men, women and 
 children, and uses it for the production of wares which 
 shall bring him in a profit, buying it of course at the lowest 
 price that he can, availing himself of their necessities to 
 keep their livelihood down to the lowest point which they 
 will bear : which indeed he viiisf do, or he himself will be 
 overcome in the war with his fellow- capitalists. Neither in 
 this case does he do any useful work, and he need not do 
 any semblance of it, since he ni'ay buy the brain-power of 
 managers at a somewhat higher rate than he buys the hand- 
 power of the ordinary workman. But even when he does 
 seem to be doing something, and receives the pompous 
 title of '* organizer of labor," he is not really organizing 
 /ador, but the battle with his immediate enemies, the other 
 capitalists, who are in the same line of business with himself 
 
 Furthermore, though it is true, as I have said, that the 
 working-class are the only producers, yet only a part of 
 them are allowed to produce usefully ; for the men of the 
 non-producing classes having often much more wealth than 
 they can 7ise are forced to wasfe it in mere luxuries and 
 
246 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 follies, that on the one hand harm themselves, and on the 
 other withdraw a very large part of the workers from useful 
 work, thereby compelling those who do produce usefully 
 to work the harder and more grievously : in short, the 
 essential accompaniment of the system is waste. 
 
 How could it be otherwise, since it is a system of war? 
 I have mentioned incidentally that all the employers of 
 labor are at war with each other, and you will probably see 
 that, according to my account of the relations between the 
 two great classes, they also are at war. Each can only 
 gain at the others' loss : the employing class is forced to 
 make the most of its privilege, the possession of the means 
 for the exercise of labor, and whatever it gets to itself can 
 only be got at the expense of the working-class ; and that 
 class in its turn can only raise its standard of livelihood at 
 the expense of the possessing class ; it is forced to yield as 
 little tribute to it as it can help ; there is, therefore, constant 
 war always going on between these two classes, whether 
 they are conscious of it or not. 
 
 To recapitulate : In our modern society there are two 
 classes, a useful and a useless class ; the useless class is 
 called the upper, the useful the lower class. The useless 
 or upper class, having the monopoly of all the means of 
 the production of wealth save the power of labor, can and 
 does compel the useful or lower class to work for its own 
 disadvantage, and for the advantage of the upper class ; nor 
 will the latter allow the useful class to work on any other 
 terms. This arrangement necessarily means an increasing 
 contest, first of the classes one against the other, and next 
 of the individuals of each class among themselves. 
 
 Most thinking people admit the truth of what I have 
 just stated, but many of them believe that the system, 
 though obviously unjust and wasteful, is necessary (though 
 
S/CA'S OF CHANCE. 247 
 
 perhaps they cannot give their reasons for their beHef), 
 and so they can see nothing for it but palHating the worst 
 evils of the system : but, since the various palliatives in 
 fashion at one time or another have failed each in its turn, 
 I call upon them, firstly, to consider whether the system 
 itself might not be changed, and secondly, to look round 
 and note the signs of approaching change. 
 
 Let us remember first that even savages live, though 
 they have poor tools, no machinery, and no cooperation, 
 in their work : but as soon as a man begins to use good 
 tools and work with some kind of cooperation he becomes 
 able to produce more than enough for his own bare neces- 
 saries. All industrial society is founded on that fact, even 
 from the time when workmen were mere chattel slaves. 
 What a strange society then is this of ours, wherein while 
 one set of people cannot use their wealth, they have so 
 much, but are obliged to waste it, another set are scarcely 
 if at all better than those hapless savages who have neither 
 tools nor cooperation ! Surely if this cannot be set right, 
 civilized mankind must write itself down a civilized fool. 
 
 Here is the workman now, thoroughly organized for 
 production, working for production with complete coopera- 
 tion, and through marvelous machines ; surely if a slave 
 in Aristotle's time could do more than keep himself alive, 
 the present workman can do much more — as we all very 
 well know that he can. Why, therefore, should he be other- 
 wise than in a comfortable condition? Simply because of 
 the class system, which with one hand plunders, and with 
 the other wastes the wealth won by the workman's labor. 
 If the workman had the full results of his labor he would 
 in all cases be comfortably off, if he were working in an 
 unwasteful way. But in order to work unwastefully he 
 must work for his own li\'elihood, and not to enable another 
 
248 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 man to live without producing : if he has to sustain another 
 man in idleness who is capable of working for himself, he 
 is treated unfairly ; and, believe me, he will only do so as 
 long he is compelled to submit by ignorance and brute 
 force. Well, then, he has a right to claim the wealth 
 produced by his labor, and in consequence to insist that all 
 shall produce who are able to do so ; but also undoubtedly 
 his labor must be organized, or he will soon find himself 
 relapsing into the condition of the savage. But in order 
 that his labor may be organized properly he must have 
 only one enemy to contend with — Nature to wit, who as it 
 were eggs him on to the conflict against herself, and is 
 grateful to him for overcoming her ; a friend in the guise 
 of an enemy. There must be no contention of man with 
 man, but association instead ; so only can labor be really 
 organized, harmoniously organized. But harmony cannot 
 co-exist with contention for individual gain : men must 
 work for the common gain if the world is to be raised out 
 of its present misery ; therefore that claim of the workman 
 (that is of every able man) must be subject to the fact that 
 he is but a part of a harmonious whole : he is worthless 
 without the cooperation of his fellows, who help him accord- 
 ing to their capacities : he ought to feel, and will feel when 
 he has his right senses, that he is working for his own 
 interest when he is working for that of the community. 
 
 So working, his work must always be profitable, there- 
 fore no obstacle must be thrown in the way of his work : 
 the means whereby his labor-power can be exercised must 
 be free to him. The privilege of the proprietary class must 
 come to an end. Remember that at present the custom is 
 that a person so privileged is in the position of a man (with 
 a policeman or so to help) guarding the gate of a field 
 which will supply livelihood to whomsoever can work in 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 249 
 
 it: crowds of people who don't want to die come to that 
 gate; but there stands law and order, and says *'pay me 
 five shillings before you go in ;" and he or she that hasn't 
 the five shillings has to stay outside, and die — or live in the 
 workhouse. Well, that must be done away with ; the field 
 must be free to everybody that can use it. To throw aside 
 even this transparent metaphor, those means of the fructi- 
 fication of labor, the land, machinery, capital, means of 
 transit, &c. , which are now monopolized by those who 
 cannot use them, but who abuse them to force unpaid labor 
 out of others, must be free to those who can use them ; that 
 is to say, the workers properly organized for production ; 
 but you must remember that this will wrong no man, 
 because as all will do some service to the community — /. e. , 
 as there will be no non-producing class, the organized 
 workers will be the whole community, there will be no one 
 left out. 
 
 Society will thus be recast, and labor will be free from 
 all compulsion except the compulsion of Nature, which 
 gives us nothing for nothing. It would be futile to attempt 
 to give you details of the way in which this would be 
 carried out ; since the very essence of it is freedom and the 
 abolition of all arbitrary or artificial authority ; but I will 
 ask you to understand one thing : you will no doubt want 
 to know what is to become of private property under such 
 a system, which at first sight would not seem to forbid the 
 accumulation of wealth, and along with that accumulation 
 the formation of new classes of rich and poor. 
 
 Now private property as at present understood implies 
 the holding of wealth by an individual as against all others, 
 whether the holder can use it or not: he may, and not 
 seldom he does, accumulate capital, or the stored-up labor 
 of past generations, and neither use it himself nor allow 
 
250 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 others to use it : he may, and often he does, engross the 
 first necessity of labor, land, and neither use it himself nor 
 allow any one else to use it ; and though it is clear that in 
 each case he is injuring the community, the law is sternly 
 on his side. In any case a rich man accumulates property, 
 not for his own use, but in order that he may evade with 
 impunity the law of Nature which bids man labor for his 
 livelihood, and also that he may enable his children to do 
 the same, that he and they may belong to the upper or 
 useless class : it is not wealth that he accumulates, well- 
 being, well-doing, bodily and mental ; he soon comes to the 
 end of his real needs in that respect, even when they are 
 most exacting : it is power over others, what our forefathers 
 called riches, that he collects ; power (as we have seen) to 
 force other people to live for his advantage poorer lives 
 than they should live. Understand that that Duist be the 
 result of the possession of riches. 
 
 Now this power to compel others to live poorly Social- 
 ism: would abolish entirely, and in that sense would make 
 an end of private property : nor would it need to make laws 
 to pr*ivent accumulation artificially when once people had 
 found out that they could employ themselves, and that 
 thereby every man could enjoy the results of his own labor : 
 for Socialism bases the rights of the individual to possess 
 wealth on his being able to use that wealth for his own 
 personal needs, and, labor being properly organized, every 
 person, male or female, not in nonage or otherwise inca- 
 pacitated from working, would have full opportunity to 
 produce wealth and thereby to satisfy his own personal 
 needs ; if those needs went in any direction beyond those 
 of an average man, he would have to make personal sacri- 
 fices in order to satisfy them ; he would have, for instance, 
 to work longer hours, or to forego some luxury that he 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 251 
 
 did not care for in order to obtain something which he very 
 much desired : so doing he would at the worst injure no 
 one : and you will clearly see that there is no other choice 
 for him between so doing and his forcing some one else to 
 forego his special desires ; and this latter proceeding by the 
 way, when it is done without the sanction of the most 
 powerful part of society, is called theft; though on the big 
 scale and duly sanctioned by artificial laws, it is, as we 
 have seen, the groundwork of our present system. Once 
 more, that system refuses permission to people to produce 
 unless under artificial restrictions ; under Socialism, every 
 one who could produce would be free to produce, so that 
 the price of an article would be just the cost of its produc- 
 tion, and what we now call profit would no longer exist : 
 thus, for instance, if a person wanted chairs, he would 
 accumulate them till he had as many as he could use, and 
 then he would stop, since he would not have been able to 
 buy them for less than their cost of production and could 
 not sell them for more : in other words, they would be 
 nothing else than chairs ; under the present system they 
 may be means of compulsion and destruction as formidable 
 as loaded rifles. 
 
 No one, therefore, would dispute with a man the posses- 
 sion of what he had acquired without injury to others, and 
 what he could use without injuring them, and it would so 
 remove temptations toward the -abuse of possession, that 
 probably no laws would be necessary to prevent it. 
 
 A few words now as to the differentiation of reward of 
 labor, as I know my readers are sure to want an exposition 
 of the Socialist views here as to those who direct labor or 
 who have specially excellent faculties toward production. 
 And, first, I will look on the super-excellent workman as 
 an article presumably needed by the community ; and then 
 
252 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 say that, as with other articles so with this, the community 
 must pay the cost of his production : for instance, it will 
 have to seek him out, to develop his special capacities, and 
 satisfy any needs he may have (if any) beyond those of an 
 average man, so long as the satisfaction of those needs is 
 not hurtful to the community. 
 
 Furthermore, you cannot give him more than he can 
 use, so he will not ask for more, and will not take it : it is 
 true that his work may be more special than another's, but 
 it is not more necessary if you have organized labor 
 properly ; the plowman and the fisherman are as necessary 
 to society as the scientist or the artist, I will not say more 
 necessary : neither is the difficulty of producing the more 
 special and excellent work at all proportionate to its 
 specialty or excellence : the higher workman produces his 
 work as easily perhaps as the lower does his work ; if he 
 does not do so, you must give him extra leisure, extra 
 means for supplying the waste of power in him, but you 
 can give him nothing more. The only reward that you 
 can give the excellent workman is opportunity for develop- 
 ing and exercising his excellent capacity. I repeat, you 
 can give him nothing more worth his having : all other 
 rewards are either illusory or harmful. I must say in 
 passing, that our present system of dealing with what is 
 called a man of genius is utterly absurd : we cruelly starve 
 him and repress his capacity when he is young ; we foolishly 
 pamper and flatter him and again repress his capacity when 
 he is middle-aged or old : we get the least out of him, not 
 the most. 
 
 These last words concern mere rarities in the way of 
 workmen ; but in this respect it is only a matter of degree ; 
 the point of the whole thing is this, that the director of 
 labor is in his place because he is fit for it, not by a mere 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 
 
 253 
 
 accident ; being tit for it, he does it easier than he would do 
 other work, and needs no more compensation for the wear 
 and tear of Hfe than another man does, and not needing it 
 will not claim it, since it would be of no use to him ; his 
 special reward for his special labor is, I repeat, that he can 
 do it easily, and so does not feel it a burden ; nay, since he 
 can do it we// he likes doing it, since indeed the main 
 pleasure of life is the exercise of energy in the development 
 of our special capacities. Again, as regards the workmen 
 who are under his direction, he needs no special dignity or 
 authority ; they know well enough that so long as he fulfills 
 his function and really does direct them, if they do not 
 heed him it will be at the cost of their labor being more 
 irksome and harder. All this, in short, is what is meant 
 by the organization of labor, which is, in other words, 
 finding out what work such and such people are fittest for 
 and leaving them free to do that : we won't take the trouble 
 to do that now, with the result that people's best faculties 
 are wasted, and that work is a heavy burden to them, 
 which they naturally shirk as much as they can ; it should 
 be rather a pleasure to them : and I say straight out that, 
 unless we find some means to make all work more or less 
 pleasurable, we shall never escape from the great tyranny 
 of the modern world. 
 
 Having mentioned the difference between the compet- 
 itive and commercial ideas on the object of the individual 
 holding of wealth and the relative position of different 
 groups of workmen, I will very briefly say something on 
 what for want of a better word I must call the political 
 position which we take up, or at least what we look forward 
 to in the long run. The substitution of association for 
 competition is the foundation of Socialism, and will run 
 through all acts done under it, and this must act as between 
 
254 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 nations as well as between individuals : when profits can 
 no more be made, there will be no necessity for holding 
 together masses of men to draw together the greatest 
 proportion of profit to their locality, or to the real or imag- 
 inary union of persons and corporations which is now called 
 a nation. What we now call a nation is a body whose 
 function it is to assert the special welfare of its incorporated 
 members at the expense of all other similar bodies : the 
 death of competition will deprive it of this function ; since 
 there wall be no attack there need be no defense, and it 
 seems to me that this function being taken away from the 
 nation it can have no other, and therefore must cease to 
 exist as a political entity. On this side of the movement 
 opinion is growing steadily. It is clear that, quite apart 
 from Socialism, the idea of local administration is pushing 
 out that of centralized government : to take a remarkable 
 case : in the French Revolution of 1793, the most advanced 
 party was centralizing : in the latest French revolution, 
 that of the Commune of 1871, it was federalist. Or take 
 Ireland, the success which is to-day attending the struggles 
 of Ireland for independence is, I am quite sure, owing to 
 the spread of this idea : it no longer seems a monstrous 
 proposition to liberal-minded Englishmen that a country 
 should administer its own afifairs : the feeling that it is not 
 only just, but also very convenient to all parties for it to 
 do so, is extinguishing the prejudices fostered by centuries 
 of oppressive and wasteful mastership. And I believe that 
 Ireland will show that her claim for self-government is not 
 made on behalf of national rivalry, but rather on behalf of 
 genuine independence ; the consideration, on the one hand, 
 of the needs of her own population, and, on the other, good- 
 will toward that of other localities. Well, the spread of 
 this idea will make our political w^ork as Socialists the 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 255 
 
 easier ; men will at last come to see that the only way to 
 avoid the tyranny and waste of bureaucracy is by the Fed- 
 eration of Independent Communities : their federation being 
 for definite purposes : for furthering the organization of 
 labor, by ascertaining the real demand for commodities, 
 and so avoiding waste : for organizing the distribution of 
 goods, the migration of persons — in short, the friendly 
 intercommunication of people whose interests are common, 
 although the circumstances of their natural surroundings 
 made necessary differences of life and manners between 
 them. 
 
 I have thus sketched something of the outline of Social- 
 ism, by showing that its aim is first to get rid of the monop- 
 oly of the means of fructifying labor, so that labor may be 
 free to all, and its resulting wealth may not be engrossed 
 by a few, and so cause the misery and degradation of the 
 many : and, secondly, that it aims at organizing labor so 
 that none of it may be wasted, using as a means thereto 
 the free development of each man's capacity ; and, thirdly, 
 that it aims at getting rid of national rivalry, which in point 
 of fact means a condition of perpetual war, sometimes of 
 the money-bag, sometimes of the bullet, and substituting 
 for this worn-out superstition a system of free communities 
 living in harmonious federation with each other, managing 
 their own affairs by the free consent of their members ; yet 
 acknowledging some kind of center whose function it would 
 be to protect the principle whose practice the communities 
 should carry out ; till at last those principles would be 
 recognized by every one always and intuitively, when the 
 last vestiges of centralization would die out. 
 
 I am well aware that this complete Socialism, which is 
 sometimes called Communism, cannot be realized all at 
 once ; society will be changed from its basis when we make 
 
256 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 the form of robbery called profit impossible by giving labor 
 full and free access to the means of its fructification — i.e., 
 to raw material. The demand for this emancipation of 
 labor is the basis on which all Socialists may unite. On 
 more indefinite grounds they cannot meet other groups of 
 politicians ; they can only rejoice at seeing the ground 
 cleared of controversies which are really dead, in order 
 that the last controversy may be settled that we can at 
 present foresee, and the question solved as to whether or 
 no it is necessary, as some people think it is, that society 
 should be composed of two groups of dishonest persons, 
 slaves submitting to be slaves, yet for ever trying to cheat 
 their masters, and masters conscious of their having no 
 support for their dishonesty of eating the common stock 
 without adding to it save the mere organization of brute 
 force, which they have to assert for ever in all details of life 
 against the natural desire of man to be free. 
 
 It may be hoped that we of this generation may be able 
 to prove that it is unnecessary ; but it will, doubt it not, 
 take many generations yet to prove that it is necessary for 
 such degradation to last as long as humanity does ; and 
 when that is finally proved we shall at least have one hope 
 left — that humanity will not last long. 
 
HOW THE CHANGE CAME. 
 
HOW THE CHANGE CAME. 
 
 DICK broke the silence at last, saying: "Guest, for- 
 give us for a little after-dinner dullness. What would 
 you like to do ? Shall we have out Greylocks and 
 trot back to Hammersmith ? or will you come with us and 
 hear some Welsh folk sing in a hall close by here? or 
 would you like presently to come with me into the City 
 and see some really fine buildings ? or — what shall it be ? " 
 
 "Well," said I, "as I am a stranger, I must let you 
 choose for me." 
 
 In point of fact, I did not by any means want to be 
 "amused" just then; and also I rather felt as if the old 
 man, with his knowledge of past times, and even a kind of 
 inverted sympathy for them caused by his active hatred of 
 them, was a kind of blanket for me against the cold of this 
 very new world, where I was, so to say, stripped bare of 
 every habitual thought and way of acting ; and I did not 
 want to leave him too soon. He came to my rescue at 
 once, and said, — 
 
 "Wait a bit, Dick; there is some one else to be con- 
 sulted besides you and the guest here, and that is I. I am 
 not going to lose the pleasure of his company just now, 
 especially as I know he has something else to ask me. So 
 go to your Welshmen, by all means ; but first of all bring 
 Us another bottle of wine to this nook, and then be off as 
 
 " This selection forms the seventeenth chapter of Mr. Morris's 
 charming "Utopian romance," News from Nowhere. 
 
26o WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 soon as you like ; and come again and fetch our friend to 
 go westward, but not too soon. ' ' 
 
 Dick nodded smilingly, and the old man and I were 
 soon alone in the great hall, the afternoon sun gleaming on 
 the red wine in our tall quaint-shaped glasses. Then said 
 Hammond, — 
 
 ' ' Does anything especially puzzle you about our way 
 of living, now you have heard a good deal and seen a little 
 of it?" 
 
 Said I : " I think what puzzles me most is how it all 
 came about." 
 
 "It well may," said he, "so great the change is. It 
 would be difficult indeed to tell you the whole story, perhaps 
 impossible ; knowledge, discontent, treachery, disappoint- 
 ment, ruin, misery, despair, — those who worked for the 
 change because they could see further than other people 
 went through all these phases of suffering ; and doubtless 
 all the time the most of men looked on, not knowing what 
 was doing, thinking it all a matter of course, like the rising 
 and setting of the sun ; and indeed it was so." 
 
 "Tell me one thing, if you can," said I. "Did the 
 change, the 'revolution' it used to be called, come 
 peacefully ? ' ' 
 
 ' * Peacefully ? ' ' said he ; " what peace was there among 
 those poor contused wretches of the nineteenth century? 
 It was war from beginning to end, — bitter war, till hope 
 and pleasure put an end to it." 
 
 "Do you mean actual fighting with weapons?" said I, 
 "or the strikes and lockouts and starvation of which we 
 have heard?" 
 
 "Both, both," he said. " As a matter of fact, the 
 history of the terrible period of transition from commercial 
 slavery to freedom may thus be summarized. When the 
 hope of realizing a communal condition of life for all men 
 
HO IV THE CHANGE CAME. 261 
 
 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 
 judgment, conceived such hopes, it seemed a dream. So 
 much was this the case that some of those more enlight- 
 ened men who were then called Socialists, although they 
 well knew, and even stated in public, that the only reason- 
 able 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 realization 
 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-to-do 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. 
 
 "Well, these men, though conscious of this feeling, had 
 no faith in it. Nor was that wonderful ; for looking around 
 them they saw the huge mass of the oppressed classes too 
 much burdened with the misery of their lives, and too much 
 overwhelmed by the selfishness of misery, to be able to 
 form a conception of any escape from it except by the 
 ordinary way prescribed by the system of slavery under 
 which they lived ; which was nothing more than a remote 
 chance of climbing out of the oppressed into the oppressing 
 classes. 
 
 ' ' Therefore, though they knew that the only reasonable 
 aim for those who would better the world was a condition 
 of equality, in their impatience and despair they managed 
 to convince themselves that if they could by hook or by 
 crook get the machinery of production and the manage- 
 
262 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 ment of property so altered that the 'lower classes' (so the 
 horrible word ran) might have their slavery somewhat 
 ameliorated, they would be ready to fit into this machinery, 
 and would use it for bettering their condition still more 
 and still more, until at last the result would be a practical 
 equality (they were very fond of using the word ' practical '), 
 because 'the rich' would be forced to pay so much for 
 keeping ' the poor ' in a tolerable condition that the condi- 
 tion of riches would become no longer valuable and would 
 gradually die out. Do you follow me?" 
 
 " Pardy," said I. "Goon." 
 
 Said old Hammond : "Well, since you follow me, you 
 will see that as a theory this was not altogether unreason- 
 able ; but 'practically,' it turned out a failure." 
 
 " How so?" said I. 
 
 ' ' Well, don' t you see ? ' ' said he, — " because it involves 
 the making of a machinery by those who didn't know what 
 they wanted the machines to do. So far as the masses of 
 the oppressed class furthered this scheme of improvement, 
 they did it to get themselves improved slave-rations — as 
 many of them as could. And if those classes had really 
 been incapable of being touched by that instinct which 
 j^roduced the passion for freedom and equality aforesaid, 
 what would have happened, I think, would have been this : 
 that a certain part of the working-classes would have been 
 so far improved in condition that they would have 
 approached the condition of the middling rich men ; but 
 below them would have been a great class of most miserable 
 slaves, whose slavery would have been far more hopeless 
 than the older-class slavery had been." 
 
 "What stood in the way of this?" said I. 
 
 "Why, of course," said he, "just that instinct for free- 
 dom aforesaid. It is true that the slave-class could not 
 conceive the happiness of a free life. Yet they grew to 
 
HOW THE CHANGE CAME. 263 
 
 understand (and very speedily, too) that they were oppressed 
 by their masters, and they assumed, you see how justly, 
 that they could do without them, though perhaps they 
 scarce knew how ; so that it came to this, that though they 
 could not look forward to the happiness or the peace of the 
 freeman, they did at least look forward to the war which 
 should bring that peace about." 
 
 "Could you tell me rather more closely what actually 
 took place?" said I ; for I thought him rather vague here. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I can. That machinery of life for 
 the use of people who didn't know what they wanted of it, 
 and which was known at the time as State Socialism, was 
 partly put in motion, though in a very piecemeal way. 
 But it did not work smoothly ; it was, of course, resisted at 
 every turn by the capitalists ; and no wonder, for it tended 
 more and more to upset the commercial system I have told 
 you of without providing anything really effective in its 
 place. The result was growing confusion, great suffering 
 among the working- classes, and as a consequence, great 
 discontent. For a long time matters went on like this. 
 The power of the upper classes had lessened as their com- 
 mand over wealth lessened, and they could not carry things 
 wholly by the high hand as they had been used to in 
 earlier days. On the other hand the working classes were 
 ill-organized, and growing poorer in reality, in spite of the 
 gains (also real in the long run) which they had forced 
 from the masters. Thus matters hung in the balance ; the 
 masters could not reduce their slaves to complete subjec- 
 tion, though they put down some feeble and partial riots 
 easily enough. The workers forced their masters to grant 
 them ameliorations, real or imaginary, of their condition, 
 but could not force freedom from them. At last came a 
 great crash. On some trifling occasion a great meeting 
 was summoned by the workmen leaders to meet in Trafal- 
 
264 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 gar Square (about the right to meet in which place there 
 had for long been bickering). The civic bourgeois guard 
 (called the police) attacked the said meeting with blud- 
 geons, according to their custom ; many people were hurt 
 in the melee, of whom five in all died, either trampled to 
 death on the spot, or from the effects of their cudgeling ; 
 the meeting was scattered, and some hundred of prisoners 
 cast into jail. A similar meeting had been treated in the 
 same way a few days before at a place called Manchester, 
 which has now disappeared. The whole country was 
 thrown into a ferment by this ; meetings were held which 
 attempted some rough organization for the holding of 
 another meeting to retort on the authorities. A huge 
 crowd assembled in Trafalgar Square and the neighborhood 
 (then a place of crowded streets), and was too big for the 
 bludgeon-armed police to cope with ; there was a good 
 deal of dry-blow fighting ; three or four of the people were 
 killed, and half a score of policemen were crushed to death 
 in the throng, and the rest got away as they could. The 
 next day all London (remember what it was in those days) 
 was in a state of turmoil. Many of the rich fled into the 
 country ; the executive got together soldiery, but did not 
 dare to use them ; and the police could not be massed in 
 any one place, because riots or threats of riots were every- 
 where. But in Manchester, where the people were not so 
 courageous or not so desperate as in London, several of the 
 popular leaders were arrested. In London a convention 
 of leaders was got together, and sat under the old revolu- 
 tionary name of the Committee of Public Safety ; but as 
 they had no organized body of men to direct, they attempted 
 no aggressive measures, but only placarded the walls with 
 somewhat vague appeals to the workmen not to allow 
 themselves to be trampled upon. However, they called a 
 
HO IV THE CHANGE CAME. 265 
 
 meeting in Trafalgar Square for the day fortnight of the 
 last-mentioned skirmish. 
 
 ** Meantime the town grew no quieter, and business 
 came pretty much to an end. The newspapers, — then, as 
 always hitherto, almost entirely in the hands of the masters, 
 — clamored to the government for repressive measures. 
 The rich citizens were enrolled as an extra body of police, 
 and armed with bludgeons like them. Many of these were 
 strong, well-fed, full-blooded young men, and had plenty 
 of stomach for fighting ; but the government did not dare 
 to use them, and contented itself with getting full powers 
 voted to it by the Parliament for suppressing any revolt, 
 and bringing up more and more soldiers to London. Thus 
 passed the week after the great meeting. Almost as large 
 a one was held on the Sunday, which went off peaceably 
 on the whole, as no opposition to it was offered. But on 
 the Monday the people woke up to find that they were 
 hungry. During the last few days there had been groups 
 of men parading the streets asking (or, if you please, 
 demanding) money to buy food ; and what for good- will, 
 what for fear, the richer people gave them a good deal. 
 The authorities of the parishes also (I haven't time to 
 explain that phrase at present) gave willy-nilly what pro- 
 visions they could to wandering people ; and the govern- 
 ment, which had by that time established some feeble 
 national workshops, also fed a good number of half-starved 
 folk. But in addition to this, several bakers' shops and 
 other provision stores had been emptied without a great 
 deal of disturbance. So far, so good. But on the Monday 
 in question, the Committee of Public Safety, on the one 
 hand afraid of general unorganized pillage, and on the 
 other emboldened by the wavering conduct of the author- 
 ities, sent a deputation provided with carts and all necessary 
 gear to clear out two or three big provision stores in the 
 
266 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 center of the town, leaving blank papers promising to pay 
 the price of them with the shop managers ; and also in the 
 part of the town where they were strongest they took 
 possession of several bakers' shops, and set men at work in 
 them for the benefit of the people, — all of which was done 
 with little or no disturbance, — the police assisting in keeping 
 order at the sack of the stores as they would have done at 
 a big fire. 
 
 "But at this last stroke the reactionaries were so alarmed 
 that they were determined to force the executive into action. 
 The newspapers next day all blazed into the fury of 
 frightened people, and threatened the people, the govern- 
 ment, and everybody they could think of, unless 'order 
 were at once restored.' A deputation of leading commer- 
 cial people waited on the government, and told them that 
 if they did not at once arrest the Committee of Public 
 Safety, they themselves would gather a body of men, arm 
 them, and fall on 'the incendiaries,' as they called them. 
 
 "They, together with a number of the newspaper 
 editors, had a long interview with the heads of the govern- 
 ment and two or three military men, the deftest in their art 
 that the country could furnish. The deputation came 
 away from that interview, says a contemporary eyewitness, 
 smiling and satisfied, and said no more about raising an 
 anti-popular army, but that afternoon left London with 
 their families for their country seats or elsewhere. 
 
 "The next morning the government proclaimed a state 
 of siege in London, — a thing common enough among the 
 absolutist governments on the Continent, but unheard of in 
 England in those days. They appointed the youngest and 
 cleverest of their generals to command the proclaimed dis- 
 trict, — a man who had won a certain sort of reputation in 
 the disgraceful wars in which the country had long engaged 
 from time to time. The newspapers were in ecstacies, and 
 
HOW THE CHANGE CAME. 267 
 
 all the most fervent of the reactionaries now came to the 
 front, — men who in ordinary times were forced to keep 
 their opinions to themselves or their immediate circle, but 
 who now began to look forward to crushing, once for all, 
 the Socialist, and even democratic tendencies, which, said 
 they, had been treated with such indulgence for the last 
 twenty years. 
 
 ' ' But the clever general took no visible action ; and yet 
 only a few of the minor newspapers abused him. Thoughtful 
 men gathered from this that a plot was hatching. As for 
 the Committee of Public Safety, whatever they thought of 
 their position, they had now gone too far to draw back ; and 
 many of them, it seems, thought that the government would 
 not act. They went on quietly organizing their food supply, 
 which was a miserable driblet when all is said ; and also as 
 a retort to the state of siege, they armed as many men as 
 they could in the quarter where they were strongest, but 
 did not attempt to drill or organize them, thinking, per- 
 haps, that they could not at the best turn them into trained 
 solidiers till they had some breathing space. The clever 
 general, his soldiers, and the police, did not meddle with 
 all this in the least in the world, and things were quieter in 
 London that week-end ; though there were riots in many 
 places of the provinces, which were quelled by the authori- 
 ties without much trouble. The most serious of these were 
 at Glasgow and Bristol. 
 
 ' ' Well, the Sunday of the meeting came, and great 
 crowds came to Trafalgar Square in procession, the greater 
 part of the Committee among them, surrounded by their 
 band of men armed somehow or other. The streets were 
 quite peaceful and quiet, though there were many spectators 
 to see the procession pass. Trafalgar Square had no body of 
 police in it, the people took quiet possession of it, and the 
 meeting began. The armed men stood round the principal 
 
268 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 platform, and there were a few others armed amid the gen- 
 eral crowd ; but by far the greater part were unarmed. 
 
 "Most people thought the meeting would go off peace- 
 ably ; but the members of the Committee had heard from 
 various quarters that something would be attempted against 
 them ; but these rumors were vague, and they had no idea 
 of what threatened. They soon found out. 
 
 "For before the streets about the Square were filled, a 
 body of soldiers poured into it from the northwest corner 
 and took up their places by the houses that stood on the 
 west side. The people growled at the sight of the red- 
 coats ; the armed men of the Committee stood undecided, 
 not knowing what to do ; and indeed this new influx so 
 jammed the crowd together that, unorganized as they were, 
 they had little chance of working through it. They had 
 scarcely grasped the fact of their enemies being there, when 
 another column of soldiers, pouring out of the streets which 
 led into the great southern road going down to the Parlia- 
 ment House (still existing, and called the Dung Market), 
 and also from the embankment by the side of the Thames, 
 marched up, pushing the crowd into a denser and denser 
 mass, and formed along the south side of the Square. Then 
 any of those who could see what was going on, could see 
 at once that they were in a trap, and could only wonder 
 what would be done with them. 
 
 "The closely packed crowd would not or could not 
 budge, except under the influence of the height of terror, 
 which was soon to be supplied to them. A few of the 
 armed men struggled to the front, or climbed up to the 
 base of the monument which then stood there, that they 
 might face the wall of hidden fire before them ; and to most 
 men (there were many women among them) it seemed as 
 if the end of the world had come, and to-day seemed 
 strangely different from yesterday. No sooner were the 
 
HOW THE CHANGE CAME. 269 
 
 soldiers drawn up as aforesaid than, says an eye-witness, ' a 
 glittering officer on horseback came prancing out from the 
 ranks on the south, and read something from a paper which 
 he held in his hand ; which something very few heard ; but 
 I was told afterward that it was an order for us to disperse, 
 and a warning that he had legal right to fire on the crowd 
 else, and that he would do so. The crowd took it as a 
 challenge of some sort, and a hoarse threatening roar went 
 up from them ; and after that there was a comparative 
 silence for a little, till the officer had got back into the 
 ranks. I was near the edge of the crowd, toward the 
 soldiers,' says this eye-witness, 'and I saw three little 
 machines being wheeled out in front of the ranks, which I 
 knew for mechanical guns. I cried out, "Throw yourselves 
 down ! they are going to fire ! ' ' But no one scarcely could 
 throw himself down, so tight as the crowd were packed. 
 I heard a sharp order given, and wondered where I should 
 be the next minute ; and then — It was as if the earth had 
 opened and hell had come up bodily amid us. It is no use 
 trying to describe the scene that followed. Deep lanes 
 were mowed amid the thick crowd ; the dead and dying 
 covered the ground, and the shrieks and wails and cries of 
 horror filled all the air, till it seemed as if there was nothing 
 else in the world but murder and death. Those of our 
 men who were still unhurt cheered wildly and opened a 
 scattered fire on the soldiers. One or two fell ; and I saw 
 the officers going up and down the ranks urging the men 
 to fire again ; but they received the orders in sullen silence, 
 and let the butts of their guns fall. Only one sergeant ran 
 to a machine-gun and began to set it going ; but a tall 
 young man — an officer too — ran out of the ranks and 
 dragged him back by the collar ; and the soldiers stood 
 there motionless, while the horror-stricken crowd, nearly 
 wholly unarmed (for most of the armed men had fallen in 
 
270 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 that first discharge), drifted out of the Square. I was told 
 afterward that the soldiers on the west side had fired also, 
 and done their part of the slaughter. How I got out of the 
 Square I scarcely know ; I went, not feeling the ground 
 under me, what with rage and terror and despair.' 
 
 ' ' So says our eye-witness. The number of the slain on 
 the side of the people in that shooting during a minute was 
 prodigious ; but it was not easy to come at the truth about 
 it ; it was probably between one and two thousand. Of 
 the soldiers, six were killed outright, and a dozen wounded. ' ' 
 
 I listened trembling with excitement. The old man's 
 eyes glittered and his face flushed as he spoke, and told 
 the tale of what I had often thought might happen. Yet 
 I wondered that he should have got so elated about a mere 
 massacre, and I said, — 
 
 ' ' How fearful ! And I suppose that this massacre put 
 an end to the whole revolution for that time?" 
 
 ' ' No, no, ' ' cried old Hammond ; "it began it ! " 
 
 He filled his glass and mine, and stood up and cried out, 
 " Drink this glass to the memory of those who died there, 
 for indeed it would be a long tale to tell how much we owe 
 them." 
 
 I drank, and he sat down again and went on. 
 
 "That massacre of Trafalgar Square began the civil 
 war ; though, like all such events, it gathered head slowly, 
 and people scarcely knew what a crisis they were acting in. 
 
 "Terrible as the massacre was, and hideous and over- 
 powering as the first terror had been, when the people had 
 time to think about it, their feeling was one of anger rather 
 than fear, — although the military organization of the state 
 of siege was now carried out without shrinking by the 
 clever young general. For though the ruling-classes, 
 when the news spread next morning, felt one gasp of 
 horror and even dread, yet the government and their 
 
HOW THE CHANGE CAME. 271 
 
 immediate backers felt that now the wine was drawn and 
 must be drank. However, even the most reactionary of 
 the capitalist papers, with two exceptions, stunned by the 
 tremendous news, simply gave an account of what had 
 taken place, without making any comment upon it. The 
 exceptions were, one, a so-called ' liberal ' paper (the gov- 
 ernment of the day was of that complexion), which, after a 
 preamble in which it declared its undeviating sympathy with 
 the cause of labor, proceeded to point out that in times of 
 revolutionary disturbance it behooved the Government to 
 be just but firm, and that by far the most merciful way of 
 dealing with the poor madmen who were attacking the very 
 foundations of society (which had made them mad and 
 poor) was to shoot them at once, so as to stop others from 
 drifting into a position in which they would run a chance 
 of being shot. In short, it praised the determined action 
 of the government as the acme of human wisdom and 
 mercy, and exulted in the inauguration of an epoch of 
 reasonable democracy free from the tyrannical fads of 
 Socialism. 
 
 "The other exception was a paper thought to be one 
 of the most violent opponents of democracy, and so it was ; 
 but the editor of it found his manhood, and spoke for him- 
 self and not for his paper. In a few simple, indignant 
 words he asked people to consider what a society was 
 worth which had to be defended by the massacre of unarmed 
 citizens, and called on the government to withdraw their 
 state of siege and put the general and his officers who fired 
 on the people on their trial for murder. He went further, 
 and declared that whatever his opinion might be as to the 
 doctrines of the Socialists, he for one should throw in his 
 lot with the people, until the government atoned for their 
 atrocity by showing that they were prepared to listen to 
 the demands of men who knew what they wanted, and 
 
272 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 whom the decrepitude of society forced into pushing their 
 demands. 
 
 "Of course, this editor was immediately arrested by the 
 mihtary power ; but his bold words were already in the 
 hands of the public and produced a great effect, — so great 
 an effect that the government, after some vacillation, with- 
 drew the state of siege, though at the same time it strength- 
 ened the military organization and made it more stringent. 
 Three of the Committee of Public Safety had been slain in 
 Trafalgar Square ; of the rest, the ^i eater part went back 
 to their old place of meeting and there awaited the event 
 calmly. They were arrested there on the Monday morn- 
 ing, and would have been shot at once by the general, who 
 was a mere military machine, if the government had not 
 shrunk before the responsibility of killing men without any 
 trial. There was at first a talk of trying them by a special 
 commission of judges as it was called, — i.e.^ before a set 
 of men bound to find them guilty, and whose business it 
 was to do so. But with the government the cold fit had 
 succeeded to the hot one ; and the prisoners were brought 
 before a jury at the assizes. There a fresh blow awaited 
 the government ; for in spite of the judge's charge, which 
 distinctly instructed the jury to find the prisoners guilty, 
 they were acquitted, and the jury added to their verdict a 
 presentment, in which they condemned the action of the 
 soldiery, in the queer phraseology of the day, as ' rash, 
 unfortunate, and unnecessary.' The Committee of Public 
 Safety renewed its sittings, and from thenceforth was a 
 rallying-point in opposition to the Parliament. The gov- 
 ernment now gave way on all sides, and yielded to the 
 demands of the people ; though there was a widespread 
 plot for effecting a coi/p d'etat set on foot between the 
 leaders of the two so-called opposing parties. The well- 
 meaning part of the public was overjoyed, and thought that 
 
NO IV THE CHANGE CAME. 273 
 
 all danger of a civil war was over. The victory of the 
 people was celebrated by huge meetings held in the parks 
 and elsewhere in memory of the victims of the great 
 massacre. 
 
 * ' But the measures passed for the relief of the workers, 
 though to the upper classes they seemed ruinously revolu- 
 tionary, were not thorough enough to give the people food 
 and a decent life, and they had to be supplemented by 
 unwritten enactments without legality to back them. 
 Although the government and Parliament had the law- 
 courts, the army and 'society' at their backs, the Commit- 
 tee of Public Safety began to be a force in the country, and 
 really represented the producing classes. It began to 
 improve immensely in the days which followed on the 
 acquittal of its members. Its old members had little 
 administrative capacity, though with the exception of a few 
 self-seekers and traitors, they were honest, courageous men, 
 and many of them endowed with considerable talent. But 
 now that the times called for Immediate action, came for- 
 ward the men capable of setting it on foot ; and a great 
 network of workmen's associations grew up very speedily, 
 whose avowed object was the tiding over of the ship of the 
 community into a simple condition of Communism ; and 
 as they practically undertook also the management of the 
 ordinary labor war, they soon became the mouth-piece and 
 intermediary of the whole of the working-classes, and the 
 manufacturing profit-grinders now found themselves power- 
 less before this combination. Unless their committee, 
 Parliament, plucked up courage to begin the civil war 
 again, and to shoot right and left, they were bound to yield 
 to the demands of the men whom they employed, and pay 
 higher and higher wages for shorter and shorter days' 
 work. Yet one ally they had, and that was the rapidly 
 approaching break-down of the whole system founded on 
 
274 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 the world-market and its supply ; which now became so 
 clear to all people that the middle classes, shocked for the 
 moment into condemnation of the government for the great 
 massacre, turned round nearly in a mass, and called on the 
 government to look to matters and put an end to the 
 tyranny of the Socialist leaders. 
 
 ''Thus stimulated, the reactionist plot exploded proba- 
 bly before it was ripe ; but this time the people and their 
 leaders were forewarned, and before the reactionaries could 
 get under way had taken the steps they thought necessary. 
 
 "The Liberal Government (clearly by collusion) was 
 beaten by the Conservatives, though the latter were nomin- 
 ally much in the minority. The popular representatives in 
 the House understood pretty well what this meant, and 
 after an attempt to fight the matter out by divisions in the 
 House of Commons, they made a protest, left the House, 
 and came in a body to the Committee of Public Safety ; 
 and the civil war began again in good earnest. 
 
 ''Yet its first act was not one of mere fighting. The 
 new Tory government determined to act, yet durst not 
 re-enact the state of siege, but it sent a body of soldiers 
 and police to arrest the Committee of Public Safety in the 
 lump. They made no resistance, though they might have 
 done so, as they had now a considerable body of men who 
 were quite prepared for extremities. But they were deter- 
 mined to try first a weapon which they thought stonger 
 than street fighting. 
 
 "The members of the Committee went ofif quietly to 
 prison ; but they had left their soul and their organization 
 behind them. For they depended not on a carefully 
 arranged center with all kinds of checks and counter checks 
 about it, but on a huge mass of people in thorough 
 sympathy with the movement, officered by a great number 
 
HOW THE CHANGE CAME. 275 
 
 of links of small centers with very simple instructions. 
 These instructions were now carried out. 
 
 ' ' The next morning, when the leaders of the reaction 
 were chuckling at the effect which the report in the news- 
 papers of their stroke would have upon the public — no 
 newspapers appeared ; and it was only toward noon that a 
 few straggling sheets, about the size of the gazettes of the 
 seventeenth century, worked by policemen, soldiers, man- 
 agers, and press-writers, were dribbled through the streets. 
 They were greedily seized on and read ; but by this time 
 the serious part of their news was stale, and people did not 
 need to be told that the General Strike had begun. 
 The railways did not run, the telegraph-wires were un- 
 served ; flesh, fish, and green stuff brought to market were 
 allowed to lie there still packed and perishing ; the thous- 
 ands of middle-class families, who were utterly dependent 
 for the next meal on the workers, made frantic efforts 
 through their more energetic members to cater for the 
 needs of the day, and among those of them who could 
 throw off the fear of what was to follow, there was, I am 
 told, a certain enjoyment of this unexpected picnic, — a 
 forecast of the days to come, in which all labor grew 
 pleasant. 
 
 "So passed the first day, and toward evening the 
 government grew quite distracted. They had but one 
 resource for putting down any popular movement, — to wit, 
 mere brute-force ; but there was nothing for them against 
 which to use their army and police ; no armed bodies 
 appeared in the streets ; the offices of the federated work- 
 men were now, in appearance at least, turned into places 
 or the relief of people thrown out of work, and under the 
 circumstances they durst not arrest the men engaged in 
 such work, — all the more, as even diat night many quite 
 respectable people applied at these offices for relief, and 
 
276 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 swallowed down the charity of the revolutionists along with 
 their supper. So the government massed soldiers and 
 police here and there, — and sat still for that night, fully 
 expecting on the morrow some manifesto from ' the rebels, ' 
 as they now began to be called, which would give them an 
 opportunity of acting in some way or another. They were 
 disappointed. The ordinary newspapers gave up the 
 struggle that morning, and only one very violent reaction- 
 ary paper (called the Daily Telegraph) attempted an 
 appearance, and rated the 'rebels' in good set terms for 
 their folly and ingratitude in tearing out the bowels of their 
 'common mother,' the English Nation, for the benefit of a 
 few greedy paid agitators and the fools whom they were 
 deluding. On the other hand, the Socialist papers (of 
 which three only, representing somewhat different schools, 
 were published in London) came out full to the throat of 
 well-printed matter. They were greedily bought by the 
 whole public, who, of course, like the government, expected 
 a manifesto in them. But they found no word of reference 
 to the great subject. It seemed as if their editors had 
 ransacked their drawers for articles which would have been 
 in place forty years before, under the technical name of 
 educational articles. Most of these were admirable and 
 straightforward expositions of the doctrines and practice of 
 Socialism, free from hate and spite and hard words, and 
 came upon the public with a kind of May- day freshness, 
 amid the worry and terror of the moment ; and though the 
 knowing well understood that the meaning of this move in 
 the game was mere defiance, and a token of irreconcilable 
 hostility to the then rulers of society, and though, also, 
 they were meant for nothing else by the rebels, yet they 
 really had their effect as 'educational articles.' However, 
 'education' of another kind was acting upon them with 
 irresistible power, and probably cleared their heads a little. 
 
HOW THE CHANGE CAME. 277 
 
 "As to the government, they were absolutely terrihed 
 by the act of ' boycotting ' (the slang word then current for 
 such acts of abstention). Their counsels became wild and 
 vacillating to the last degree. One hour they were for 
 giving way for the present till they could hatch another 
 plot ; the next they all but sent an order for the arrest in 
 the lump of all the workmen's committees; the next they 
 were on the point of ordering their brisk young general to 
 take any excuse that offered for another massacre. But 
 when they called to mind that the soldiery in that ' Battle ' 
 of Trafalgar Square were so daunted by the slaughter 
 which they had made that they could not be got to fire a 
 second volley, they shrank back again from the dreadful 
 courage necessary for carrying out another massacre. 
 Meantime the prisoners, brought the second time before the 
 magistrates under a strong escort of soldiers, were the 
 second time remanded. 
 
 "The strike went on this day also. The workmen's 
 committees were extended, and gave relief to great num- 
 bers of people, for they had organized a considerable 
 amount of production of food by men whom they could 
 depend upon. Quite a number of well-to-do people were 
 now compelled to seek relief of them. But another curious 
 thing happened ; a band of young men of the upper classes 
 armed themselves, and cooly went marauding in the streets, 
 taking what suited them of such eatables and portables as 
 they came across in the shops which had ventured to open. 
 This operation they carried out in Oxford Street, then a 
 great street of shops of all kinds. The government, being 
 at that hour in one of their yielding moods, thought this a 
 fine opportunity for showing their impartiality in the main- 
 tenance of 'order,' and sent to arrest these hungry rich 
 youths ; who, however, surprised the poHce by a valiant 
 resistance, so that all but three escaped. The government 
 
278 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 did not gain the reputation for imparticuity which they 
 expected from this move ; for they forgot that there were 
 no evening papers ; and the account of the skirmish spread 
 wide indeed, but in a distorted form, for it was mostly told 
 simply as an exploit of the starving people from the East- 
 end ; and everybody thought it was but natural for the 
 gov^ernment to put them down when and where they could. 
 
 ' ' That evening the rebel prisoners were visited in their 
 cells by vciy polite and sympathetic persons, who pointed 
 out to them what a suicidal course they were following, 
 and how dangerous these extreme courses were for the 
 popular cause. Says one of the prisoners : ' It was great 
 sport comparing notes, when we came out, anent the 
 attempt of the government to "get at" us separately in 
 prison, and how we answered the blandishments of the 
 highly "intelligent and refined" persons set on to pump 
 us. One laughed ; another told extravagant long-bow 
 stories to the envoy ; a third held a sulky silence ; a fourth 
 damned the polite spy and bade him hold his jaw, — and 
 that was all they got out of us.' 
 
 ' ' So passed the second day of the great strike. It was 
 clear to all thinking people that the third day would bring 
 on the crisis ; for the present suspense and ill-concealed 
 terror were unendurable. The ruling classes, and the 
 middle-class non-politicians who had been their real strength 
 and support, were as sheep lacking a shepherd ; they 
 literally did not know what to do. 
 
 "One thing they found they had to do, — try to get the 
 ' rebels ' to do something. So the next morning, the morn- 
 ing of the third day of the strike, when the members of the 
 Committee of Public Safety appeared again before the mag- 
 istrate, they found themselves treated with the greatest 
 possible courtesy, — in fact, rather as envoys and ambassa- 
 dors than prisoners. In short, the magistrate had received 
 
HO IV THE CHANGE CAME. 279 
 
 his orders ; and with no more to do than might come of a 
 long stupid speech, which might have been written by 
 Dickens in mockery, he discharged the prisoners, who went 
 back to their meeting-place and at once began a due sitting. 
 
 ' ' It was high time. For this third day the mass was 
 fermenting indeed. There was, of course, a vast number 
 of working-people who were not organized the least in the 
 world, — men who had been used to act as their masters 
 drove them, or rather as the system drove, of which their 
 masters were a part. That system was now falling to 
 pieces, and the old pressure of the master having been 
 taken off these poor men, it seemed likely that nothing but 
 the mere animal necessities and passions of men would have 
 any hold on them, and that mere general overturn would 
 be the result. Doubtless this would have happened if it 
 had not been that the huge mass had been leavened by 
 Socialist opinion in the first place, and in the second by 
 actual contact with declared Socialists, many or indeed 
 most of whom were members of those bodies of workmen 
 above said. 
 
 ''If anything of this kind had happened some years 
 before, when the masters of labor were still looked upon as 
 the natural rulers of the people, and even the poorest and 
 most ignorant men leaned upon them for support, while 
 they submitted to their fleecing, the entire break-up of all 
 society would have followed. But the long series of years 
 during which the workmen had learned to despise their 
 rulers had done away with their dependence upon them, 
 and they were now beginning to trust (somewhat danger- 
 ously, as events proved) in the non-legal leaders whom 
 events had thrust forward ; and though most of these were 
 now become mere figure-heads, their names and reputations 
 were useful in this crisis as a stop-gap. 
 
 " The effect of the news, therefore, of the release of the 
 
28o WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 Committee gave the government some breathing time ; for 
 it was received with the greatest joy by the workers, and 
 even the well-to-do saw in it a respite from the mere 
 destruction which they had begun to dread, and the fear of 
 which most of them attributed to the weakness of the gov- 
 ernment. As far as the passing hour went, perhaps they 
 were right in this." 
 
 "How do you mean?" said I. "What could the gov- 
 ernment have done? I often used to think that they would 
 be helpless in such a crisis." 
 
 Said old Hammond: "Of course I don't doubt that in 
 the long run matters would have come about as they did. 
 But if the government could have treated their army as a 
 real army, and used them strategically as a general would 
 have done, looking on the people as a mere open enemy to 
 be shot at and dispersed wherever they turned up, they 
 would probably have gained the victory at the time. ' ' 
 
 ' ' But would the soldiers have acted against the people 
 in this way?" said I. 
 
 Said he : "I think from all I have heard that they would 
 have done so if they had met bodies of men armed however 
 badly, and however badly they had been organized. It 
 seems also as if before the Trafalgar Square massacre they 
 might as a whole have been depended upon to fire upon 
 an unarmed crowd, though they were much honeycombed 
 by Socialism. The reason for this was that they dreaded 
 the use by apparently unarmed men of an explosive called 
 dynamite, of which many loud boasts were made by the 
 workers on the eve of these events ; and of course the 
 officers of the soldiers fanned this fear to the utmost, so 
 that the. rank and file probably thought on that occasion 
 that they were being led into a desperate battle with men 
 who were really armed, and whose weapon was the more 
 dreadful because it was concealed. After that massacre, 
 
HOW THE CHANGE CAME. 281 
 
 however, it was at all times doubtful if the regular soldiers 
 would fire upon an unarmed or half-armed crowd." 
 
 Said I : ' • The regular soldiers ? Then there were other 
 combatants against the people ? ' ' 
 
 •* Yes," said he, "we shall come to that presently." 
 
 "Certainly," I said, "you had better go on straight 
 with your story. I see that time is wearing. ' ' 
 
 Said Hammond: "The government lost no time in 
 coming to terms with the Committee of Public Safety, for, 
 indeed, they could think of nothing else than the danger 
 of the moment. They sent a duly accredited envoy to 
 treat with these men, who somehow had obtained dominion 
 over people's minds, while the formal rulers had no hold 
 except over their bodies. There is no need at present to 
 go into the details of the truce (for such it was) between 
 these high contracting parties, the government of the 
 empire of Great Britain and a handful of working-men (as 
 they were called in scorn in those days), — among whom, 
 indeed, were some very capable and 'square-headed' 
 persons. The upshot of it was that all the definite claims 
 of the people had to be granted. We can now see that 
 most of these claims were of themselves not worth either 
 demanding or resisting ; but they were looked on at that 
 time as most important, and they were at least tokens of 
 revolt against the miserable system of life which was then 
 beginning to tumble to pieces. One claim, however, was 
 of the utmost immediate importance, and this the govern- 
 ment tried hard to evade ; but, as they were not dealing 
 with fools, they had to yield at last. This was the claim 
 of recognition and formal status for the Committee of Public 
 Safety, and all the associations which it fostered under its 
 wing. This, it is clear, meant two things, — first, amnesty 
 for the 'rebels,' great and small, who, without a distinct act 
 of civil war, could no longer be attacked ; and next, a con- 
 
282 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 tinuance of the organized revolution. Only one point the 
 government could gain, and that was a name. The dread- 
 ful revolutionary title was dropped, and the body, with its 
 branches, acted under the respectable name of the ' Board 
 of Conciliation and its Local Offices. ' Carrying this name, 
 it became the leader of the people in the civil war which 
 soon followed." 
 
 "Oh," said I, somewhat startled, "so the civil war 
 went on, in spite of all that had happened?" 
 
 "So it was," said he. "In fact, it was this very legal 
 recognition which made the civil war possible in the ordi- 
 nary sense of war ; it took the struggle out of the element 
 of mere massacres on one side, and endurance plus strikes 
 on the other." 
 
 ' * And can you tell me in what kind of way the war was 
 carried on?" said I. 
 
 " Yes," he said, "we have records and to spare of all 
 that, and the essence of them I can give you in a few words. 
 As I told you, the rank and file of the army was not to be 
 trusted by the reactionists ; but the officers generally were 
 prepared for anything, for they were mostly the very stupid- 
 est men in the country. Whatever the government might 
 do, a great part of the upper and middle classes were 
 determined to set on foot a counter revolution ; for the 
 Communism which now loomed ahead seemed quite unen- 
 durable to them. Bands of young men, like the marauders 
 in the great strike of whom I told you just now, armed 
 themselves and drilled, and began on any opportunity or 
 pretense to skirmish with the people in the streets. The 
 government neither helped them nor put them down, but 
 stood by, hoping that something might come of it. These 
 ' Friends of Order,' as they were called, had some successes 
 at fu'st, and grew bolder. They got many of the officers 
 of the regular army to help them, and by their means laid 
 
SIGNS OF CHANGE. 283 
 
 hold of munitions of war of all kinds. One part of their 
 tactics consisted in their guarding, and even garrisoning 
 the big factories of the period. They held at one time, for 
 instance, the whole of that place called Manchester, which 
 I spoke of just now. A sort of irregular war was carried 
 on with varied success all over the country ; and at last the 
 government, which had at first pretended to ignore the 
 struggle, or treat it as mere rioting, definitely declared for 
 'the Friends of Order,' and joined to their bands whatso- 
 ever of the regular army they could get together, and made 
 a desperate effort to overwhelm 'the rebels,' as they were 
 now once more called, and as indeed they called themselves. 
 
 "It was too late. All ideas of peace on a basis of 
 compromise had disappeared on either side. The end, it 
 was seen clearly, must be either absolute slavery for all but 
 the privileged, or a system of life founded on equality and 
 Communism. The sloth, the hopelessness, and, if I may 
 say so, the cowardice of the last century, had given place 
 to the eager, restless heroism of a declared revolutionary 
 period. I will not say that the people of that time foresaw 
 the life we are leading now, but there was a general instinct 
 among them toward the essential part of that life, and many 
 men saw clearly beyond the desperate struggle of the day 
 into the peace which it was to bring about. The men of 
 that day who were on the side of freedom were not unhappy, 
 I think, though they were harassed by hopes and fears, 
 and sometimes torn by doubts, and the conflict of duties 
 hard to reconcile." 
 
 ' ' But how did the people, the revolutionists, carry on the 
 war? What were the elements of success on their side?" 
 
 I put this question, because I wanted to bring the old 
 man back to the definite history, and take him out of the 
 musing mood so natural to an old man. 
 
 He answered: "Well, they did not lack organizers; 
 
284 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 for the very conflict itself, in days when, as I told you, men 
 of any strength of mind cast away all consideration for the 
 ordinary business of life, developed the necessary talent 
 among them. Indeed, from all I have read and heard, I 
 much doubt whether, without this seemingly dreadful ci\ il 
 war, the due talent for administration would have been 
 developed among the working-men. Anyhow, it was 
 there, and they had leaders far more than equal to the best 
 men among the reactionaries. For the rest, they had no 
 difficulty about the material of their army ; for that revolu- 
 tionary instinct so acted on the ordinary soldier in the ranks 
 that the greater part, certainly the best part, of the soldiers 
 joined the side of the people. But the main element of 
 their success was this, that wherever the working people 
 were not coerced, they worked, not for the reactionists, 
 but for 'the rebels.' The reactionists could get no work 
 done for them outside the districts where they were all- 
 powerful ; and even in those districts they were harassed 
 by continual risings ; and in all cases and everywhere got 
 nothing done without obstruction and black looks and 
 sulkiness ; so that not only were their armies quite worn 
 out with the difficulties which they had to meet, but the 
 non-combatants who were on their side were so worried 
 and beset with hatred and a thousand little troubles and 
 annoyances that life became almost unendurable to them 
 on those terms. Not a few of them actually died of the 
 worry ; many committed suicide. Of course, a vast number 
 of them joined actively in the cause of reaction, and found 
 some solace to their misery in the eagerness of conflict. 
 Lastly, many thousands gave way and submitted to the 
 rebels ; and as the numbers of these latter increased, it at 
 last became clear to all men that the cause which w^as once 
 hopeless was now triumphant, and that the hopeless cause 
 was that of slavery and pmilege," 
 
CHANTS FOR SOCIALISTS, 
 
I HAVE looked at this claim by the light of history and 
 my own conscience, and it seems to me so looked at to 
 be a most just claim, and that resistance to it means nothing 
 short of a denial of the hope of civilization. 
 
 This then is the claim : — 
 
 It is right and necessary that all men should have work 
 to do which shall be worth doing, and be of itself pleasant to 
 do: and zvhich should be done under such conditions as 
 would make it neither over -wearisome nor over-anxious. 
 
 Turn that claim about as I may, think of it as long as I 
 can, I cannot find that it is an exorbitant claim ; yet again I 
 say if Society would or could admit it, the face of the world 
 would be changed ; discontent and strife and dishonesty 
 would be ended. To feel that we were doing work useful 
 to others and pleasant to ourselves, and that such work and 
 its due reward could not fail us ! What serious harm could 
 happen to us then? And the price to be paid for so 
 making the world happy is Revolution. 
 
CHANTS FOR SOCIALISTS. 287 
 
 THE DAY IS COMING. 
 
 Come hither lads, and hearken, for a tale there is to tell, 
 Of the wonderful days a-coming when all shall be better 
 than well. 
 
 And the tale shall be told of a country, a land in the midst 
 
 of the sea. 
 And folk shall call it England in the days that are going to 
 
 be. 
 
 There more than one in a thousand in the days that are 
 
 yet to come. 
 Shall have some hope of the morrow, some joy of the 
 
 ancient home. 
 
 For then — laugh not, but listen to this strange tale of 
 
 mine — 
 All folk that are in England shall be better lodged than 
 
 swine. 
 
 Then a man shall work and bethink him, and rejoice in the 
 
 deeds of his hand, 
 Nor yet come home in the even too faint and weary to 
 
 stand. 
 
 Men in that time a-coming shall work and have no fear 
 For to-morrow's lack of earning and the hunger- wolf 
 anear. 
 
288 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 I tell you this for a wonder, that no man then shall be glad 
 Of his fellow's fall and mishap to snatch at the work he 
 had. 
 
 For that which the worker winneth shall then be his indeed, 
 Nor shall half be reaped for nothing by him that sowed 
 no seed. 
 
 O strange new wonderful justice ! But for whom shall we 
 
 gather the gain ? 
 For ourselves and for each of our fellows, and no hand 
 
 shall labor in vain. 
 
 Then all mine and all thine shall be onrs, and no more shall 
 
 any man cra\'e 
 For riches that serve for nothing but to fetter a friend for a 
 
 slave. 
 
 And what wealth then shall be left us when none shall 
 
 gather gold 
 To buy his friend in the market, and pinch and pine the 
 
 sold? 
 
 Nay, what save the lovely city, and the little house on the 
 
 hill, 
 And the wastes and the woodland beauty, and the happy 
 
 fields we till ; 
 
 And the homes of ancient stories, the tombs of the mighty 
 
 dead ; 
 And the wise men seeking out marvels, and the poet's 
 
 teeming head • . 
 
CHANTS FOR SOCIALISTS. 289 
 
 And the painter's hand of wonder; and the marvelous 
 
 fiddle-bow, 
 And the banded choirs of music : — all those that do and 
 
 know. 
 
 For all these shall be ours and all men's, nor shall any lack 
 
 a share 
 Of the toil and the gain of living in the days when the 
 
 world grows fair. 
 
 Ah ! such are the days that shall be ! But what are the 
 
 deeds of to-day, 
 In the days of the years we dwell in, that wear our lives 
 
 away ? 
 
 Why, then, and for what are we waiting? There are three 
 
 words to speak. 
 We will it, and what is the foeman but the dream-strong 
 
 wakened and weak? 
 
 O why and for what are we waiting? while our brothers 
 
 droop and die, 
 And on every wind of the heavens a wasted life goes by. 
 
 How long shall they reproach us where crowd on crowd 
 
 they dwell, 
 Poor ghosts of the wicked city, the gold-crushed hungry 
 
 hell? 
 
 Through squalid life they labored, in sordid grief they died, 
 Those sons of a mighty mother, those props of England's 
 pride. 
 
290 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 They are gone ; there is none can undo it, nor save our 
 
 souls from the curse ; 
 But many a million cometh, and shall they be better or 
 
 worse ? 
 
 It is we must answer and hasten, and open wide the door 
 For the rich man's hurrying terror, and the slow-foot hope 
 of the poor. 
 
 Yea, the voiceless wrath of the wretched, and their un- 
 learned discontent, 
 
 We must give it voice and wisdom till the waiting-tide be 
 spent. 
 
 Come, then, since all things call us, the living and the dead. 
 And o'er the weltering tangle a glimmering light is shed ; 
 
 Come, then, let us cast off fooling, and put by ease and 
 
 rest, 
 For the cause alone is worthy till the good days bring the 
 
 best. 
 
 Come, join in the only battle wherein no man can fail. 
 Where whoso fadeth and dieth, yet his deed shall still 
 prevail. 
 
 Ah ! come, cast off all fooling, for this, at least, we know : 
 That the Dawn and the Day is coming, and forth the 
 Banners go. 
 
CHANTS FOR SOCIALISTS. 
 
 291 
 
 THE VOICE OF TOIL. 
 
 I heard men saying, Leave hope and praying, 
 
 All days shall be as all have been ; 
 To-day and to-morrow bring fear and sorrow 
 
 The never-ending toil between. 
 
 When Earth was younger mid toil and hunger, 
 In hope we strove, and our hands were strong ; 
 
 Then great men led us, with words they fed us, 
 And bade us right the earthly wrong. 
 
 Go read in story their deeds and glory, 
 Their names amidst the nameless dead ; 
 
 Turn then from lying to us slow- dying 
 In that good world to which they led ; 
 
 Where fast and faster our iron master, 
 
 The thing we made, for ever drives, 
 Bids us grind treasure and fashion pleasure 
 
 For other hopes and other lives. 
 
 Where home is a hovel and dull we grovel 
 
 Forgetting that the world is fair ; 
 Where no babe we cherish, lest its very soul perish, 
 
 Where our mirth is crime, our love a snare. 
 
 Who now shall lead us, what god shall heed us 
 As we lie in the hell our hands have won? 
 
 For us are no rulers but fools and befoolers. 
 The great are fallen, the wise men gone. 
 
292 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 1 heard men saying, Leave tears and praying, 
 The sharp knife heedeth not the sheep ; 
 
 Are we not stronger than the rich and the wronger, 
 When day breaks over dreams and sleep? 
 
 Come, shoulder to shoulder ere the world grows older ! 
 
 Help lies in nought but thee and me ; 
 Hope is before us, the long years that bore us 
 
 Bore leaders more than men may be. 
 
 Let dead hearts tarry and trade and marry, 
 And trembling nurse their dreams of mirth. 
 
 While we the living our lives are giving 
 To bring the bright new world to birth. 
 
 Come, shoulder to shoulder ere earth grows older ! 
 
 The Cause spreads over land and sea ; 
 Now the world shaketh, and fear awaketh. 
 
 And joy at last for thee and me. 
 
CHANTS FOR SOCIALISTS. 293 
 
 ALL FOR THE CAUSE. 
 
 Hear a word, a word in season, for the day is drawing nigh, 
 When the Cause shall call upon us, some to live, and some 
 to die ! 
 
 He that dies shall not die lonely, many a one hath gone 
 
 before. 
 He that lives shall bear no burden heavier than the life they 
 
 bore. 
 
 Nothing ancient is their story, e'en but yesterday they bled. 
 Youngest they of earth' s beloved, last of all the valiant dead. 
 
 E'en the tidings we are telling was the tale they had to tell. 
 E'en the hope that our hearts cherish was the hope for 
 which they fell. 
 
 In the grave where tyrants thrust them lies their labor and 
 
 their pain. 
 But undying from their sorrow springeth up the hope again. 
 
 Mourn not therefore, nor lament it that the world outlives 
 
 their life ; 
 Voice and vision yet they give us, making strong our hands 
 
 for strife. 
 
 Some had name, and fame, and honor, learn' d they were, 
 and wise and strong ; 
 
 Some were nameless, poor, unlettered, weak in all but grief 
 and wrong. 
 
 Named and nameless all live in us ; one and all they lead 
 us yet 
 
 Every pain to count for nothing, every sorrow to forget. 
 
294 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 Hearken how they cry, ' ' O happy, happy ye that ye were 
 
 born 
 "In the sad slow night's departing, in the rising of the morn. 
 
 "Fair the crown the Cause hath for you, well to die or well 
 
 to live, 
 "Through the battle, through the tangle, peace to gain or 
 
 peace to give." 
 
 Ah, it may be ! Oft meseemeth, in the days that yet shall be. 
 When no slave of gold abideth twixt the breadth of sea to 
 sea, 
 
 Oft, when men and maids are merry, ere the sunlight leaves 
 
 the earth, 
 And they bless the day beloved, all too short for all their 
 
 mirth. 
 
 Some shall pause awhile and ponder on the bitter days of 
 
 old. 
 Ere the toil of strife and battle overthrew the curse of gold ; 
 
 Then twixt lips of loved and lover solemn thoughts of us 
 
 shall rise ; 
 We who once were fools and dreamers, then shall be the 
 
 brave and wise. 
 
 There amidst the world new-builded shall our earthly deeds 
 
 abide, 
 Though our names be all forgotten, and the tale of how we 
 
 died 
 
 Life or death then, who shall heed it, what we gain or what 
 
 we lose? 
 Fair flies life amid the struggle, and the Cause for each shall 
 
 choose. 
 
 Hear a word, a word in season, for the day is drawing nigh, 
 When the Cause shall call upon us, some to live and some 
 to die ! 
 
CHANTS FOR SOCIALISTS. 295 
 
 NO MASTER. 
 
 (Air : "The Hardy Norseman.") 
 
 Saith man to man, We've heard and known 
 
 That we no master need 
 To hve upon this earth, our own. 
 
 In fair and manly deed. 
 The grief of slaves long passed away 
 
 For us hath forged the chain, 
 Till now each worker's patient day 
 
 Builds up the House of Pain. 
 
 And we, shall we, too, crouch and quail 
 
 Ashamed, afraid of strife, 
 And lest our lives untimely fail 
 
 Embrace the Death in Life? 
 Nay, cry aloud, and have no fear, 
 
 We few against the world ; 
 Awake, arise ! the hope we bear 
 
 Against the curse is hurled. 
 
 It grows and grows — are we the same. 
 
 The feeble band, the few? 
 Or what are these with eyes aflame. 
 
 And hands to deal and do? 
 This is the host that bears the word, 
 
 ''No Master high or low," 
 A lightning flame, a shearing sword, 
 
 A storm to overthrow. 
 
296 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 THE MARCH OF THE WORKERS. 
 
 What is this, the sound and rumor? What is this that all 
 
 men hear, 
 Like the wind in hollow valleys when the storm is drawing 
 
 near, 
 Like the rolling on of ocean in the eventide of fear? 
 'Tis the people marching on. 
 Whither go they, and whence come they ? What are these 
 
 of whom ye tell? 
 In what country are they dwelling 'twixt the gates of heaven 
 
 and hell? 
 Are they mine or thine for money? Will they serve a 
 
 master well ? 
 
 Still the rumor's marching on. 
 
 Chorus — Hark the rolling of the thunder ! 
 Lo the sun ! and lo thereunder 
 Riseth wrath, and hope, and wonder. 
 And the host comes marching on. 
 
 Forth they come from grief and torment ; on they wend 
 
 toward health and mirth, 
 All the wide world is their dwelling, every corner of the 
 
 earth. 
 Buy them, sell them for thy service ! Try the bargain what 
 
 'tis worth, 
 
 For the days are marching on. 
 These are they who build thy houses, weave thy raiment, 
 
 win thy wheat. 
 Smooth the rugged, fill the barren, turn the bitter into 
 
 sweet. 
 All for thee this day — and ever. What reward for them is 
 
 meet? 
 
 Till the host comes marching on. 
 
 Chorus — Hark the rolling, &c. 
 
CHANTS FOR SOCIALISTS. 297 
 
 Many a hundred years, passed over have they labored deaf 
 and blind ; 
 
 Never tidings reached their sorrow, never hope their toil 
 might find. 
 
 Now at last they've heard and hear it, and the cry comes 
 down the wind, 
 
 And their feet are marching on. 
 
 O ye rich men, hear and tremble ! for with words the sound 
 is rife : 
 
 ' ' Once for you and death we labored ; changed hencefor- 
 ward is the strife. 
 
 We are men, and we shall battle for the world of men and 
 life; 
 
 And our host is marching on." 
 
 Chorus — Hark the rolling, &c. 
 
 *'Is it war, then? Will ye perish as the dry^ wood in the 
 
 fire? 
 Is it peace? Then be ye of us, let your hope be our desire. 
 Come and live ! for life awakelh, and the world shall never 
 
 tire ; 
 
 And hope is marching on." 
 "On we march then, we the workers, and the rumor that 
 
 ye hear 
 Is the blended sound of battle and deliv' ranee drawing 
 
 near; 
 For the hope of every creature is the banner that we bear." 
 And the world is marching on. 
 
 Chorus — Hark the rolling of the thunder ! 
 Lo the sun ! and lo thereunder 
 Riseth wrath, and hope, and wonder. 
 And the host comes marching on. 
 
298 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 THE MESSAGE OF THE MARCH WIND. 
 
 Fair now is the springtide, now earth Hes beholding 
 With the eyes of a lover, the face of the sun ; 
 
 Long lasteth the daylight, and hope is enfolding 
 The green-growing acres with increase begun. 
 
 Now sweet, sweet it is through the land to be straying 
 'Mid the birds and the blossoms and the beasts of the field ; 
 
 Love mingles with love, and no evil is weighing 
 On thy heart or mine, where all sorrow is healed. 
 
 From township to township, o'er down and by tillage 
 Far, far have we wandered and long was the day, 
 
 But now Cometh eve at the end of the village, 
 
 Where over the gray wall the church riseth gray. 
 
 There is wind in the twilight ; in the white road before us 
 The straw from the ox-yard is blowing about ; 
 
 The moon's rim is rising, a star glitters o'er us. 
 
 And the vane on the spire top is swinging in doubt. 
 
 Down there dips the highway, toward the bridge crossing 
 over 
 
 The brook that runs on to the Thames and the sea. 
 Draw closer, my sweet, we are lover and lover ; 
 
 This eve art thou given to gladness and me. 
 
 Shall we be glad always? Come closer and hearken : 
 Three fields further on, as they told me down there, 
 
 When the young moon has set, if the March sky should 
 darken. 
 We might see from the hill-top the great city's glare. 
 
CHANTS FOR SOCIALISTS. 299 
 
 Hark, the wind in the elm-boughs ! From London it 
 bloweth, 
 
 And telHng of gold, and of hope and unrest ;' 
 Of power that helps not ; of wisdom that knoweth, 
 
 But teacheth not aught of the worst and the best. 
 
 Of the rich men it telleth, and strange is the story 
 
 How they have, and they hanker, and grip far and wide ; 
 
 And they live and they die, and the earth and its glory 
 Has been but a burden they scarce might abide. 
 
 Hark ! the March wind again of a people is telling ; 
 
 Of the life that they live there, so haggard and grim, 
 That if we and our \o\q amidst them had been dwelling 
 
 My fondness had faltered, thy beauty grown dim. 
 
 This land we have loved in our love and our leisure" 
 For them hangs in heaven, high out of their reach ; 
 
 The wide hills o'er the sea-plain for them have no pleasure, 
 The gray homes of their fathers no story to teach. 
 
 The singers have sung and the builders have builded. 
 The painters have fashioned their tales of delight ; 
 
 For what and for whom hath the world's book been gilded, 
 When all is for these but the blackness of night? 
 
 How long, and for what is their patience abiding? 
 
 How oft and how oft shall their story be told, 
 While the hope that none seeketh in darkness is hiding. 
 
 And in grief and in sorrow the world groweth old? 
 
 Come back to the inn, love, and the lights and the fire. 
 And the fiddler's old tune and the shuffling of feet ; 
 
 For there in a while shall be rest and desire. 
 
 And there shall the morrow's uprising be sweet. 
 
300 WILLIAM MORRIS. 
 
 Yet, love, as we wend the wind bloweth behind us, 
 And beareth the last tale it telleth to-night, 
 
 How here in the spring-tide the message shall find us ; 
 For the hope that none seeketh is coming to light. 
 
 Like the seed of midwinter, unheeded, unperished, 
 
 Like the autumn-sown wheat 'neath the snow lying green, 
 
 Like the love that o'ertook us, unawares and uncherished, 
 Like the babe 'neath thy girdle that groweth unseen ; 
 
 So the hope of the people now buddeth and groweth — 
 Rest fadeth before it, and blindness and fear ; 
 
 It biddeth us learn all the wisdom it knoweth ; 
 
 It hath found us and held us, and biddeth us hear : 
 
 For it beareth the message ; ' ' Rise up on the morrow 
 And go on your ways toward the doubt and the strife ; 
 
 Join hope to our hope and blend sorrow with sorrow, 
 And seek for men's love in the short days of life." 
 
 But lo, the old inn, and the lights, and the fire. 
 
 And the fiddler's old tune and the shuffling of feet; 
 
 Soon for us shall be quiet and rest and desire. 
 
 And to-morrow's uprising to deeds shall be sweet. 
 
 THE END. 
 
RETURN ART^^TC?Y/CLA«;^»;-^.^R^MENT 
 
 i C - J^ zu2^ Main Library 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 1 
 HOME USE 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 1 -month loans may be renewed by calling 642-3405 
 
 6-month loans may be recharged by bringing books to Circulation 
 
 Desk 
 
 Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date 
 
 DU E AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 nvisiswm ' 
 
 IVI 
 
 Ht 1 3 1 98 3: 
 
 rec'dcirc. APR 13 983 
 
 NOV 2 6 1986 
 
 ^UTO Pi 
 
 
 [\ UG2 8 1986 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 FORM NO. DD6, 40m, 3/78 BERKELEY, CA 94720 
 
 (S)s